Background on Legal Settlement with Rohnert Park

The Penngrove Specific Plan was created and adopted in 1984 at the urging of the Penngrove community and then-Supervisor Helen Putnam. Supervisor Putnam recognized development pressures facing Penngrove from the construction industry and successfully enacted a low density residential land use and zoning County Specific Plan to protect the area. The Penngrove Specific Plan area boundary was established to prevent future encroachment and annexation by Petaluma from the south, and Cotati and Rohnert Park to the north. There have been no significant land use amendments since the adoption of the 1984 Penngrove Specific Plan.

The Penngrove community supports the goals, policies of the Penngrove Specific Plan. In 1989 the Penngrove Specific Plan was incorporated into the General Plan and re-named the Penngrove Area Plan. The Penngrove Area Plan Advisory Committee (PAPAC) is a community based group, established in 1984, and is dedicated to supporting and advocating for the community of Penngrove Specific Plan goals and policies and the SCRPC lawsuit settlement agreement. You can become familiar with the history of the Plan, how it was created, and read the Penngrove Plan.

Read the Sonoma County Gazette article, Feb. 2022

The 1984 Penngrove Specific Plan

In the fall of 1970 development interests leaving Marin County came to Petaluma seeking less restrictive growth opportunities to continue building large scale tract housing. The Mayor of Petaluma, Helen Putnam and the City Council members adopted a controversial growth plan surrounding Petaluma with a green belt and limiting the amount of growth to 500 homes a year. The city was sued by the Construction Industry Association of Sonoma County. In a landmark action in 1976, the California Supreme Court declined to review an appellate court ruling that upheld the city's right to control growth.

During the 1970s Penngrove had many homes near the downtown area experiencing septic system failures. The homes were built on very small parcels without enough land for leech field expansion, so the State Dept. of Health was condemning the homes as uninhabitable. The City of Petaluma, in conjunction with the County, agreed to supply the downtown area of Penngrove with sewer service. However, Penngrove only had general land use and zoning requirements and restrictions. After the Petaluma lawsuit was settled the developers turned their sights on the recently sewered, and relatively unregulated, County area of Penngrove for more growth opportunities.

In 1978 Helen Putnam was elected as 2nd district county supervisor. Helen recognized Penngrove as a historic community that was relatively unprotected and vulnerable. She quickly moved to create a Specific Plan and, working with the community for over one year, a plan to regulate and administer the future land use, growth policies, and sewer services in Penngrove was created. In 1984 the Penngrove Specific Plan was adopted by the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors.

One of the biggest challenges facing Penngrove during the Specific Plan process was a controversial proposal in southern Rohnert Park for the 1982 Hewlett Packard Master Plan. The Master Plan E.I.R. identified traffic impacts and alternative routes to establish a traffic circulation commute service for 6,000 employees at the site. The widening of East and West Railroad Avenue to Hwy.101 was considered a feasible mitigation for the site. That route would relieve congestion in Penngrove and was the preferred mitigation in the E.I.R. 38 years ago in the 1984 Penngrove Specific Plan. (Fortunately, Hewlett Packard never grew to more than 1,000 employees so the roadway was never improved)

Sonoma County owes a great deal to Helen Putnam for her foresight, persistence and courage taking on the development interests in the 1970s. The Construction Industry Association of Sonoma County vs. City of Petaluma decision is historic and its legacy is still in effect allowing municipalities to control growth. Without that decision Petaluma and the Penngrove area would resemble the tract home urban sprawl in Daly City.

This article first appeared in Sonoma County Gazette in February 2021.

The Penngrove Specific Plan is included in the Rohnert Park General Plan settlement agreement, and County General Plan. Penngrove CARES is here to inform the community, educate, and advocate for the Plan and support the SCRPC Superior Court judgment settlement agreement.

Penngrove Area Plan (PDF)

In 1999, a CEQA EIR lawsuit was filed titled South County Resource Preservation Committee (SCRPC) and John E. King vs. City of Rohnert Park to challenge Rohnert Park's General Plan EIR analysis. The CEQA lawsuit challenged the inadequate General Plan EIR evaluation of groundwater, traffic, storm water run off, watershed boundary impacts, and jurisdictional planning boundary violations.

The SCRPC won a Superior Court Judgment (2002) which is in perpetuity and states: "City shall include a copy of this Judgment in any and every published edition of its General Plan." The Judgment includes requiring traffic impact mitigation projects to be implemented, as identified in the County General Plan Circulation Element Section 7.7, to address sub-regional traffic impacts in the Penngrove area. Rohnert Park's General Plan EIR projected adding *70,000 car trips a day along the Petaluma Hill Road corridor. NOTE: *( updated 2022 estimates now project Rohnert Park adding 100,000 car trips/day along the Petaluma Hill Road corridor.)

Judgment Summary

Several elements of the Judgment have been satisfied however due to the 10 year financial collapse the development of the Rohnert Park Specific Plans was delayed until 2018. On 11/15/21, a group of the SCRPC lawsuit plaintiffs sent a follow up letter to Rohnert Park to address concerns and status of the administration of the Rohnert Park General Plan TR-21A "Regional Mitigation Plan" policy projects as detailed in the Judgment and the County General Plan Circulation Element Section 7.7.

As of October 2022, there has been no response from the city of Rohnert Park. The Penngrove Area Plan Advisory Committee (PAPAC) and South County Resource Preservation Committee (SCRPC) members are meeting to consuder revisiting the discussion with Rohnert Park for the implementation of the County General Plan Circulation Element Section 7.7 sub-regional traffic mitigations for the Penngrove area.

The Stipulated Judgment required the City of Rohnert Park to make a good faith effort to work with the Penngrove Community … to develop regional traffic alternatives and regional solutions that protect the historic agricultural landscape and established neighborhoods, all as is set forward by General Plan Policies TR-21, TR21A, and TR 21B. While planning for and approving development within the City’s amended Sphere of Influence, the City (RP) will incorporate, to the extent feasible, measures to reduce the vehicle miles traveled per capita from residential to commercial uses within the development.“

RP GP Policy TR21 Follow up letter 11/15/21 (PDF)

Penngrove Cares is a non-partisan all-volunteer community group comprised of Penngrove and unincorporated Sonoma County residents.