February 2025 Departmental Monthly Report Written: 3-10-25 Community Development: Planning and Economic Development Monthly Activity Report Emi Thériault, Community Development Director
[email protected]
Current Planning - Permitting Stats
• Fiscal Year to date (through 2.5.25) Number of applications received…………………..…………………………….………37 • Applications processed……………………………………………………………..…………………………………………..………………...…25 • Meeting attendance: Sebastopol Council, Planning Commission, Design Review Board/Tree Committee, Public Art Committee, Application meetings with applicants and with internal development review technical committee (DRT), interagency collaborative meetings with County of Sonoma and region housing groups.
Advance Planning - Initiatives
1. Sustainable Transportation Grant – Planning staff met with the interagency technical working group. a. This is a CalTrans funded and initiated study to evaluate potential transportation improvements to the Downtown primary strip,; full completion of project anticipated June 2026. b. Staff met with the project consultant, Fehr & Peers on February 5th.
2. Housing:
a. Interjurisdictional efforts Housing Coordination
i. Staff attended the County-wide Housing Leads Roundtable on February 18th. ii. Staff participated in the Napa/Sonoma Collaborative meeting.
3. Alternative Transportation
a. Americorps Trail
i. This City Capital Improvement Plan project is funded by the Sonoma County Ag and Open Space District. Staff attended a site visit for the project. The project is not shovel ready at this point/is in its environmental permitting phase right now (trail crosses over a water way and requires State Dept. of Fish and Wildlife and Federal Army Corp permits). Construction is likely to commence this summer depending on the length of the rainy season. b. Active Transportation Plan
i. Staff met with our citizen representative for the County Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee.
4. Safety – Fire Safe Training
a. Staff attended the CalFire training for Land Use Planning for Wildfires. Staff will be providing an overview of the training to the Planning Commission at their regular meeting on March 11, 2025.
Economic Development
1. Emi met with UC Berkeley Grad student, Yusuke Shimada, to review the outline of his white paper on Economic Development Strategies as they relate to the City of Sebastopol including such considerations as leakage (loss of sales tax revenue to other jurisdictions) and tourism sector revenue capture.
2. Barlow Hotel project – Staff increased efforts/added meetings to ensure this item could be heard at a joint PC/DRB meeting on March 25th.
3. Small business support. Emi began outreach efforts to meet small business owners on location to introduce herself and to invite their input for how the City can best offer support to the local business community.
Department Staffing
Toward the end of the month Associate Planner John Jay submitted a letter of resignation with intent to pursue another professional opportunity. The only full-time employee for the department will be Emi as of March 13th. This may lead to some delays in department work plan items. For this reason, staff is working proactively with Sebastopol HR to provide coverage while recruitments for permanent placement are conducted.