Survey Results February 2018

Comments

Thank you for working so hard to preserve this area.

Helen Putnam Park is nice, but it needs to be larger to be truly a great place.

We dont need more homes on the west side. Its will ruin what we have as a historic petaluma

This is the local critter's land. They should retain use of it.

Ideally our city planners would quit permitting new construction altogether. Traffic in all parts of petaluma demonstrate that we have maxed out our population. Since we know that planning does not think that way, let's just be sure to preserve the woodland areas, creeks, historic features of any parcel. For every new home built in Petaluma, there should be a tax imposed that paid for ten acres of open spaces elsewhere in the city limits. The reason why petaluma is such a wonderful place to love is the open space and farmland. If we lose that, we are just like most other towns.

"Traffic" is number one through 100 for me. Petaluma's expansion out "D" Street should go no further, ever. The city cannot handle more traffic on "D" Street. If this development goes in, there will be pressure to continue building further out.

The land is not suitable for home building. Certain landslide danger to homes neighboring the land.

Would like to see the land donated to open space.

Would like to see efforts focused on higher density housing by the SMART train that promotes using more public transportation, puts less traffic on D street, reduces our climate impacts through emissions, and doesn't continue to add to single-family sprawl development strategies, which is an inefficient use of valuable land. Also, lets develop empty lots that are already poor habitat and cheeper to connect to city services.

D Street is the gateway to some of the most beautiful scenery in Sonoma County. If this development is built, not only will habitat be lost, but we will be pushing our suburban boundaries farther westward than I believe is advisable. We need to set the expansion limit, and stick to it, especially to the west. I see this project as the thin edge of a wedge; if it's approved, I believe we will look back in twenty years, regret it, and realize this is the point at which we should have made a stand.

More luxury homes in Petaluma? Seriously?

Local accessible open space is one of the top three, if not the top factor in community well being and quality of life. The number of quality parks in Petaluma and acreage of opens space is actually quite limited relative to the population base. Most parks in Petaluma are some combination of jungle gyms, grass, ball fields/courts and benches. The only two parks with natural features, native tree groves, places to wander, sit and take respite from urban hustle and bustle are Helen Putnam and Oak Hill. We need more. Expanding on what we have is easier than starting anew. There are also efforts underway to connect our existing open space parks in a corridor or chain of connected green spaces because it's been more recently studied and scientifically proven that the impacts of this approach on wildlife migration, wildlife health and species diversity are exponential as compared to small isolated islands of protected spaces. Helen Putnam sits to the southwest of Petaluma where it can potentially create a natural corridor with Olompali to the south, which is connected to other adjacent open spaces, such as Mount Burdell. We need to be also thinking about ways of connecting the parks to the northeast of Petaluma, such as Crane Creek Preserve, Sonoma Mountain/Jack London and Taylor Mountain so they can all connect up via a network of trails, paths and protected zones for the benefit of humans and wildlife. This is our responsibility of shaping our landscape for the benefit of future generations while we can, while we have the opportunity, and before our place becomes built up half-hazardly and permanently preventing us from doing what is in the whole community's best interest. We must realize that living in California we are fortunate to have unique opportunities, compared to most of the country and the world, in that our cities and lands are not already completely built out, and we have the knowledge and experience to reflect on how the protections of natural spaces, from national parks to local sit spots, have benefitted countless individuals over numerous generations. Populations will only continue to grow. It is too easy to think that the development pressures we are experiencing today will just go away, when tomorrow or in 20 years they will are almost all but guaranteed to increase. Hence we have to be smart now and put in place a strategy that helps us meet our goals of smart development and smartly create the appropriate amount and proper layout of our protected spaces. Never has any city, town, or county said, "Oops, we made the mistake of protecting too much open space". More often we think and hear regrets of "We didn't know what we had until it was gone - they paved paradise to put up a parking lot" and "there goes the character of my town"... There is plenty of developable land elsewhere in our town and county that allows for growth without sacrificing a huge stake of what so many find to be vital, essential, special, cherished and sacred to our place we call home.

We have enough housing projects being built right now and our streets are crumbling and full of traffic most of the time.

All the reasons are very important to me. It was very difficult to rank them.

We have lived in the immediate area since 1990 and the traffic that has increased I feel is due to D Street and San Antonio Road showing up as an alternate route in Maps apps. I know I have commuted the "backway" to Marin and back from the 90's on, and have seen the increase at all sorts of various times. Also once construction starts, mornings will begin much earlier (rambling up and down D Street with large trucks and construction workers commuting to the job) and end much later for a long time. This disruption at already busy times along with life quality degradation seems reason enough to put the brakes on. Then there is the concern of the city needing to further disrupt our community to revamp drainage pipe going through town to accomodate new housing and where does THAT money come from? Seems that Davidon is not a good partner for our community with their attitude of continuing to ignore points that have been made all along.

We don't need more houses, we'll just end up with more people

Buy as many lots as can be raised from giving people

Petaluma BADLY needs affordable housing for current residents, not more McMansions for SF transplants.

Build homes somewhere else. The public should be able to buy it!

COMMENTS

Preserve the natural beauty and agricultural history of petaluma (2)

If it is not feasible to raise the money to buy the whole property, a deal with Davidon to build 28 homes, as far north of the creek as possible, is OK.

Between loss of biodiversity, endangered species habitat, and publicly accessible open space, this housing development, no matter the size, does not represent or honor the needs and wishes of Petalumans, and certainly does not consider the health and well being of the future generations who will inherit this home. This housing is not needed or wanted.

