In 2009, Bill Gallaher, a longtime Sonoma County developer, promised he would complete a 69-acre housing assignment on Highway 12, east of the Santa Rosa Hills.
Several versions of his plans have not been sent to the city council, languishing in the line of progression after what he described as years of delays and a lack of precedence on the part of city leaders.
As he frayed in the city process, his commitment waned.
Gallaher sold the assets in December to housing developer Burbank Housing for $3 million.
“I think we were done,” Gallaher said in a rare interview with The Press Democrat.
For Gallaher, the sale offers the possibility of getting rid of a troubled asset he bought 18 years ago for more than $15 million, an asset that, despite his good fortune as a builder and banker, has never served to advance Santa Rosa’s plans. approval pipeline.
In addition to bureaucratic hurdles, his plans, which once called for as many as 676 homes, have met with strong opposition in Oakmont, one of the city’s most politically and politically influential neighborhoods.
For the new nonprofit owner, the acquisition marks a milestone and a big test: It’s the largest land acquisition in Burbank’s 43-year history, and it will likely require all the fun and political acumen of the organization to get any assignment. outside the drawing board.
Burbank said the assets provide an opportunity to bring much-needed affordable housing to East Santa Rosa, where it is in short supply. The sale, announced through Burbank last month, ended Dec. 30.
Any task is likely to face the same conditions Gallaher faces, namely opposition from the citizens of Oakmont involved over the effect a breakthrough could have on wildfire evacuations on Highway 12.
It will also be a check of Santa Rosa’s commitment to housing on the outskirts of the city.
Burbank officials said their reputation and track record on large, confusing projects would allow them to do what Gallaher and others before him couldn’t.
Burbank has “a track record of patient and effective execution through complex land-use processes,” Ben Wickham, chief operating officer and vice president, said in an emailed statement.
He said Burbank has shown that it cares deeply about the communities and others it serves. “We are confident that our paintings at Elnoka will reflect the same point of engagement and attention,” he said.
When Gallaher bought Elnoka Lane’s assets in 2005, he sought to revive a plan to build senior housing that had first been proposed through an organization of Japanese investors about a decade earlier.
Gallaher, who had already built about 500 homes in Oakmont, said the assets were already zoned for the kind of progression he envisioned and that the previous owner had received the mandatory authorizations. While the authorizations had expired, Gallaher said he hoped approvals would make it less difficult to remove regulatory barriers.
This is the case.
In 2008, he submitted plans for a mixed, all-age income allocation with 209 on 9. 6 acres along Highway 12.
It has been the subject of more than two years of reviews, a lengthy environmental study and has been rejected by the citizens of Oakmont, the 55-year-old network of more than 4500 citizens southeast of the property.
Progress stalled in 2011 after citizens effectively appealed an environmental impact in the report that found it had no significant impact on the surrounding area.
In addition to considerations about the duration and character of the project, citizens have sounded the alarm about the impact of traffic on the two-lane highway, which is the main artery between Oakmont and Sonoma Valley.
The developers have been looking to build on top of Elnoka’s assets for more than 30 years, but plans have stalled as a result of currency difficulties, red tape and opposition from nearby Oakmont residents.
In 1993, Santa Rosa planners approved a project through Pacific LifeCare Corp. which required a network of 460 seniors adding a skilled nursing facility. The company’s Japanese investors withdrew from the project in 1997 after suffering secure financing.
The classification of the site began, but the paintings never finished and the assignment remained vacant for years.
In 2002, the city increased density by 9. 2 acres of very low to medium density to meet the state’s housing goals, a factor that would later block progress as Oakmont citizens said they were unaware of the change.
Prominent Sonoma County developer Bill Gallaher purchased most of the acres in March 2005 for $15. 5 million and acquired the rest of the land that same year with the goal of reviving the previous proposal.
In 2008, Gallaher’s company submitted plans for an all-ages, market, and price project with 209 TVs on a 9. 6-acre strip of land on Highway 12.
The Planning Commission in January 2011 approved an Environmental Impact Report for housing allocation which concluded that the allocation did not have an adverse effect on the surrounding domain or resources.
The approval appealed to the City Council through Oakmont and other affected residents, raising considerations about increased traffic on Highway 12, as the length of the allocation is incompatible with the semi-rural character of the area, spoiling the prospects of the Moon Valley and more objections. land use.
The March City Council confirmed Oakmont’s call for the environmental study’s findings and voted to send the assignment back for study.
In September 2014, the proposer submitted a request to modify the master plan to remove the designated ridge lines from the project. The request was rejected by the Planning Commission the following February and the resolution was upheld by the council in April 2015.
Gallaher submitted revised plans in 2017 for Elnoka’s continuing care retirement network with 676 housing complexes that can house approximately 1,000 seniors. The allocation included a mix of apartments, a 62-unit care center, and a dozen adjacent complexes for workers’ housing, as well as citizens such as a cafeteria, swimming pool and parks.
