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Santa Rosa Downtown
Station Area Plan

Santa Rosa is planning for the future of its downtown. For local residents, this means an opportunity to create vibrant downtown neighborhoods, with walkable streets, good transit connections, housing for all, and development with reduced pollution and waste. With funding from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, the City created a vision for the next 25 years of development around the anticipated downtown SMART train station. This plan, reffered to as the Downtown Station Area Specific Plan (DSASP), has the potential to create a vibrant downtown core for the city, with more residents, a mix of uses, bike- and pedestrian-friendly streets, and stimulate more ridership for the anticipated SMART train. For a complete copy of the plan click here.

What's At Stake

Years of development with cars rather than people in mind has drained much of the life out of Santa Rosa's downtown. Revitalizing the downtown will require getting more people there by locating future homes in this area, including a mix of shops and jobs and offices, and making it easier to walk and use public transit.

The Station Area Plan is an opportunity to do just that. The plan will govern allowable land uses (like retail, commercial, and residential), as well as transit connections, street design, parks and public spaces, bike routes, and building heights and densities. Additionally, the plan has the potential to ensure that new housing is affordable to all income levels, and that new development is environmentally responsible through green building practices.

The Santa Rosa City Council adopted the plan in 2007. Planning staff is working with Council and the community to craft the specific codes and policies that will guide the implementation of the plan's vision.

What You Can Do

• Contact Sonoma/Napa Field Representative Amanda Bornstein by phone at (707) 575-3661 or by email.
  
  
• Sign up for campaign updates from the Accountable Development Coalition and Greenbelt Alliance, or find out about meeting dates by contacting Marlene Deblinger by phone at (707) 479-7411 or by email.
  
  
• Comment on the draft Station Area Plan, either through written comment or public comment. Send written comments to Supervising Planner Clare Hartman:
  
  Clare Hartman
  Department of Community Development
  City of Santa Rosa
  100 Santa Rosa Avenue, Room 3
  Santa Rosa, CA 95404
  
  chartman@srcity.org
  (707) 543-3185
  
  
• Write a letter to the editor of the Press Democrat to call for walkable and bike-friendly streets, homes we can all afford, and a vibrant downtown.
  
  
• Visit the Great Communities Collaborative website to find out more about this effort and others like it around the Bay Area.