Thank you for leading the charge on this issue!

Stated above

Petaluma Resident for almost 40 Years

Petaluma NEEDS a larger Helen Putnam Park. Open space is very important in the hectic lives most of us are living these days. Once homes are built there, that open space will be gone FOREVER.

Stop urban sprawl at current boundaries.

20+ year neighbor to the property

We need open natural space. Breathing space and space to be and reflect and relax our busy minds. Our children and grand children need it to be in and with nature, and feel connected with all life. If anything needs to be build I recommend the minimum amount we can get away with for low income groups.

Your presentation at the City Council meeting was well done and very professional.

We need tompressure our city council and building division to end new construction. If we do build it should be affordable housing. Not silly irresponsible luxury homes.

Allowing Windsor Drive to be constructed was the first mistake; Victoria and West Haven followed to ruin a beautiful valley. Keep this up and the west side will soon look like east Petaluma. Perhaps a land trust could purchase the development rights to prevent these houses being built by another out-of-town developer who will take the money and run after ruining our countryside.

I am willing to make a modest contribution in the short term if needed for operations. To make a larger contribution, I want to see how Davidon responds to the City's requests and the status of fundraising.

Survey- well done.

Maybe the builder could donate the land to open space and take a large tax credit. Building homes on this sight is not applicable to soil conditions, terrain, or environment.

Zero Housing

Would like to know more about what has been raised for purchase, and how much more would be needed. - Thanks.

Thank you for all your work on this, it's been incredible!

A Sonoma County resident concerned about maintaining our natural beauty

Thanks for continuing leadership on this important issue!

I would be willing to help with grantwriting IF IF IF .... you have identified a LIKELY funder. I cannot do funder research or spend time on long shot proposals. But - I'm a successful grantwriter and will help if it will truly be helpful.

Home owner in Victoria and use D Street for transportation. Would like to see NO houses on the property, period. Just drive D street in the am or pm during when there are people are going to and from work; it's horrible.

New homeowner stepping in. 5th generation Petaluman.

Thank you for leading this important conservation project.

You people are awesome. Thank you!

There is no way to mitigate the additional traffic. D Street is already very heavily travelled, and at times when, on parts of D Street, there is so much traffic that it hardly moves. As I said, there is no way to mitigate this, whatever is done at the entrance/exit to mitigate traffic at that spot: all that additional traffic will add to a nearly immovable mass on parts of D Street.

Thanks for all you are doing.

Thank you! Nice work!

Petaluma has very little open space or park land. Augmenting Helen Putnam instead of adding yet more ugly housing developments right under the nose of Helen Putnam is exactly the wrong thing to do. We need more housing but the focus should be on in-fill, not expansion on the edges. And certainly not adjacent to one of our rare and accessible natural habitats - so needed by all the creatures that require that habitat including humans.

My strong preference is to have this property be protected completely as open space. This would maintain a natural protection boundary, at least on that side of the park, for the plants and animals protected by Helen Putnam Park. Due to personal circumstances I cannot help out at this time, but I am extremely appreciative of those of you who have worked hard to save this property from development. Thank you.

We need affordable housing and open space. That piece of property doesn’t meet the criteria for affordable housing since it’s too far away from resources however it was intended by Arnold Scott and previous generations of Petalumans to be open space.

I'd love to see the land remain open space to protect the natural habitat and have it made into an extension of HP Park.

Permitting ANY development of this scope, in this area, for all of the above reasons in item #3, is NOT RESPONSIBLE - PERIOD!!!

We need affordable housing and we need to stay out of sensitive habitats.

Thank you for all your work and this survey. As someone who has opposed inappropriate development in Petaluma for decades, I appreciate all that you are doing.

Petaluma is my choice because of the amazing balance between our beautiful little city with its charm and amenities and the gorgeous open countryside easily accessible to us all. I am a low income senior and cannot help financially, but I can encourage our city to value what we have. More housing for the privileged at the price of open space is NOT what we need.

I like the idea of Davidon building a parking lot at D and Windsor and trail to access Helen Putnam Park.

See above comments.

You all know how I feel about this and what I'll be happy to do to make it a path to zero. Thank you!!!

I previously indicated that I would prefer to see 66 dwellings developed in this space. I think the protection of habitat is important but the development of affordable housing is important. I think smaller properties are preferable to sprawling high end ones.

There are too many people in this town already, please no more building.

Having homes constructed would be a travesty to this beautiful property. What is so upsetting is that the original owner gifted this land to a university who, in their greed, sold it to a developer. I think the total disregard for for the intent of this land has been compromised. This property is a gem and should be preserved. I would love to see this project shut down with no homes built ...period.

The recent fires should have taught us that more houses on the hills and valleys skirting the city is not a safe place to build.

There was a time when the hills above this proposed development were also open space.

We are very concerned that housing along our back fences on B St will impact our views, our privacy and block the wildlife corridor that we and the animals currently enjoy plus create dangerous flooding conditions that are already troublesome without the land being developed. All plans, including the 28 homes, build long our fences. We expect that Davidon will have to get their money out of the property and therefore will build some homes. We would like them to have sufficient setback from our fence-line to allow for a buffer of trees, planted in line with the fence, to preserve the corridor and privacy of our homes. We expect that, no mater what they build, we will lose our beautiful views.

Your organization is a model of environmental activism that consistently fosters dialogue with all parties engaged in conversation. Your strategy of offering fact based data/information points helps people formulate their thoughts and then their comments during public discussion. I admire your tenacity and will support your efforts however I am able. Please feel free to contact me.