Influencing the Future of SDC
The redevelopment of Sonoma Developmental Center offers the greatest opportunity to achieve Sonoma Valley Collaborative's shared goals that any of us will likely see in our lifetimes.
“The largest opportunity for new housing in Sonoma Valley is unquestionably the former campus of Sonoma Developmental Center. The future of this 200-acre site, nestled among hundreds of acres of accessible open space, already served by utilities and transit, with reliable water sources, is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to create the types of neighborhoods envisioned in Housing Declaration.”
Some Sonoma Valley Collaborative Council members have submitted their own letters to decision makers. Read the letters submitted so far by:
It is Sonoma Valley Collaborative’s position that the three alternatives are not responsive to community input. At public meetings, we have been advocating for three real alternatives that benefit our community, our kids, our future, much deeper levels of affordability in the housing, integrated neighborhood where local households of all sizes with regular jobs can afford to live fulltime, for the SDC’s natural resources and the wildlife corridor better protected, and to see zoning that allows for jobs and educational and training programs, but at a small scale relative to the amount of affordable housing.
We also submitted this letter asking Sonoma County Supervisors to direct Permit Sonoma and their consultants to re-construct the economic feasibility analysis underlying the SDC Specific Plan to include multiple public and philanthropic funding sources that can deliver greater public benefit over the first 20 years of SDC redevelopment.
Sonoma Valley Collaborative’s Council began hammering out consensus on what we want to see at SDC earlier this year. As we are digging deeper into the newly released alternatives with stakeholders from Sonoma Valley’s economic, equity and environmental sectors, we remember what we’ve already agreed on.
Earlier this year, SVC submitted this letter to decision makers based on areas of consensus among our Council of nonprofits, businesses, health care, education, environment, local government, philanthropy, and housing representatives. Below are the areas of consensus expressed in the letter that may inform your own opinions.
We are in a critical window for public comment about the future of Sonoma Developmental Center, particularly its 180-acre campus. Deciding the future of SDC is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to put our community on a path to a vibrant future.
The public planning process
After voluminous public input in November on three land use alternatives, a new SDC land use proposal will be presented to Sonoma County Supervisors, probably in January. That will be an important time for Sonoma Valley interest groups to express their wishes. Supervisors may adopt a land use plan in February. Then a months-long assessment of environmental impacts will begin, and a list of mitigation measures developed. California will then decide whether they like Sonoma County's plan, or if they will ignore it in favor of their own. Then California will sell the property to developers who will maximize their returns, within the constraints of the land use plan. Sign up here to get on the project's email list.
Sonoma Valley Collaborative's process
Many members of Sonoma Valley Collaborative met in small groups during November to start refining areas of consensus related to SDC. In addition to our three major sectors of Economy, Equity, and Environment, we also engaged Sonoma Valley teens, disability advocates, Indigenous advocates, nonprofit housing developers, and representatives of arts & culture.
December's meeting of the Sonoma Valley Collaborative Council will combine this rich array of input, produce an updated, "highest common denominator" consensus position on the future of SDC, and convey it to County Supervisors before their January meeting.
Sonoma Valley Collaborative fills an important need by helping Sonoma Valley’s interest groups refine and effectively present their opinions about the future of SDC. SVC finds the points that all or most interest groups agree on, and advocates for those outcomes. SVC is especially focused on highlighting input from groups whose perspectives aren’t always heard in land use planning, such as youth, Spanish speakers, and local-serving businesses.
Teen focus group touring the Sonoma Developmental Center campus and weighing in on its future on October 28, 2021.
Sonoma Valley Collaborative’s youth focus group identified needs that the future SDC campus could provide safe, well-lit, well-maintained places for sports, entertainment, and recreation where they are welcome, more social services like those provided by La Luz and the Health Center, resources for unhoused people, action on climate change, good local jobs, educational and skills training opportunities for youth and adults, affordable places to eat, live, shop, and live concerts and festivals.
Similar to these efforts with young people, Sonoma Valley Collaborative is incorporating input form people with disabilities, Latinx-serving organizations, and economic interests. For example, disability advocates want homes built at SDC to be designed so they can be lived in and visited by people who have trouble with steps or who use wheelchairs or walkers. Many sectors also want to see advocates also want to see SDC's history memorialized onsite, including its history of patient abuse, eugenics, and forced institutionalization and sterilization.
Readers are encouraged to submit their own comments below about SDC to SVC, in addition to the Sonoma County Supervisors, and at https://www.sdcspecificplan.com/contact or engage@sdcspecificplan.com.