Tense meeting in Graton over high-density rezoning

Supervisor Lynda Hopkins and Permit Sonoma's Scott Orr explained recent zoning changes to a crowd at the Graton Community Club

It was a standing-room-only crowd at the Graton Community Club on Wednesday night for a discussion of the rezoning of several local properties for high-density development. (Photo by Laura Hagar Rush)

Supervisor Lynda Hopkins and Permit Sonoma’s Scott Orr faced a skeptical and initially hostile crowd on Wednesday night as they worked to explain what recent zoning changes would mean for Graton.

The county recently completed the Housing Element of its General Plan and submitted it to the State’s Housing and Community Development Department for approval. (See our article on the Housing Element here.) As a part of this plan, the county had to identify properties, which, if they were developed, would allow the county to meet its state-mandated quota of seeing that at least 3,824 homes were built in unincorporated Sonoma County over the next eight years.

Many of the properties named in the Housing Element’s site index were re-zoned to R3-20, which is a high-density residential zoning calling for 20 units per acre. Four of these properties were in Graton, and Gratonites (at least those at the meeting) seemed universally horrified by this idea.

How we got here

After a brief moment of silence in honor of Graton activist HolLynn D'Lil, who passed away in 2022, Hopkins began the evening with an detailed explanation of how we got here. She explained how surprised the county was when it got its RHNA number (Regional Housing Needs Allocation) of 3,881—an increase of 654% from the previous housing cycle. She explained how the county had appealed that number to the state, making all the same objections (groundwater, sewage, traffic, flooding, parking, and the general lack of infrastructure in west county) that Graton residents had made in the protest letters that had poured into her office.

When its appeal was denied, the county (which has a policy of preferring infill development in urban areas) turned to its cities to ask if they’d agree to take some part of the county’s RHNA number off its hands. Most cities (which had their own RHNA numbers to meet) declined. Cloverdale agreed to take 57 of the 3,881, leaving 3,824.

At this point, the tenor of the audience was relatively hostile, with people shouting out questions (instead of writing them down as requested), and grumbling “Bullshit.” When someone loudly suggested that the county just tell the state “No," Hopkins explained why that wasn’t possible.

If a county doesn’t have a state-certified housing element in place, developers are allowed to develop sites under the so-called “Builders Remedy” statute, which allows them to skirt the county permitting process and go through a rapid approval process via the state. Housing elements were due at the end of January of this year. Many counties, including Sonoma County, missed this deadline. Sonoma County just submitted its Housing Element to the state in August. It is still waiting for it to be certified by the state.

“Builders’ Remedy actually means that local government loses a tremendous amount of control,” Hopkins said. “It kind of blows up our ability to even plan communities, because builders can come in, and if they meet very basic requirements, can go ahead and develop a site. We do not want to be in a place where we are out of compliance with the state, because then we actually lose complete control over local planning.”

In addition, counties without a certified housing element are ineligible to receive certain kind of state and federal funds, including money for road repair.

Hopkins apologized for what she called a “broken” process.

“I am extremely sympathetic with where all of you are right now,” she said. “This is an extraordinarily frustrating process. It is a top-down process. It is not a community-led process in any way, shape, or form. I am sorry for that, because I feel like in some ways, it's the worst of government, right? You have a state and you have some regional authority, then it's like we're desperate to come into compliance because if we don't, we lose all control over zoning, and that’s a very frustrating place to be.”

She then went on to discuss the importance of affordable housing. “As frustrating as the planning process has been, I want to acknowledge that we actually do have a tremendous need for affordable housing in Sonoma County.” she said, and went on to point out that teachers, childcare workers, even some county government employees made so little money that they qualified for low-income housing. “So actually, if we want to have housing for teachers, and workers in our community, we do need to have affordable housing. It’s actually really important.”

Questions, Answers, and Reassurance

Hopkins then introduced Scott Orr and they went into the question and answer portion of the evening. Their whole goal seemed to be to reassure people that this was simply a re-zoning—and that most of the high-density developments envisioned for Graton in the Housing Element would likely never get built due to the many bureaucratic hoops the developers would have to jump through. Some of these include the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) with its Environmental Impact Report and the onerous county permitting process that averaged between 80 and 120 conditions of approval for every project.

“These conditions of approval would address many of the concerns that are being raised around fire evacuation, around the impact to neighboring wells, around traffic,” Hopkins said.

In addition, she noted that Graton’s municipal sewer system only allows the addition of 12 new units a year.

Another reason that these properties might not be developed is that their owners have no intention of developing them. Winemaker Merry Edwards, who owns one of the properties on the Housing Element’s site index (the one at Frei Road and Hwy. 116), said she had no intention of developing her property. In fact, she objected to the rezoning of the property, but the county rezoned it to R3-20 in spite of that. The Christian school, which owns a property on Donald Street, also has no intention of developing it into housing.

Both Hopkins and Orr reiterated that the county had no intention of using eminent domain to seize anyone’s property.

“The county is not going to come in and take over anyone's property to build housing. I promise you that,” Hopkins said.

The project that had people the most worried was the proposed tiny house/RV Village on the corner of 116 and Graton Road. Its developers, who actually own the property, had applied under the Builders’ Remedy statute in June, but Orr said he felt it was unlikely (though not impossible) that they could complete the full application in time—a six-month window ending in December.

How is the county going to meet its RHNA quota, if none of the sites in Graton get developed? Orr said that the county was hoping to shift some of the development burden away from west county and toward the airport and civic center.

These assurances paid off. Over the course of an hour and a half, the crowd got noticeably less hostile; the interruptions and sotto voce grumbling dwindled away to almost nothing by the end of the evening.

Walt Frazer, who belongs to a newly formed group called Graton Re-Zoning Group, said he and the other members of his group were happy with the meeting. “They felt pleased that there had been such a great turnout and that people were able to get their questions answered,” Frazer said.

Frazer said the housing element seemed like a kind of “panic response” to the state’s demands, but he appreciated Orr and Hopkins taking responsibility for the Housing Element’s problems (the missed deadline, the odd property choices). He also said he got a better sense of how those things had happened.

“One of the things that was kind of amazing about it was that she is really upfront about saying how much things were out of the supervisors’—or really the county's—control.”

Going Forward

Frazer also liked Hopkins’ suggestion of having another town hall—this one with State Senator Mike McGuire. Hopkins said McGuire, one of the few Democratic representatives of a rural county, faces an uphill battle in state government run by and for the state’s urban areas.

“It's really important to reach out to Senator McGuire and Jim Wood, our local legislators, but also just recognize that part of the challenge is the deck is stacked against us. And so you could also ask him, How do we advocate with the governor's office, kind of at higher levels, engaging through coalitions of concerned communities? That's one thing that we do at the county level. We have the California State Association of Counties. We also have the rural counties that get together, and so then we advocate as a group because as a group, we've got more leverage. Believe me, you're not the only rural community that is frustrated, because I have several dozen my district, let alone throughout the state. So there's an opportunity to network and to try to create some change and some recognition that rural communities are different than urban ones.”

She encouraged people to stay involved in local planning process. It was rare, she joked, to see quite so many faces at a planning meeting. In addition to getting involved with Graton’s Community Services District, she urged people to get involved with the county’s new General Plan process, which is starting up in December.

A packed house at Wednesday’s meeting in Graton. (Photo by Walt Frazer)