Santa Rosa studying lack oftransit-friendly development

Santa Rosa is taking a hard look this week at why so many people say they want mixed-use developments within walking distance of train stations but no one is building any.

In a joint study session before the City Council and Planning Commission at noon Tuesday and at several public forums through Thursday, a group of land-use consultants will explore this gap and suggest paths to bridge it.

Santa Rosa theoretically encourages higher density developments mixing housing and commercial uses around downtown and Coddingtown Mall, where Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit will operate two of its busiest stations when service begins later this year.

But few such projects have been constructed in these areas in recent years despite the rail system’s impending arrival, said Peter Stanley, vice chair of the city’s Planning Commission and a principal at local development consulting firm Archilogix.

Some of that is attributable to the recession, but the housing market has since rebounded enough that investment in these areas should be well underway, he said.

“How can we make it easier to get these things done?” Stanley said. “Because it’s been years and nothing has been happening.”

The presentations are being organized by a new nonprofit group, Urban Community Partnership, which Stanley said was “born out of frustration” at this fundamental gap between the type of mixed-use projects envisioned in the city’s general plan and what developers are building.

The group, of which Stanley is a member, is made up of architects, planners, environmentalists and former city officials who want to convene a community-wide discussion about how to get the in-fill growth the city wants and boost its tax base to boot.

“What we’re trying to do is bring the private and the public sectors together to have a conversation about what works and what doesn’t,” Stanley said.

There is a strong case to be made that downtown developments offer communities the most bang for their buck, largely because they are denser and require less new infrastructure compared to, for example, a subdivision on the outskirts of town, he said.

To help the partnership make that case, it has hired two consultants who, after Tuesday’s council study session, will be holding several public workshops.

Tuesday’s event will be led by Charles Mahron, of Brainerd, Minn.-based Strong Towns, and will entail a broad overview of what makes a resilient community. A video of one such presentation can be found here: http://www.strongtowns.org/curbside-chat#curbsidelive

Wednesday’s workshop will be led by Joe Minicozzi, of Asheville, N.C.-based Urban 3, and will feature a report visualizing how different development patterns impact the city’s tax base. A video of Urban 3’s approach can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVD01WUm0oA

Thursday’s event will bring the two together and will include a discussion of development opportunities around all SMART rail stations.

All the workshops will be held from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. at Bike Monkey, 121 Fifth St. Space is limited. Advance reservations are required for each workshop via urbancommunitypartnership.org/calendar.

You can reach Staff Writer Kevin McCallum at 521-5207 or kevin.mccallum@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @srcitybeat.