Park slated for southeast Santa Rosa raises concerns about homeless issues

A Santa Rosa park spanning nearly 20 acres north of Taylor Mountain remains years away, as the city estimates it needs more than $19 million to build trails along Colgan Creek, playgrounds featuring something like a zip line, and space for picnicking, bocce, basketball, table tennis and volleyball.

The City Council last week approved a plan flush with amenities for the new Kawana Springs Community Park, the first city park for residents in a growing pocket of southeast Santa Rosa between Highway 101 and Bennett Valley.

The site, on city land bounded by Meda Avenue, Kawana Springs Road and Kawana Terrace, is meant to have “a little bit of something for everybody,” said Jen Santos, the city’s deputy parks director.

But for some who live nearby, the advance of the new park is the latest flashpoint in the city’s campaign to curb homelessness, an intractable issue affecting about 1,800 people without permanent housing in a city of nearly 180,000.

The park’s promise is clouded by residents’ concerns about the existing homeless population in the area and fears of another large encampment springing up on public land within Santa Rosa, as happened in recent months along the Joe Rodota Trail on the west side of town.

To Carla Hebert, who’s lived in the Kawana Springs area for about three years, spending millions of dollars on a park seems like a misuse of city resources. At any given time, she can count up to six RVs or trailers parked by homeless people on Kawana Terrace alongside Colgan Creek.

She’s witnessed a rise in illegal dumping in the creek after local officials cleared out homeless encampments elsewhere in the city. She also cited the impact of additional visitors at nearby Taylor Mountain Regional Park after the opening of its popular disc golf course off Kawana Terrace.

Hebert said she supports a new park for Kawana Springs, but she thinks the city should first devote its attention toward creating a place for people without homes to call their own - a sanctioned campsite elsewhere in the city with round-the-clock security and adequate sanitation services.

“I think it would be fantastic to have a beautiful park right there that serves the needs of the community,” said Hebert, a writer for a financial services firm. But right now, “it’s not a place you want to go when the city’s not taking care of the folks who really need services and they have nowhere else to go.”

The city has on hand less than 5% of the money it needs for the new 19.2-acre Kawana Springs park, and over the next two years officials plan to seek grant funding, make the site accessible for people with disabilities, and determine which amenities should be built first based on cost.

And, in a nod to concerns about people living in RVs in unsanctioned spots, one of the first items on the city’s to-do list is the installation of large boulders about 6 feet apart along the side of narrow Kawana Terrace.

The plan comes after residents in a San Francisco neighborhood drew national headlines earlier this year by paying for boulders to block people from camping on the sidewalks. The city removed the boulders in late September.

Santa Rosa has used boulders before to protect parkland and rights of way, said Santos, the parks official. By deterring parking on the shoulder of Kawana Terrace, the boulders also will protect Colgan Creek, she said.

“Not only do (parked vehicles) contribute to the problem being expressed by the neighbors, related to camping and trash, but they’re eroding the creek bank,” she said.

Hebert wrote to the council with her concerns and suggestions earlier this month. Only one representative responded to her, she said: Vice Mayor Chris Rogers.

Rogers, in an interview, said that “while homelessness has been a top priority for us, that doesn’t mean there isn’t room” for other projects, such as the Kawana Springs park.

“Homelessness is touching every aspect of what the city is working on,” he acknowledged. As for the city’s approach to homelessness, he said, “It so far has not been sufficient.”

To that end, Rogers said, he’s open to considering a city-sanctioned campsite as a bridge to permanent housing with wraparound services, like the city’s vision for the site of the former Bennett Valley Senior Center.

“My thinking and my philosophy on it has shifted,” Rogers said, noting that he previously had reservations about liability related to sanctioned encampments. “My big question and my big concern is making sure there’s an exit plan.”

The city is expected to consider expanding its little-used program for safe overnight parking on private property in January coinciding with early budget discussions for the next fiscal year, said Dave Gouin, the city’s housing and community services director. Currently, the three-year-old initiative is providing about 30 parking spots on three properties, according to Gouin’s department. Potential changes include expanding the program to public properties - Rogers has suggested City Hall lots - or to private land zoned for assembly, like churches.

Hebert, who lives a few blocks away from the planned park’s southwest corner, doesn’t know where a sanctioned encampment should be. The onus of finding a suitable location is on the city, she said.

And she doesn’t consider herself a hard-liner on homelessness, despite its blight on open space near her house.

“It’s hard if you don’t have a permanent address,” she said. “I don’t believe that pushing these people under a rug or pretending they’re not there is going to solve anything.”

You can reach Staff Writer Will Schmitt at 707-521-5207 or will.schmitt@pressdemocrat.com.