The revised plans introduced another circular of environmental studies and public comments, which were underway when Gallaher, in the summer of 2021, presented the final plans that reduced the scope of the allocation by 60%.
This included 272 units.
Gallaher sold the assets for $3 million in December to Burbank Housing before the allocation was approved.
This factor has emerged with each and every edition of the plan, especially after evacuations from the 2017 Nuns and 2020 Glass fires that led to traffic slowdowns and long delays on Highway 12.
Two later versions, one for 676 games and more recently an allocation of 272 units, also stalled, even after Gallaher made concessions, such as restricting it to senior housing and reducing the scope of construction.
Gallaher much of the blame lies with the city.
Changes in leadership and within the plan-making branch over the years meant it would take months to catch up, delaying reviews and progress, he said.
No progress was made on the allocation after revised plans were submitted in the summer of 2021 that Gallaher said met zoning requirements, the overall plan and gave the impression of some acceptance by Oakmont residents.
“These are endless, non-urgent documents,” Gallaher said. The council claims to be pro-housing, but it seems they have done everything they can to curb it. “
“We were exhausted,” added his assignment manager, Steve McCullagh.
Gallaher approached Burbank about a deal 3 months ago, he said.
Gallaher said that even though assets are a smart investment, he invested cash in studies, plans and lawyers and wasted years looking to build something. These are resources he may have used to pursue other projects, he said.
And he said his delight in Elnoka isn’t exclusive, but it indicates the bureaucracy some developers face in Santa Rosa.
Gallaher Companies has built 2200 playgrounds in Sonoma County, single-family homes, apartments and 4 senior care centers. He has built more than 8100 games in total in 55 municipalities in the western United States.
Gallaher is the founder of Oakmont Senior Living, which specializes in senior care facilities, and the founder and president of Poppy Bank.
He said Santa Rosa, so far, has been the most difficult network to build.
“We’ve expanded to more than 50 jurisdictions in California, and in the end we had to come to the same conclusion that many other developers came to, that it’s not imaginable to build market-rate homes in Santa Rosa on a temporary and cost-effective basis,” McCullagh said.
Over the years, Gallaher hoped that the city’s elected officials would be more supportive of development, but the November election hardly replaced that, said Gallaher, who, along with members of the family circle, sparked controversy with high-profile spending on political crusades. spent at least $1. 7 million on a failed 2021 impeachment crusade opposed to Sonoma County District Attorney Jill Ravitch after her workplace and state prosecutors sued her business for abandoning dozens of frail and elderly citizens at two Oakmont Senior Living nursing homes in Fountaingrove like the 2017 Tubbs Fire hit.
Developer court cases about plan-making processes are new.
Gallaher has raised considerations before.
In 2009, he laid off nearly a portion of the workers at his then-Santa Rosa headquarters, exposing not the bad economy but the city’s slow plan-making process, which had Elnoka and the project behind schedule.
“We’re fed up. We are tired of being kicked in the teeth,” he said at the time.
Gallaher and McCullagh said the city has prioritized downtown development, relaxing some needs and cutting rates, making it harder to build projects outside the center.
“Look how it worked,” Gallaher said, calling the efforts a “failure. “
He said projects were bogged down in excessive and unnecessary public and administrative reviews.
He pointed to a proposal to upgrade a fence with a block fence in a townhouse assignment he built on Sebastopol Road, which required approval from the Design Review Board. The hearing delayed proceedings for several weeks and no one attended, he said.
Planning officials said that while the city aims to build the center and other transportation and advertising corridors, housing is needed in the city.
Elnoka’s assignment has been properly addressed, but the delays are not under the city’s control, officials said.
Changes to the plan over the years had to be revised or redone, said Jessica Jones, Santa Rosa’s deputy director of planning.
Changes in environmental status have also required further study, such as a chimney evacuation analysis.
Jones said the city was still finalizing the environmental impact report and responding to more than 800 unprecedented public comments when Gallaher submitted revised plans for the site in June 2021.
This forced the city to review the report to see if any revisions were needed.
Extensive reviews and broad public opinion are the norm for giant developments, especially in sensitive spaces that have attracted as much public interest as Elnoka, said Clare Hartman, director of planning and economic development.
But some delays are beyond the city’s control, he said.
Natural disasters, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the volatile market have slowed the structure in California and across the country.
The city has engaged in concerted thinking since 2016 to streamline municipal processes and regulatory controls, specifically in the city center and other spaces of precedence. This includes spaces destroyed by the 2017 firestorm, for thousands of homeowners, Gallaher adding, to rebuild faster.
The city has sought to inspire the structure of the city center through density bonds that allow developers to build higher parking needs, simplify permitting needs and fees, Hartman said.
