Redwood Gospel Mission move to Roseland rejected

Redwood Gospel Mission’s plan to expand and relocate to Roseland sparked a passionate debate Tuesday about whether a large homeless shelter should be allowed in an area long designated for additional housing around the city’s downtown train station.

The clash of these two key city goals - additional homeless services and more housing - turned the Planning Commission hearing into a lengthy referendum on how a blighted neighborhood should best be transformed.

Should a religious organization that has been helping the needy in Santa Rosa for more than 50 years be allowed to consolidate and expand its operations in an industrial area of the city where homelessness is already a huge problem?

Or should that area be transformed, as city plans envision, through hundreds of new housing units attractive to people planning to commute to work on the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit line.

After expressing concerns about the vagueness of the project and potential conflicts with other city goals for housing, the Planning Commission voted unanimously to reject the mission’s request for a use permit and an amendment to the city’s General Plan.

“I just don’t think you guys are ready,” Commissioner Hans Dippel said.

The highly technical debate before the commission followed deeply personal testimony from dozens of residents who have been helped by the mission as they struggled to overcome homelessness and drug addiction to become productive members of society.

Many expressed strong support for the mission’s plan to put 258 beds over seven years in multiple buildings on two parcels, which until 2011 housed a concrete company. They argued that the mission would help the homeless people already in the area and, by investing in Roseland, be a catalyst for new growth.

“The Redwood Gospel Mission moving into Roseland would be a blessing for Roseland,” said Chris Keys, who works at the shelter and himself has been homeless.

Luther Diggs, 65, became emotional as he described how the mission had saved his life.

“They changed me from a homeless drug addict to a dopeless hope addict,” he said.

A number of residents of the neighborhood, however, worried about concentrating homeless services in their area and objected to a permit being granted in an area long eyed for housing densities of 25 to 40 units per acre.

Morgan White said he grew up in the nearby Olive Park neighborhood and played in the park daily with friends. But now so many homeless people hang out in the park that families no longer let their kids play there. He said he worried the project would draw an even greater number of homeless people to his neighborhood.

“This is just going to explode when this happens,” he said.

Richard East, who lives adjacent to the site, said he worried that property values would drop. Values have improved in recent years because of the prospect of new housing coming to the area, he said.

“I think it would be a crime to put the mission there and hurt all the property values around it,” East said.

But when it was commissioners’ time to talk, several expressed frustration that the proposal wasn’t more detailed or clearer.

Commissioner Peter Stanley noted the city’s own staff report concluded the project was “disproportionately scaled” for the surrounding neighborhood. He called that a “huge red flag,” adding that he didn’t think city planning staff was convinced the project was right for the area.

Several commissioners said they were uncomfortable approving a conceptual design, and needed an actual project before them before they would sign off on such a major land use change.

“Like Commissioner Stanley, I’m really struggling with what’s on the table here,” Commissioner Ashle Crocker said.

“Frankly I feel it will be irresponsible to make these approvals without the necessary information.”

The decision was a major setback for the mission, which has been attempting to find a new home for years

Mission board president Kevin O’Malley said the search started about six years ago when the mission was approached by someone interested in developing the men’s shelter at Wilson and 6th streets in Railroad Square.

The organization looked at about a half-dozen properties before settling on the Roberts Avenue property.

Executive Director Jeff Gilman said the mission had been a good neighbor in Railroad Square and would continue to be so at its new home.

Among other things, he pledged to provide 24-hour security guards for the Roberts Avenue area, as well as adjacent sections of the Joe Rodota Trail.

But in order for the project to proceed, a plan to extend Roberts Avenue would have to be changed.

Current plans call for curving the street, which was cut in two by Highway 12 long ago, across one half of the 2.5-acre property eyed by the mission, allowing the street to pass under the highway along the rail line.

The mission was asking the commission to eliminate that plan. Instead, city staff suggested that Roberts Avenue could one day be punched straight under Highway 12. The commission instructed staff to analyze such a realignment.

You can reach Staff Writer Kevin McCallum at (707) 521-5207 or kevin.mccallum@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @SRCityBeat.