Page 33 - Sonoma County Gazette MARCH 2020
P. 33

What’s Up in Windsor
GUEST COLUMNIST Teresa Hendrix
     Events, Housing, or Master Plan?
Plans for the future of downtown Windsor have been in the news a lot lately, but there’s one feature of the Windsor Town Green scheduled to stay the same: The Windsor Town Green Community Garden.
Healdsburg Faces a Difficult Land Use Decision Downtown and This Month’s Column Explores the Options.
Nestled in the corner of Windsor Road and Joe Rodota Drive, the garden has grown to 72 beds over the past 11 years. The nonprofit Windsor Garden Club manages the garden on land belonging to the Town of Windsor.
The City owns a centrally-located downtown parcel known as 3 North Street, and it is trying to decide what it should build on this prime location.
WGC rents the garden’s raised beds for $40 to $65 a year, depending on size. There are even wheelchair accessible “back-friendly” raised beds available. All of the beds offer drip irrigation and gopher-wire lining (yes, we have gophers there too, sadly).
Local hoteliers and others have circulated a petition in support of an already- planned event pavilion and parking concept on this City property. The plan offers 55 public parking spaces, vine-covered trellises, and open-air event pavilion. The beloved Farmer’s Market would have space for its seasonal operation (28 days/year, currently at a City parking lot). The space is not ideal for the Market as it has only one entrance/exit and no covered space. The Foley family has offered a $7 million gift to build it.
The garden is organic; gardeners must agree to use only natural fertilizers and pest-management techniques – no chemicals, pesticides or herbicides allowed. Renters must also perform 6 hours of volunteer work per year maintaining the common areas of the garden. 22 of the 72 beds are provided at no cost to low-income Windsor residents.
Because this is public property, the City is also considering whether it should build affordable housing on City-owned land. After a City study, the highest- scoring property by far is 3 North Street.
WGC also rents three large beds at a discounted rate to the local Windsor Service Alliance for its food bank.
Should the City go forward with the event center plan, which now has private funding? Or pause to consider affordable housing on the site? The City’s official Goals and Strategic Plan documents do not identify any need
or priority to create the pavilion and Market concept. The official planning documents do say Healdsburg has an urgent need for affordable housing. Thus, the City’s dilemma.
Windsor High School’s bridges program brings special needs students to the garden twice a week during the school year. The students learn how to plant, tend and grow vegetables and herbs for the food bank.
 The public knows almost nothing about the high-scoring housing concept. Would the community support housing on the site if they knew more about the concept and its benefits? Below are ideas being explored and the criteria being used.
But now the garden needs some help. The recycled wood originally used to create the garden beds 11 years ago is now disintegrating. All 72 beds will need to be dug up, and the old wood carted off and replaced with new wood and gopher wire. Then the soil
What would affordable housing at 3 North Street consist of? A draft concept proposes mixed-use housing with 45 1-3 bedroom units renting for $1,237 (est.), serving families and seniors. The ground floor has 11,000 sq ft of enclosed community space. This space has a 16’ ceiling and year-round use and allows multiple potential community uses including daycare, classrooms, community kitchen, dining hall, panaderia, maker space, or indoor arts venue. $11.8 million in low-income housing tax credits are available for project funding. The need for affordable housing in Healdsburg is undeniable. 3 North Street is a near-perfect downtown location, with many benefits to the broader community. Affordable housing brings population diversity (age, ethnicity, culture), encourages local retail, brings families to local public schools, helps to staff local businesses such as hotels, restaurants, retail, etc. and keeps the downtown real, diverse, vibrant.
of that in wood alone. Windsor Garden Club is currently seeking grants and donations to cover the cost of wood and labor – and also seeking donations of labor.
Local employers plead for housing for their workers. And affordable housing demand is about to balloon. Four large new hospitality/ service projects are coming online—Montage, Comstock, Vallette, and Mill District. These will add hundreds of new lower-wage jobs at about the same time. (Montage alone projected 300 new jobs.) We have a serious jobs/housing imbalance—and it is about to get much worse.
If you know of a group, organization or business that can help the garden club with the project, please contact officers@windsorgardenclub.org.
On the environmental side, locating housing at 3 North Street will prevent sprawl; reduce the need for parking and extra cars (employees and shoppers can walk); and reduces our ecological footprint—our locally generated greenhouse gas pollution.
In other news, the Windsor Dia de los Muertos group is aiming to bring the celebration back bigger than ever in 2020. The free Mexican Sugar Skull workshop for children will be back, this time in the Huerta Gymnasium, date TBA. The celebration is set for Saturday, Oct. 24. To pay for both events, the Dia de los Muertos Committee is looking for sponsors and individual donors. The committee is holding a kickoff fundraising dinner Saturday, March 21 at Tu Mole Madre, hosted by the Diaz Brothers of Tu Mole Madre along with Latino vintners Aldina Vineyards, Enriquez Estate Wines, Guerrero Fernandez Wines, and Rojas Vineyards. The evening will feature a four-course food & wine pairing, raffle, auctions, and music. Tickets range from $150 per person to $1,500 per table of four to $2,500 for a table for eight. For details and tickets, visit the Windsor El Dia de Los Muertos Facebook page. To find out more about the event and its history, visit: www.windsormuertos.com.
Some leaders say, stick with the event center or the Foley money will be
lost. Is this an underestimation of the Foley family’s philanthropy and evident goodwill toward Healdsburg?
What to do? Is a Master Plan for this area the sensible and unifying approach? A process that would involve the community, learn the needs and benefits, and look for community balance. A Master Plan would actually identify an ideal home for the Farmer’s Market.
will need to be returned to the beds. The entire project is expected to cost approximately $44,000 -- $20,000
The club has set up a
“GoFundMe” account at www.
gofundme.com/f/windsor-garden-
club. We hope to accomplish the bed-
rebuild project in four phases over
the next four years. Ten of the beds
will be rebuilt in April. Work stared on Feb. 29, when the Windsor High School Lacrosse teams – boys and girls – dug out beds 1-10.
To find out more about the community garden, visit: windsorgardenclub. org/community-garden. Sign up for pur newsletter!
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