Healdsburg voters likely to face a slew of local ballot issues

This fall, Healdsburg voters are expected to have plenty to ponder on their ballots.

On Monday, the City Council is poised to place three issues on the November ballot, including asking voters to scrap the limit on the number of new homes that can be built annually; increase the hotel bed tax to help pay for affordable housing; and decide whether to stop adding fluoride to the municipal water supply.

Those are some of the local topics mixed into a ballot that will include choosing the nation’s president and voting on whether to legalize marijuana in California. And there also will ?be countywide issues to consider, such as whether to extend the life of community separators, which are buffers against urban sprawl, as well as whether to ban genetically modified seeds and plants.

Councilman Gary Plass worried the city may be flirting with potential “ballot fatigue.”

“There could be too many things on the ballot,” he said Friday, adding that sometimes it causes voters to just cast “no” votes.

“I hope the ballot is not overloaded and the people of Healdsburg will take their time and really examine and explore these ballot measures, because I think they are important.”

On Monday night, the item likely to take up the most discussion is the proposal to ask voters to remove a cap on housing construction that limits the number of new market-rate homes to an average of 30 per year.

The so-called growth management ordinance was enacted by voters in 2000 as a way to avoid overdevelopment. But many residents who were polled have expressed a willingness to modify it, to create more housing that is affordable to working families.

A divided City Council in April voted 3-2 to craft language and begin the process of asking voters in November to lift the growth cap entirely.

But to make it more palatable to those worried that it will unleash too much development, the City Council on Monday will consider a new “growth regulator ordinance” that would allow ?for more homes - more than twice what is allowed now - but still ?have restrictions.

It would take effect if voters rescind the 16-year-old growth ordinance, according to Mayor Tom Chambers.

“I think we need to have something in place,” he said of a numerical limit of some type on new homes. “People want to make sure it isn’t an open-ended, free-for all.”

To that end, city planners are proposing that if voters revoke the current growth ordinance, the new rules would allow ?420 market-rate homes over an initial six-year period - or an average of 70 annually - with the majority of housing allocations reserved for attached, multifamily projects.

Like the existing ordinance, it would not apply to conventional government-subsidized, affordable housing. But the definition of affordable housing would be broadened to include families earning as much as 160 percent of area median income, or about $132,000 for a family of four.

As part of the discussion, the council also is poised to approve a housing action plan to direct residential growth. Among other things it would require developers to build more affordable units - to require 30 percent of any project to be affordable, as opposed to the current ?15 percent.

In an additional public hearing Monday, the council will consider placing on the ballot a proposal to raise the hotel bed tax from the current 12 percent to a maximum of 14 percent. The extra revenue, an estimated $530,000 a year, would be directed to affordable housing programs and services.

As a special tax, it would require two-thirds voter approval.

Healdsburg’s current bed-tax rate is the same as Rohnert Park’s and Windsor’s, the highest in Sonoma County. But Healdsburg hotels and bed-and-breakfasts also have an extra 2 percent tax imposed on guests to pay for marketing and promotion programs, effectively tacking on a total 14 percent assessment.

If an extra 2 percent is added to pay for housing programs, the effectively surcharge on accommodations in Healdsburg will be 16 percent.

Finally, the council on Monday will consider putting on the ballot the question of whether to stop fluoridating city drinking water, or possibly wait to get more information on how it would affect municipal operations.

Although fluoridation is common in many American communities to prevent tooth decay, Healdsburg is the only city in Sonoma County that adds fluoride to its water, a practice that it instituted more than 60 years ago.

Healdsburg voters in 2014 overwhelmingly voted by 64 percent to keep adding it to their water.

But a determined band of anti-fluoride activists again circulated petitions this year and obtained more than the minimum 596 voter signatures to place the issue on the ballot again.

You can reach Staff Writer Clark Mason at 521-5214 or clark.mason@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter@clarkmas