What no–growth and slow–growth policies mean to the North Bay business community.
Sonoma County considers controlled growth
According to the Sonoma County Economic Development Board in its 2005 Economic & Demographic Profile, the population in Sonoma County increased 13.4 percent between 1994 and 2004. Sonoma County’s total land area is 6,286.8 square miles, and its population density was 300 residents per square mile, putting it above the overall California population density of 231.8 people per square mile. The board projects 342.6 people per square mile by 2015.
Approximately 30 years ago, Petaluma (which had a population of 42,800 in 1990 and now has a population of 58,000) was the first city in Sonoma County to put a growth limitation on its building permits. Chamber CEO Onita Pellegrini says most of Petaluma’s business population are now proponents of the slow- or controlled-growth category, rather than no-growth.
“Smart growth benefits the business community greatly in that it means we’re a sustaining city,” says Pellegrini, who runs a chamber of 887 members. “Businesses want to be in town, and residents want to do business in town. This benefits the business community and makes for happy employees. It creates a good economy and a positive feeling about everything. We need in-town shopping to support our city with sales tax dollars coming into the general fund, which supports fire and police services. All pieces of sustainability lean on each other.”
About two years ago, the city of Petaluma conducted a commercial leakage study to determine where residents’ sales tax dollars were going. The study revealed that many residents did a lot of their retail shopping in other communities. “That opened a lot of eyes,” says Pellegrini. “If we wanted to be a self-contained or self-sustaining community, we had to be able to meet the needs of our population. If they’re all getting on the freeway to travel to Target, that’s a problem. The city council discussed how they were going to encourage more retail development.
“That was one of the reasons for the start of the theater and downtown improvements. We have wonderful restaurants and a lively commercial nightlife along with lively daytime activity. A city needs that, especially if you want people to want to live here. You don’t want the sidewalks to be rolled up at night; you want people to be able to go to a coffee shop, the movies or a restaurant.”
Of course, affordable employee housing is a concern here as in other cities across the North Bay. “In Petaluma, it’s always been hard to get housing,” states Pellegrini. “It’s a little expensive—more so than Rohnert Park and Santa Rosa—so slightly more out of the reach of working class families or young adults. I think it has less to do with smart growth and more to do with our proximity to San Francisco. If you can’t afford Marin, we’re the next place you go.”
Of course, all those people heading into San Francisco for work create a less than placid morning and evening commute on Highway 101. Petaluma city streets can get congested, too. One possible solution, the SMART train program, proposed to link Cloverdale to Larkspur with stops at cities in between, was sent to Marin and Sonoma county voters in November. For the first time, the two counties voted as a single rail district. Ultimately, Sonoma’s 67 percent approval wasn’t enough to compensate for Marin’s 57 percent, and Measure R failed to garner the two-thirds majority required for passage.
“I would love to see the SMART train, but it’s not going to be the end-all answer,” says Pellegrini. “Widening 101 isn’t the end-all answer, either. It will take both of those, plus sustainable growth, so residents don’t have to hop on and off the freeway. For example, we’ve moved uptown now, but when the chamber had an office on Lakeville Highway across from the Marina, there were times when, if I wanted to get to the south end of Petaluma, I got on the freeway and got off at the next exit. That’s not a good use of a freeway.”
About 32 miles north of Petaluma, the once quiet town of Healdsburg has grown in the past two decades, from a population of 7,217 in 1980 to its current 11,700 residents. Four years ago, a voter initiative limited the number of residential building permits the town could issue to 35 a year, but still, it’s just started the process of annexing approximately 250 acres at the north end of town for the Saggio Hills development.
“This will be a combination of a resort hotel; 65 to 70 individual, million-dollar-plus homes; an area for affordable housing; a park and a fire station,” says Herb Liberman, economic development coordinator for the city of Healdsburg and the 700-member Healdsburg chamber. “There’s an agreement between the city and the developer that only so many building permits will be set aside for the project over a two-year period. We have the water and sewer infrastructure to support it, and we’re building a new $30 million waste and sewer treatment plant that was funded through bonds.
“The business community here doesn’t have much of an opinion on no-growth because it doesn’t really impact them greatly,” he continues. “What impacts them more closely is the cost of housing in the community and finding qualified employees to work in their businesses. That’s a real issue.
