Page 17 - Sonoma County Gazette December 2017

REBUILD cont’d from page 16
contained within Urban Growth Boundaries and unincorporated areas with existing water and sewer and not sprawl into community separators, greenbelts or agricultural lands.
Initiatives to accelerate new housing and development must be in city centers and along the SMART line near jobs, schools and shopping. Affordable housing must be prioritized and existing thresholds maintained or increased, not reduced. Bike paths and walkways and connections need always be included.
We don’t need to sacrifice sensitive habitats or endangered species such as the precious California tiger salamander for development if we do it right!
Urgency ordinances passed by cities and counties must maintain environmental, public health and safety, affordable housing and growth policies and include public review and input.
The City of Santa Rosa has already passed an urgency housing ordinance that allows for quick permitting for rebuilding the same or larger home or structure with simply a sign off by
the planning department without the usual public review. The new homes generally must be built to current fire and building code.
Over the next few weeks and months, the County of Sonoma and all of the cities will be proposing new urgency ordinances for replacement and new housing and construction.
What’s Next?
To be resilient, if there is a new wave of construction, to be resilient, it must be
Let the rebuild begin!
Teri Shore is the Regional Director, North Bay Greenbelt Alliance
555 Fifth Street, Suite 300 A | Santa Rosa, CA 95401
(707) 575-3661 office | 1 (707) 934-7081 cell | tshore@greenbelt.org - greenbelt.org
Bay Area Greenprint
Please join Greenbelt Alliance to learn how to utilize the new online tool Bay Area Greenprint, that makes it easy for us to view and quantify the natural resource values that are so important to protecting open space, agricultural lands and planning good development! Read more here:
https://www.greenbelt.org/bay-area-greenprint/
Bring your laptop, we’ll provide coffee and light breakfast! FREE
SANTA ROSA: Thursday, December 14 9:00am-12:00pm
Sonoma County Agricultural Preservation and Open Space District 747 Mendocino Ave # 100, Santa Rosa RSVP is kindly requested
You are encouraged to engage with the tool at bayareagreenprint.org before the event, and provide comments or questions.
The Bay Area Greenprint is a collaboration of The Nature Conservancy, Bay Area Open Space Council, American Farmland Trust, Greenbelt Alliance, and GreenInfo Network.
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