Sonoma Land Trust has created a blog under the name “Transform SDC”, and recently posted the following update.
After various approvals today by the Board of Supervisors, Sonoma County is poised to launch a second round of public hearings and regulatory review under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) for a proposal to redevelop the shuttered campus of the state-owned Sonoma Developmental Center (SDC) property. The last attempt by the County to approve a Specific Plan for SDC development in December 2022 was subsequently voided by an October 2024 Superior Court ruling (SCALE v. The County of Sonoma). The Court ordered the Board of Supervisors to de-certify all land-use approvals for SDC and prohibited “approval of any entitlements” based on the Specific Plan and discredited Environmental Impact Report (EIR).
The application under consideration by the County this time around was submitted by a consortium of developers in August 2023 (Keith Rogal and Grupe Homes via “Eldridge Renewal LLC”) in cooperation with the California Department of General Services (DGS) who still own and manage the SDC property. Promises of early community engagement were never realized as Rogal-Grupe filed a surprise “builder’s remedy” application that far exceeds the 630 homes contemplated in the 2022 Specific Plan. According to the Permit Sonoma “SDC Housing Development Project” website, the Rogal-Grupe proposal for a Major Subdivision, Design Review, and Density Bonus includes:
- 990 residential units ranging from 500-3,200 sf with 200 “affordable to lower income households.”
- 130,000 square feet of commercial uses, including office, retail, research and development, micro-manufacturing and other uses
- A 150- room hotel (approximately 120,000 square feet in total) with a parking structure
Sonoma Land Trust (SLT), many of our local partners, and hundreds of individuals provided extensive public comment on the SDC Specific Plan EIR from 2020-2022. These comments formed the basis of the public record that Judge DeMeo relied on in the SCALE case to overturn the County’s approval of the Plan. The main concern for SLT and many in the community has always been the same: how much housing and associated development is reasonable at SDC while fulfilling the Specific Plan’s Vision and Guiding Principle to “Promote a sustainable, climate-resilient community surrounded by preserved open space and parkland that protects natural resources, fosters environmental stewardship, and maintains and enhances the permeability of the Sonoma Valley Wildlife Corridor for safe wildlife movement throughout the site [and] supports the responsible use of open space as a recreation resource for the community.…