“In Healdsburg, the no-growth movement occurred 10 years ago after a large development of close to 100 private homes was built and added quite a bit to the population. The thing about no-growth in our community is that limiting the growth of the community isn’t an issue—that’s all being driven by the cost of building a house.
“There’s not much land available inside city limits for single family homes, and the cost of houses has gone up dramatically, so there isn’t that much excitement to build homes in Healdsburg. What projects we’ve had have been spearheaded by developers looking to sell as opposed to individuals buying land and wanting to build a home.”
Napa’s delicate balance
Behind Napa’s romantic façade of rolling hills covered in vines lies the reality that wineries are businesses. So what happens when there’s a blur between urban and rural uses?
The population of Napa County grew by almost six percent between 2000 and 2004, according to the Napa County Community Indicators Steering Committee. In the southern portion of the county, American Canyon agreed (in a memo of understanding with the county) to accept a large portion of the housing the county is required to develop by the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG). Thus, its population increased in the same period by 34.5 percent. The county is midway through a general plan update, a guide that sketches out the important details needed to create a thriving, well-balanced community. In Napa County, the current general plan has been instrumental in preserving agriculture and keeping urban uses restricted to urban areas. The revised general plan’s scheduled completion is January 2008.
“In Napa we have a Rural Urban Line, or RUL, that protects our agricultural land,” says Kate King, president and CEO of the Napa Chamber of Commerce, which includes about 1,250 members. “It was voter-approved, and I think the vast majority of citizens are quite happy we have it in place. For the most part, I think the preservation of our agricultural land is a positive thing in the mind of most Napa business people.
“There are always some who would like access to more land for other purposes, but I think most people here feel our quality of life is maintained due to the natural beauty of our county.” Still, King admits, land use issues can be “challenging at times.”
For instance, King says, “the restriction of retail or commercial uses at wineries has created some conflicts over the years. Finding the right balance between environmental protection and economic vitality can be difficult for policymakers and the business community.”
King has the statistics to back up the benefits of no-growth policies to Napa businesses. “I think it’s obvious, protecting the agricultural land is of financial benefit to anyone who benefits from the wine and/or hospitality industries. A recent study the chamber commissioned, which was performed by Purdue University, showed all the community benefits from the success of these industries. If we didn’t have wineries and visitors, each and every man, woman and child in Napa would have to pay an additional $1,000 in taxes just to maintain our current services in the county. That doesn’t count the 17,500 jobs that are created by the visitor-serving industries, which would all be lost. So, yes, in our case the protection of agricultural land has benefited business and the residents as well.”
North of Napa on Highway 29 is the city of St. Helena, population 6,000. Currently, the city council takes the position that water and sewer issues must be resolved before any additional development takes place.
“The chamber mission statement is, ‘The St. Helena Chamber of Commerce strengthens and promotes member businesses while enhancing the unique quality of life in our community,’” says Nancy Levenberg, chamber president and CEO. “The chamber has always had advocates for balanced, controlled, careful growth within its membership. The number-one point in our vision statement is economic enhancement—to enhance business by encouraging the best public-and-private mix of development in the remaining public spaces available in St. Helena—without sacrificing the quality of life. There’s never going to be development from the business side that’s willy-nilly. It’s always going to be carefully done.”
As Napa County maps out its general plan, St. Helena is also beginning the process. “We’re very balanced, and we have some interesting things about what constitutes St. Helena,” says Levenberg, whose chamber has 550 members. “For example, we’re very tiny, only 5.4 square miles.”
Despite its size, the town managed to block Safeway Corporation’s efforts to build a larger store within town limits. After a decade-long battle, the city recently agreed to a store remodel but not to the building of a super store. “The Safeway application to bring a larger format store to St. Helena was refused after a very long process,” says Levenberg. “Similarly, fast food chain applications have been turned down.”
Marin County struggles with no-growth
There is perhaps no more lengthy a battle over growth control in the North Bay than in Marin County. Known for its stunning vistas, large parklands and pricey real estate, it’s no wonder residents want to keep things just as they are.
