Rohnert Park considers banning overnight parking near busy SMART crossing

In an effort to boost safety and curb the growing number of homeless people sleeping near the SMART train tracks, Rohnert Park officials are considering banning overnight parking at a handful of city-owned lots.

The Rohnert Park City Council on Tuesday will take up the proposed ban, which would restrict people from leaving their vehicles parked at the lots between 1 a.m. and 4 a.m.

The proposal was primarily inspired by the rising number of RVs, campers and cars sitting idle for extended stays at the Roberts Lake Road park and ride at Golf Course Drive - a lot that has no parking limits in place, hindering the ability of police to boot people who have taken up residence.

The ban also is a result of discussions between city officials and the North Bay’s commuter rail agency after a homeless woman was struck and killed nearby by a passenger train last month - the third accidental death at the crossing near Commerce Boulevard since Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit began service in August 2017.

“We have an ongoing dialogue with SMART about the things we can do to minimize risk,” said Mary Grace Pawson, the city’s director of development services. “Minimizing the pedestrian traffic through that crossing is something we both agree is a good thing, to the extent we can achieve it.

“Avoiding overnight parking in that particular location … is a precaution the city can take and that we both agree is worth trying,” she added.

The proposed parking ban would closely mirror one already in place for all city public park lots, and also would apply to the parking lots outside the city’s community center, senior center, Gold Ridge Recreation Center and Spreckels Performing Arts Center.

However, some living in their vehicles and staying in the Roberts Lake Road park-and-ride lot oppose the plan, saying they have nowhere else to go.

Jon Hill, 38, is one of dozens of people who recently have been staying overnight at the lot. The Rohnert Park native, who has been homeless on-and-off for about two years, has been living in a beat-up 1996 Dodge Dakota with no tailgate and a small attached camper. He inherited the teal midsize pickup from a friend two weeks ago, but has to be careful moving it because of a shattered windshield and faulty battery, among other problems.

“They’re taking out everywhere that we can possibly be to stay warm, stay safe - they take it all away,” Hill said as he rolled a cigarette on Friday.

A gray tarp covered the broken windshield and driver and passenger windows, and a piece of plywood that replaced the original camper door helped protect him and his girlfriend from the elements.

“A lot of these people out here don’t really cause any problems,” he said. “They’ll just post up; they’ll sleep. They’ll wake up and they grab their stuff and then they go. They’re just trying to find something for over their head ...”

City officials, however, are trying to eliminate the growing number of motorhomes that have become a mainstay on the west side of the lot along the fence where SMART zips by nearly three dozen times per weekday.

They’re working with SMART to keep people - including the homeless living nearby - from trespassing in the train right of way.

Both have raised concerns that the frequent trips people at the park-and-ride lot make to the Chevron gas station or fast-food restaurants and other stores down the street increase their risk of accidentally getting hit and killed by a train if they are distracted while crossing the tracks.

SMART officials Friday deferred questions about their involvement in advocating for the overnight parking ban to Rohnert Park. However, Jennifer McGill, SMART’s chief of police and lead safety officer, told the agency’s 12-member board last week that her limited safety staff needs help keeping people off the tracks from police in municipalities where the train makes its 43-mile journey from San Rafael north to the station near Charles M. Schulz-Sonoma County Airport.

Their hope is to develop strategies to avoid more deaths following the sudden string of five fatalities in the last month in Sonoma County. They include the deaths of the 30-year-old homeless woman and a cyclist at the Golf Course Drive crossing in Rohnert Park on consecutive days in June, as well as three other deaths ruled suicides.

Last year, during SMART’s first year of service, four people died after being struck by the train, including a 29-year-old gas station attendant who was wearing headphones as he traversed the Golf Course Drive crossing. The others were ruled suicides.

“It’s about public safety, clear and simple,” Councilwoman Susan Hollingsworth Adams said of her initial support for the parking ban. “We need to take incremental steps, and this a good first step. It’s our responsibility to keep that area clean and usable for the purpose of which it was intended - for park-and-ride services for commuters. If it’s taken over for another use, then we’re not holding up our responsibility for the rest of the citizens of Rohnert Park.”

Hill and others living out of their vehicles in the lot say the city isn’t looking out for those who have fallen on hard times.

“They have that sign on the way in that says, ‘Rohnert Park: The Friendly City,’” Hill said. “We want to put another one under it that says, ‘Unless you’re homeless,’ because they don’t care about the homeless.

“I grew up here, I want to live here; I want to recover here, I want to get back on my feet here,” Hill added. “Why do I have to go to Petaluma, why do I have to go to Santa Rosa? Why can’t Rohnert Park rehabilitate Rohnert Park’s people?”

Rohnert Park and Cotati’s homeless population increased 24% from 2018 to 2019, from 139 individuals to 173, according to according to Sonoma County’s annual point-in-time survey. In comparison, Santa Rosa, which is the county’s largest city, has 1,800 homeless people.

Rohnert Park recently dedicated $250,000 to homeless outreach and rapid rehousing programming through the Petaluma-based nonprofit COTS. It previously committed the same amount for the first year of the program, which helped get 70 homeless residents housed. The city hopes to rehouse a similar number of people with its latest funding.

In June, the City Council also set aside another $75,000 to hold in reserve for continued outreach in case state and federal dollars dry up in the coming years.

Based on her work, Cecily Kagy, the COTS outreach specialist for Rohnert Park and Cotati, believes the number of homeless people in the two neighboring cities is much greater than the annual survey indicated. She said the number is no fewer than 250, but probably closer to 300.

She agrees a growing homeless population living by the SMART tracks is a problem, but isn’t convinced the proposed overnight parking restriction is a solution on its own.

“We’re being impulsive as a community, and this is a knee-jerk reaction because they’re an eyesore. And they can be, but still they’re human beings, so we need to look at what can we do long term,” said Kagy, who was previously homeless. “We keep kicking them to the curb and moving them around, and it’s obviously not working. We haven’t fixed the problem, and we’re creating more problems.”

Longtime Councilman Jake Mackenzie also called on the city to take a more comprehensive look at the homelessness issue before approving the parking ban, for fear it may have unintended impacts on the city. He joined Kagy in suggesting the city create a designated overnight site for homeless people sleeping in their vehicles, as San Francisco recently proposed for a Bay Area Rapid Transit parking lot near Balboa Park.

“It’s only a solution if there are places to go,” said Mackenzie. “If in fact we go ahead with this restriction, then what are the consequences, and do we know what they are?”