Build housing at the 3rd street garage
Santa Rosa City Council
Santa Rosa desperately needs affordable housing in its downtown area to meet the needs of residents and employers. More housing downtown helps prevent further sprawl into the city's fire-prone wildland-urban interface and will contribute to a more vibrant, sustainable city. Santa Rosa has a surplus of parking in its downtown area. The 60-year-old 3rd street parking garage represents less than 2% of all parking spaces downtown and requires $3 million in safety upgrades. City staff recommend the City Council develop the 3rd street garage into affordable housing (something we need) rather than sink millions of dollars to preserve the parking (something we don't need). The City Council needs to hear from YOU that affordable housing is more important than parking and that the 3rd street garage is an ideal site.
Petition by
To:
Santa Rosa City Council
From:
[Your Name]
Dear Mayor Rogers and Council Members,
Santa Rosa is in the midst of a housing affordability crisis. Median rents ($2,300 for a 2 bedroom) are no longer affordable for Santa Rosa households earning up to 80% of median income (about 37% of all households). Declining housing affordability hurts workers by forcing them to relocate and commute from longer distances, which in turn increases greenhouse gas emissions and traffic congestion; harms small businesses by shrinking the available workforce; and is the primary driver of homelessness.
To avoid these impacts, Santa Rosa is encouraging more housing growth downtown. New housing downtown is urgently needed to provide local businesses with new customers and employees while minimizing traffic and greenhouse gas impacts, and to attract new businesses and services (especially grocery stores) to the downtown area.
To help encourage development downtown, the City Council on January 25 discussed discussed converting surplus downtown parking infrastructure into new housing or other services. The City Council was particularly open to developing the 3rd Street garage. The 60-year-old 3rd Street Garage is in disrepair and suffers from an estimated $3 million in deferred maintenance. It is the smallest city-owned garage downtown and represents less than 5 percent of all city-owned parking downtown, and just 2 percent of all parking downtown. According to the (pre-pandemic) parking conditions report by Walker Consultants, “approximately 4,936 public and private spaces [over half] were unoccupied in Downtown Santa Rosa during design day parking conditions.”
Parking currently accounts for 25 percent of all land use in downtown, more than is used by all housing, parks, and pedestrian space combined. Downtown Santa Rosa needs more housing and more services, NOT more cars. The Third Street Garage is an ideal location for more housing, and would help alleviate the city’s housing shortage while locating new customers and potential employees within walking distance of downtown businesses without materially impacting the city’s parking inventory (of which the city has a surplus in any case). We strongly support moving forward with plans to develop the Third Street Garage into desperately needed housing.
Thank you for your leadership, and for considering our views.