Tag: Southeast Greenway

Author SuzannePosted on Categories Land UseTags , , ,

Southeast Greenway celebration honors decade-plus work to acquire Santa Rosa’s newest park

Paulina Pineda, PRESS DEMOCRAT

With Santa Rosa’s purchase of the property, supporters shift focus to planning for the city’s newest park.

A late autumn sun warmed a small group of government officials and community members Tuesday afternoon as they set off to cross the length of a 2.2-mile-long, 300-foot-wide expanse in eastern Santa Rosa.

Leading the tour aboard Rosie the Trolley was Thea Hensel, who listed off ideas for what the property, known as the Southeast Greenway, could one day become.

As the group cut through neighborhood streets, up Hoen Avenue and toward Spring Lake Regional Park, Hensel pointed toward the flat lands where play equipment and picnic areas could one day stand.

Maybe the space could host educational programs in partnership with the six nearby schools. There could be room for a community garden, too. “Obviously it’s easy to envision lots of things because there’s nothing here,” she told the group.

For 15 years, Hensel and other residents who live around the greenway spearheaded efforts to preserve as parkland the former state property, once meant for the extension of Highway 12.

Their dedication culminated with Santa Rosa acquiring 49 acres of the former right of way in October.

Now the long-held vision for a future park — a sort of Central Park for Santa Rosa — is closer to becoming reality as the resident coalition, its partners and the city shift their focus to planning.

Read more at https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/santa-rosa-southeast-greenway-park-development/

Author SuzannePosted on Categories Land UseTags , , ,

Housing added to Santa Rosa greenway design

KEVIN McCallum, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Read the latest plan for the Southeast Greenway here.

A subtle struggle is underway in southeast Santa Rosa between providing housing and preserving open space, and the pressure to provide housing appears to have the upper hand.
The latest design for a 57-acre greenway running on Caltrans right-of-way from Farmers Lane to Spring Lake calls for about 190 units of housing, most of it apartments clustered at the western end of what’s being called the Southeast Greenway.
That’s a 26 percent increase over the most intensely developed of the three options presented to city leaders late last year. It’s also 153 percent more units than the minimalist design favored by the group that’s been advocating for a greenway for eight years.
The revisions, made publicly available last week, followed months of public input and direction from members of the City Council and Planning Commission in November, many of whom stressed that the plan should reflect the city’s top priority, which is housing, and ensure the project can pay for itself, which more development would theoretically allow.
So Tuesday’s follow-up joint meeting of those two city bodies should prove a telling study in where city leaders are leaning when it comes to developing the ribbon of vacant land once eyed for the extension of Highway 12 over Spring Lake.
Will they embrace the new higher-density plan as presented, scale back development out of deference to neighbors hoping for the lightest footprint possible, or set aside even more land for housing near Yulupa Avenue and Summerfield Avenues?
Read more at: Santa Rosa greenway design makes room for more housing | The Press Democrat

Author SuzannePosted on Categories Land Use, TransportationTags , , , , Leave a comment on Campaign for Santa Rosa's Southeast Greenway gets boost

Campaign for Santa Rosa's Southeast Greenway gets boost

Matt Brown,THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Supporters of a plan to build a park and bike path network on a strip of vacant land through southeast Santa Rosa — property once eyed for a Highway 12 extension — were buoyed by developments in Sacramento this week that could accelerate the transfer of the 55 acres from the state highway system to the Southeast Greenway campaign.

The work of removing the freeway designation from Farmers Lane to Melita Road advanced on parallel tracks in the state Senate and the California Transportation Commission as local transportation officials backed the efforts and Greenway advocates met with Caltrans to discuss the logistics of a land transfer.

“We’re starting to talk in more detail about how the property might be transferred,” said Steve Rabinowitsh, a former Santa Rosa city councilman and member of the Greenway campaign. “There’s a lot happening.”

State transportation planners bought the southeast Santa Rosa land in the 1950s and 60s when the area of the city was sparsely developed. The intent was to build a two-mile freeway bypass from Farmers Lane over Spring Lake rejoining Highway 12 near Oakmont.

Spring Lake has since become a county park and popular recreation area and Bennett Valley neighborhoods filled in around the land planned for the freeway. Santa Rosa residents resoundingly rejected the bypass, including a bridge over Spring Lake, saying it would be environmentally damaging and unnecessary.

via Campaign for Santa Rosa's Southeast Greenway gets boost | The Press Democrat.