Santa Rosa Downtown Station Area Plan

Santa Rosa is developing a "Station Area Plan" for the downtown area. It will include 3,200+ units of new housing, along with 300,000 sq.ft. of commercial and retail space and 200,000 sq.ft. of "civic" space. But the plan has some serious shortcomings. There's no mention of affordable housing. There's no mention of "green design" or other environmental concerns. While the plan's purpose is supposedly to encourage a walkable downtown, they want to take out the sidewalk on the south side of 3rd Street under the mall.
The plan has lots of nice drawings of "streetscapes" and "pocket parks," but main goal seems to be to tear down the existing City Hall and build a large "Performing Arts Center" in its place. Then they want to build a new, bigger City Hall nearby... all with public money. As with most of the "plans" coming out of City Hall these days, the people of Santa Rosa don't get much benefit. HAG has submitted a letter to the City Design Review Board expressing concerns about the new plan. Please take a look at the draft plan on the City of Santa Rosa Website -- and let the City Council know that downtown should be for everyone to enjoy, and the 3,000 units of new housing shouldn't be just for the wealthy. We'd like to see at least 20% of these new units be affordable to moderate income households, and 20% be affordable to lower income households.