Santa Rosa approves long-awaited Roseland housing and retail project

Will Schmitt, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

The council discussion took a turn when Councilwomen Julie Combs and Victoria Fleming raised questions about whether separating the market- rate and affordable apartments would amount to housing segregation on the basis of income. Fleming voiced concerns about disadvantaged outcomes for people who have grown up in segregated areas, such as Oakland and her native San Leandro. Combs recalled how whites and people of color used to have to use different water fountains under the guise of equality.

A development promising to transform a largely vacant commercial plot in Roseland into affordable apartments, retail shops and library space cleared a crucial hurdle Tuesday night, securing unanimous approval from the City Council.

A hearing on the Roseland Village Neighborhood Center, more than a decade in the making, ran more than three hours before the council advanced plans for the roughly 7.5-acre Sebastopol Road site, owned by the Sonoma County Community Development Commission. The site currently includes a Dollar Tree, the temporary Roseland library branch, and a large parking lot.

Council members favored the promise of new housing — up to 175 apartments — and potential economic benefits for the greater Roseland area over objections from a nearby landlord and some council members’ concerns that developers plan to build market-rate and affordable units in separate buildings and on different schedules.

“This is what we have been waiting for, in my opinion,” said Councilman John Sawyer, who was first elected in 2004. “I believe that ‘perfect project’ is an oxymoron. Roseland deserves it. Santa Rosa deserves it.”

The Community Development Commission, which bought the property nearly a decade ago, now is clear to sell part of the site to UrbanMix Development, a San Francisco real estate company that plans to round up an estimated $30 million in private financing to build 100 market-rate apartments on the eastern half of the site. On the western side, Foster City-based nonprofit developer MidPen Housing Corp. plans to apply for state and federal funds to come up with roughly $35 million for 75 more apartments restricted to low-income tenants.