The most recent public review draft revision (Aug. 2005) of the Marin Countywide Plan states the population rose from 222,592 in 1980 to 247,289 in 2000 and could rise to 283,100 in the future if land designated for residential development were fully developed. The greatest potential for commercial or industrial development is in Novato and East San Rafael. Including vacant and underdeveloped lots, there’s a potential for about 15,100 new single- and multi-family housing units countywide. The most likely areas for this housing would be Richardson Bay, Las Gallinas and Novato.
The city of Novato got a housing boost when Hamilton Air Force Base was decommissioned in 1974 and the city gained control of the property in 1999. Within the past five years, between 2,000 and 3,000 new houses were built on the site, with 30 percent dedicated to affordable housing.
“We’ve actively supported the issues around low- and moderate-income housing to bring in a workforce,” says Coy Smith, CEO of the 700-member Novato Chamber. “There are always groups opposed to it—especially citizens who live around it—but we feel it’s necessary for the workforce development that needs to occur in the city.”
And while the city is pursuing residential growth, the chamber has turned its attention to retail and commercial endeavors.
“For the past two to three years, we’ve been taking an active stance on the city’s need to expand retail development,” says Smith. “Over the past seven or eight years, the city’s expenses have increased about 17 percent a year. The sales tax revenue, which obviously helps pay for a lot of city expenses, has been flat for the same time frame. That’s mostly because the city has approved very little retail development but lots of housing development. More people live here, so the city has to provide additional services, but there’s no real substantial increase in the sales tax base to support those increased expenses.
“We launched an active campaign two years ago pushing for the city council to start approving and developing retail space inside city limits. Also, there are several things Novato residents have to drive either north or south to purchase, so they’re clogging freeways and spending time in traffic. And they’re not just going out of town to buy that refrigerator; they’re going to stop at four other stores along the way.
Those cities are going to receive that sales tax revenue, again hurting the sales tax revenue in our city. Our campaign has been successful. In the previous seven years, the city had approved 20,000 square feet of new retail space. In the past year and a half, it’s approved more than 250,000 square feet. So we’re pleased.”
Adding additional retail and commercial space should help somewhat with transportation issues, but what else is the chamber doing to alleviate the crisis of the car?
“We endorsed the SMART train as an additional transit method to bring workers into Novato from out of the region, which is necessary because the cost of housing is fairly high in Marin, and a lot of the people who work in Novato don’t live here. We support creating more efficient and additional methods for them to get to work. We don’t think a system that just includes freeways and cars will adequately address the future needs of the region by any stretch.”
If Novato has a pot of simmering slow-growth advocates, San Rafael has a cauldron of no-growth activists. “Most of the neighborhood associations, the Marin Conservation League and the Sierra Club, have publicly opposed the vast majority of development projects—and pro-growth policies in general,” says Tallia Hart, president and CEO of the San Rafael Chamber. “They’ll say, ‘We support affordable housing,’ but then they oppose projects and policies that would create a more abundant supply of housing, which would drive the cost down.
“According to the Marin Independent Journal, only five percent of Marin’s 520 square miles can be developed. There are a number of regulations—such as restrictions on density and parking—that make it economically infeasible for most development projects to move ahead. The county of Marin has a policy limiting growth to just along the 101 corridor.”
Hart continues, “The 880-member San Rafael Chamber has great concerns about our community’s future economic vitality if we continue to ignore the serious threats posed by problems such as affordable housing and transportation. Balance and moderation are the keys to smart community planning. The chamber feels no-growth policies are very dangerous and not conducive to supporting a healthy economy.”
Hart cites a recent example of no-growth advocates making it uneconomical for developers to build within the community. “The Lincoln and Mission infill project of affordable housing was greatly delayed by a neighborhood group claiming the existing structure, a motor court, was a historical building,” she explains. “The project finally got approved after two years of delays—and greatly increased costs, which will undoubtedly be passed along to the consumer.”
Hart sums up the concerns of the North Bay’s business communities: “The primary consequences of slow-growth and no-growth policies are that affordable housing isn’t available, traffic is congested and qualified employees decide to look for more palatable employment options closer to the housing they can afford. In the long term, no-growth policies will severely damage economic development efforts and will create an economy that’s less diverse—and less desirable—for current and potential employers. Without any growth, our communities won’t be able to provide the programs and services essential to a good quality of life.”
