Calendar notes for the week of July 29, 2024.

Know Before You Grow: We had another great KBYG forum this past week. I counted 56 heads at the Cavanagh Center and another dozen on Zoom. All learned about how Daniel Castor and his family came to be the proud proprietors of the refurbished Sonoma County National Bank building with its Hall of the Above, concluding with some of their initial visually appealing uses of the spaces. The recording isn't yet on the Urban Chat website but should be there early this week. Thanks again to Daniel for joining us.

Looking ahead, the KBYG calendar is well filled. Details are below on the two August forums and the historic building reuse event that was organized independent of KBYG but is now being sponsored by Urban Chat. Beyond August, we have forums booked through early October. We’ll start rolling out details in the coming weeks.

Continue reading the weekly update here.

Calendar notes for the week of July 22, 2024.

Scheduling Notes: There was an unexpected addition this week to the Urban Chat calendar. Urban Chat member Katherine Rinehart scheduled a pair of historic rehabilitation architects to speak in Petaluma on August 21 and asked if Urban Chat could help facilitate the evening. We were happy to do so. More information is below in Upcoming Events and on the Urban Chat calendar.

There was also an unexpected and disappointing calendar deletion. The Parking Reform Network needed more time to organize their one-day San Francisco conference on equitable parking reform. It has been removed from the calendar. We've advised PRN that we’ll eagerly await the new date.

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Calendar notes for the week of July 15, 2024.

Top of my list: Next week's Know Before You Grow forum should be great. The new tenant at 199 Petaluma Boulevard North, the building still remembered by many as the Seed Bank, will talk about his ongoing improvements and his plans for a community space he calls the “Hall of the Above”. There's already buzz about the forum. Arrive early for light refreshments and the best seats. More information is below and on the Urban Chat calendar.

Next up: We may have found someone to organize the upcoming book club around Strong Town’s “Escaping the Housing Trap”. Signups are already going well.

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Calendar notes for the week of July 8, 2024.

While tomorrow evening’s Planning Commission discussion of the draft Flood Resilience framework is certainly important, it's a topic that has already been well covered in other settings and I doubt the conversation will reach any new water levels. (Pun intended.) Instead, I'll suggest that parklets and pickleball are the better paths toward substantive conversation this week.

On pickleball, I didn't mean to imply that conversations would be about pickleball. Instead, casual in-the-street pickleball will be a reason to gather on Friday afternoon and have sidewalk conversations about our community. Personally, I have no intention of touching a pickleball paddle but will happily converse about the General Plan, parklets, parking reform, etc. Join me for a sidewalk chat accompanied by the thwock of pickleballs.

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Calendar notes for the week of July 1, 2024.

As a preamble, those who didn't attend Know Before You Grow last week missed an enlightening evening. Jim Heid and Ann Edminster were also entertaining on the subjects of pocket neighborhoods, small-scale development and living in communities. As of this writing, the recording isn't yet posted on the Urban Chat website but should be there soon. You can visit here to catch up on the conversation.

Turning toward the coming week, the highlight, if one doesn't count the four-day weekend, will be the City Council's finalization this evening of a ballot measure to extend the Urban Growth Boundary with only minor tweaks. It'll be the last item on this evening's agenda, but hopefully the earlier agenda items will proceed quickly.

Continue reading the weekly update here.