Sonoma County starts over with sale of Chanate Road property

Sonoma County supervisors Tuesday took the first step in once again putting a sprawling piece of property in northeast Santa Rosa up for sale, hoping to draw a wider variety of developers by cutting it up into smaller parcels.

The land off Chanate Road will be offered first to designated public agencies or housing sponsors for the development of affordable housing, parks or school facilities, officials said. Those entities will have the option to submit offers to buy the property as a whole 71.62 acres or as three separate parcels.

An appraisal is expected to be completed by January, with a call for proposals from affordable housing developers, schools and cities by February, General Services Director Caroline Judy said.

Those offers will come back to the board by May for consideration in a public meeting, when supervisors will evaluate the offer price against the fair market and appraised values. Certain parcels would be excluded from a potential sale, including a 26-acre plot owned by the Sonoma County Water Agency and a nearly 10-acre parcel with an oak-studded meadow off Beverly Way that will be dedicated for public access and use.

“The mixes and uses of the property will be determined by the city of Santa Rosa,” Judy said. “The Board of Supervisors will only consider the price proposals as submitted.”

State law requires the county to first offer the property for sale to certain government agencies and qualified nonprofits. If that process is unsuccessful, supervisors could once again seek offers from the private sector. The sale could take a year, Judy said.

While the county owns the land, it is located inside the city of Santa Rosa. Any plans to develop the property would first have to be approved by city officials.

A 2016 appraisal ranged from as little as $7 million for the unimproved property to as much as $275.5 million if it was developed with commercial properties and housing.

Meanwhile, measures to prevent vandalism and potential fires at the former hospital and the property cost the county more than $800,000 this fiscal year, according to a staff report. Sutter relocated at the end of 2014 from the aging hospital building on Chanate Road.

In the past 10 years, the county has invested $2.6 million in capital improvements in the 11 aging buildings on the campus while maintenance and utility expenses have tallied approximately $6.3 million, according to a 2017 report.

“The county is really interested in selling this property. The cost obligation is really constricting funds that could be used for other services,” Judy said.

In October, supervisors scrapped a bid to sell the land to a developer who planned to build 867 housing units, a project that would have been one of the city’s largest single housing projects in recent memory. After a lengthy legal battle, a Superior Court judge in July ruled that county incorrectly decided the sale agreement with developer Bill Gallaher was exempt from state environmental review requirements.

Instead of retooling the deal to comply with the judge’s ruling, supervisors directed staff to once again put most of the property up for sale.

“It’s too bad we’re back here but here we are,” said Supervisor Shirlee Zane, who was a champion of the Gallaher project. “We’ve got a lot of land there and it doesn’t help anyone to have that land sitting there.”

The three parcels up for grabs include a more than 20-acre plot north of Chanate Road; a more than 30-acre parcel in the southeast section of the campus that contains a cemetery and several buildings; and a roughly 20-acre plot in the southwest portion with the hospital and other buildings.

“I do want to maximize the flexibility and I think we should maximize the development possibility as well, and revenues of course for the county taxpayers,” Supervisor David Rabbitt said. “By offering multiple parcels I do think we’ll have a broader group of people who will make offers and move forward.”

Noreen Evans, who represents the Friends of Chanate neighborhood association that sued the county, said she’ll be watching closely to make sure the board complies with environmental and open meeting laws.

As the process unfolds over the next year, Zane expressed an interest in working with Homes for Sonoma, a group of volunteer architects and builders, to place on the property temporary tiny homes for fire survivors, including residents of Journey’s End mobile home park. Judy said staff will evaluate the possibility for interim uses after the first phase of proposals are submitted.

The county hopes to lease back a morgue and public health lab located on the property until they can be relocated, Judy said. The campus is also home to the Sloan House, a 22-bed shelter operated by the Community Action Partnership of Sonoma County that offers temporary housing and supportive services for women and their children. The lease runs through 2023 and supervisors expressed a desire to preserve those services.

“There’s such a significant benefit to have that facility operating as a shelter. I shudder to think of it shutting down in a couple years,” Supervisor Lynda Hopkins said.

You can reach Staff Writer Hannah Beausang at 707-521-5214 or hannah.beausang@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @hannahbeausang.