Rohnert Park poised to approve Sonoma Mountain Village

By JEREMY HAY
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

A development project that could eventually increase Rohnert Park’s population by 10 percent goes to the City Council tonight after moving easily through the city’s Planning Commission in July.

Codding Enterprises is seeking a raft of approvals for its proposed Sonoma Mountain Village, including for its environmental impact report and a rezoning application.

The project, which has won the support of environmental, business and political leaders, is on the 175-acre site of the former Hewlett-Packard and Agilent campus, on the city’s southern edge.

“This is a very significant development,” said Councilman Jake Mackenzie, who noted that the last major development in the city was in the late 1980s, when M Section, the neighborhood just north of the proposed project, added several hundred homes to Rohnert Park.

The Codding Enterprises’ project would include about 1,900 housing units, adding a projected 4,400 residents to the city of 43,400 by 2022, and 825,000 square feet of commercial, retail and office space. The 700,000 square feet of former Agilent buildings are already being leased to about 40 businesses, from AT&T to Comcast.

Its developers and proponents hail Sonoma Mountain Village as an economic engine for the city and as a groundbreaking achievement in environmentally friendly development.

“It’s deeply sustainable,” said Kirstie Moore, the company’s development manager. “We’re looking, through development, to actually bring in revenue to the city in excess of $79 million through 2022.”

Environmentalists have focused their enthusiasm on strides they say the project represents in using renewable energy, reducing water usage and gearing development toward the needs of pedestrians and cyclists over vehicle traffic.

“North America has never seen a project like this before,” said Ann Hancock, executive director of the Climate Protection Campaign, a coalition of Sonoma County groups that lobbies for policies that lower greenhouse-gas emissions that contribute to climate change.

The commitment to principles to cut greenhouse gas emissions — including its use of renewable energy sources — put the county on the forefront of the movement to create sustainable development, Hancock said.

“You know it’s going to have reverberations for other developers and other cities,” she said. “Every time you break the boundary of what’s possible, it makes it possible for everybody.”

The city Chamber of Commerce is supporting the project and will have representatives at tonight’s council meeting to urge its approval, said Amy Ahanotu, the chamber chairman.

“It’s a premier business concept that is taking root within Rohnert Park,” said Ahanotu, who is a City Council candidate this year.

A nonprofit business incubator operates on the site, providing office space and support to mostly tech-related startup companies. It will lead new businesses to set up shop in the city, supporters say.

“I think it’s amazingly important in the sense that there is not going to be another city in the North Bay that is likely to have something like this that generates jobs and businesses like this of its own accord,” said Rob Eyler, an economist who directs the Regional Center for Economic Analysis at Sonoma State University.

Some have criticized the role played by a group called the Accountable Development Coalition, which negotiated a pact with Codding that called for certain amounts of affordable housing and the use of union workers. Codding agreed to pay the group $11,000, plus $6,000 a year until all the homes are built. In turn, the group agreed not to oppose the project.

But there has been little noticeable opposition to the project itself. The application was approved 4-0 by the city’s Planning Commission, with nobody speaking against it.

“I haven’t heard anything negative from anyone,” Mayor Pam Stafford said.

City voters in 2000 approved a population growth rate of 1 percent a year, she said.

Since then, “We’ve not had any growth at all,” she said. “And this is one of the most responsible examples of growth anywhere.”