Healdsburg OK's Growth Management Ballot Measure

Healdsburg City Council said Monday they are satisfied with a proposal to revise the city's 2000 Growth Management Ordinance to allow more flexibility in new home building.

Council voted 4 to 0, with one member absent, to have language drafted for a ballot measure on the revisions to present to voters at a regular election in either 2013 or 2014.

"Our goal was not to just open the city up to rampant development," said Councilman Tom Chambers, chair of a committee that studied the possible revisions over the past year.

"Our challenge was how to have a housing component that he said. "Then, we had to have a plan that everyone liked."

City Council's actions on Monday were based on

Chambers said some of the concern was that if the city did not allow for a reasonable diverse housing mix in the planned central-south Healdsburg "gateway" or Central Healdsburg Avenue Special Study Area, that large hotel developers could come in to fill the gap.

The ballot measure proposal, triggered by a housing need uncovered during the two-year-long CHASSA process, would apply to the entire city. Chambers was also chair of the CHASSA committee, which met for about two years before postponing its final redevelopment blueprints for the Healdsburg Gateway area to allow for the city to address the housing growth issue.

"There're a lot of issues in this town, but economy and growth are probably the top two on everyone's list," said civic volunteer and columnist Ray Holley, who also served on both the CHASSA committee and the Growth Managment Ordinance committee. "It was important that we got to this point through a long and arduous process."

Under the proposed ballot measure, Healdsburg's 2000 Growth Management Ordinance would be amended as follows:

--A starting "bank" of 60 housing unit permits.

--30 additional permits added per year.

--No "use it or lose it" provision.

--Total 226 units allowed over 15 years.

--Amendment sunsets after 15 years.

Although J of the current committee looking at revisions, he was an active participant at the meetings.

On Monday, Winston told the Press Democrat he was pleased and satisfied at the results.

"We ended up with something that made sense for the community," he told the newspaper.

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