January 23, 2023
Calendar Notes
More Details below provides further information, including links, for all events.
Tuesday, January 24 (tomorrow)
Petaluma Planning Commission – Workshop on proposed 500 Hopper Street project
Thursday, January 26 (this week)
Petaluma Urban Chat – Monthly agenda-free meeting
Thursday, February 16
Petaluma General Plan Advisory Committee - Monthly meeting on topic to be announced
Greetings & Thoughts
The most interesting urbanist meeting of this week will be tomorrow evening’s Planning Commission workshop on the 500 Hopper Street project.
The site is bounded by the River Front project, the Petaluma River, Shamrock Materials, and Hopper Street. With its location on the rarely traveled Hopper Street, it’s a site of nearly 40 acres that is often overlooked but is close enough to the SMART station and Transit Mall to be considered appropriate for transit-oriented development and only slightly further from downtown.
The site plan calls for 475 to 506 homes, with over 300 apartments and the remainder in single-family homes, some with shared walls. Over 15 percent of the units would be affordable by deed restriction.
Including the ADUs that would push the unit total to the upper 506 count, the overall site parking ratio would be 1.78 per unit. Excluding street parking, the ratio would be reduced to 1.47.
Several retail spaces would be provided near the market-rate apartments.
There was a spirited weekend conversation among an Urban Chat group. While we’re strongly in favor of housing, we’re concerned about the parking ratio, the spread of single family homes toward a river subject to sea level rise, the restricted vehicular routes to the property, and safety-challenged routes for bicyclists and walkers to the transit facilities.
Urban Chat will assemble comments for the workshop. If anyone would like to review and comment on them, please advise me as soon as possible.
Also, I’ll note that the survey on the desired 2023 directions for Know Before You Grow closed last week. Nearly 100 people offered cogent and often passionate comments, all of which were appreciated. Please look for a summary from the Know Before You Grow team.
Questions or comments? Let me know. – Dave Alden 707-338-8388
P.S. If you wish to be removed from this email list, or have folks to add, let me know.
More Details
All events are open to the public and everyone is encouraged to participate in person or on-line.
Tuesday, January 24 (tomorrow) – Petaluma Planning Commission
The Planning Commission will conduct a workshop on the proposed 500 Hopper Street project, which is more fully described above.
The meeting will convene at 7:00pm. The agenda is here. The staff report on 500 Hopper Street is here. The link to attend and to participate in the meeting is here.
Thursday, January 26 (this week) – Petaluma Urban Chat
The monthly meeting of Urban Chat is almost always agenda-free, allowing an enjoyable and enlightening conversation to wander freely over the urbanist landscape.
The meeting will convene at noon. With the pandemic hopefully behind us, we’ve resumed meeting in person at the Aqus Café at 2nd and H Streets.
Thursday, February 16 – Petaluma General Plan Advisory Committee
The General Plan Advisory Committee will convene for their monthly meeting. The topic hasn’t yet been determined.
The meeting will convene at 6:30pm. The links to the agenda and to attend and participate in the meeting will be provided when published by the City.