It has also prioritized the department’s limited to review plans in those spaces more quickly, he said.
But while the center presents an opportunity to increase density near existing infrastructure and resources, he said, the city wants to increase the number of homes in its seven districts to meet housing goals.
About 3,900 new homes were built in the last eight-year housing cycle, and 1,800 are built and more are planned, he said.
Hartman denied allegations that his branch blocked Elnoka’s allocation. She said the staff was touchy about Gallaher and the assignment was moving forward as quickly as it could under the circumstances.
Others more sympathetic to Gallaher’s complaints.
Councilman Chris Rogers, a supporter of expanding the center whose district includes much of downtown, said Gallaher’s complaint is and he understands the frustrations.
But citizens have made it clear they are not expanding and need to see city-centric growth, he said.
“That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t think about or build more remote projects, but it does mean that with limited resources, staff and time for the city, you’ve focused on spaces where it’s more appropriate to build,” Rogers said. . .
Developer Hugh Futrell, whose firm has developed downtown advertising and housing projects, said land-use policies and building incentives downtown are among California’s most progressive and have had some success.
While all approved projects have been built, several mid-rise projects in downtown and Railroad Square have been completed in recent years, and 360 sets are being structured and more are expected to begin later this year.
Off-center, Futrell admitted, it can be more challenging.
Large projects, especially hillside advances and projects in other environmentally sensitive spaces, would likely face red tape. He said citizens use CEQA, the state’s landmark environmental law, to avoid projects.
“CEQA provides a treasure trove for thriving zip code objectors to delay or eliminate projects ad infinitum,” he said, pointing to a recent lawsuit challenging the remodeling of the Sonoma Development Center in the county.
“Sensitive on-site and politically sensitive projects result in a circular conveyor belt that incinerates years of effort,” Futrell said.
“The city would say all housing is a priority, but is there inadequate attention when it comes to those sensitive projects that a lot of housing like Bill’s can produce?Does the city play a passive and bureaucratic role by default in such cases?I suspect that this is the case.
Wickham, Burbank’s chief operating officer, said the acquisition gives the nonprofit a “unique opportunity to attempt to bring housing to a county domain that has traditionally lacked diversity in its housing inventory. “
Burbank officials declined to comment on the plans and said discussions were still in their early stages.
Officials were reading the characteristics of the assets and surrounding domain to propose an allocation “that respects the existing community while selling the community’s housing goals. “
It’s unclear how temporarily Burbank will begin construction, but the nonprofit will have to come up with new plans and restart the progression process.
Jones said some of the paints done in the Gallaher Project’s Environmental Study can be reused or modified, depending on the project, which can speed up the process. But more studies will have to be redone.
The reviews will also require new public hearings, offering an opportunity for Oakmont and citizens to intervene.
Reducing the threat of fires and evacuation problems will be a very sensible priority in any project, said Deputy Mayor Dianna MacDonald, whose third district includes the area.
He said Oakmont citizens would likely prefer a less dense allotment and a new domain exit to ease traffic on the 12 Freeway.
She said she’d like to see an assignment that prioritizes senior housing, in line with Oakmont, and one with walking and biking trails to inspire other transportation tactics.
“There is a lot of caution about construction in my district and I wonder if it is a suitable domain for construction,” he said. fears and how we do it through many open conversations. “
Burbank has been a wonderful husband to the city and has a smart reputation, MacDonald said, and he hoped to be able to tie the conversations between the developer and neighbors.
“I haven’t realized their plans, but if they come with protective measures and cadres with firefighters and police on those precautionary issues, I would appreciate those conversations,” he said.
Oakmont Village Association director Christel Antone said the sale was a “total surprise,” but the deal was interested in working with Burbank, namely to secure an additional escape route, Oakmont News reported.
Gallaher said he expects Burbank to be more successful, but the company will most likely face many of the same hurdles as he does, though Oakmont doesn’t wield as much political clout as it used to have as a company. Success as the city moves toward district elections.
Gallaher said he would be pleased to fund Burbank’s allocation progression through its Poppy Bank.
“A nonprofit like Burbank will have a much better chance of success,” he said, adding that promoting assets is a weight on his shoulders.
“We’re thrilled that Burbank is building it. “
Editor Paulina Pineda can be reached at 707-521-5268 or paulina. pineda@pressdemocrat. com. On Twitter @paulinapineda22.
Santa Rosa, journalist from the village of Rohnert Park
Decisions made through local elected officials have some of the most significant day-to-day effects on residents, from investments in roads and water infrastructure to formulating policies to address housing desires and homelessness. As a municipal journalist, I must keep track of those decisions and have an effect on the network while highlighting spaces that are being overlooked or can be improved.
His comments have been permanently suspended.
Your comments have been temporarily suspended for the following reasons:
‘ errorcontext. reason ‘
The ban will expire in ‘new Date(errorContext. endDate)’.