Half of Santa Rosa is missing
How 47% of the Bay Area's 5th largest city became car infrastructure
Santa Rosa is the Bay Area’s 5th largest city, the seat of Sonoma County, and an internationally recognized Mecca for wine and craft beer. Yet from a land use perspective, downtown Santa Rosa is mostly a place to transport and store cars. Nearly half (47%) of downtown Santa Rosa’s total surface area is just car infrastructure, counted as highways, streets, and parking. Santa Rosa’s existing car infrastructure came at the expense of about a third of its pre-car-era downtown and left behind a much less vibrant and sustainable city as a result. As the city works to update its general plan, it has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to build a better future—by looking to its past.
Like most towns in California, Santa Rosa was established in the late 19th century prior to widespread car ownership. A modern-day time traveler to historic Santa Rosa would notice wider sidewalks, narrower streets, more buildings, and likely more people despite an overall much smaller population since virtually all commerce was conducted downtown. The advent of cars allowed people to live in larger homes farther from their jobs and markets, but it also made them dependent on cars for transport. Cars require a lot of space, not just to move, but to store while we shop, and most pre-car era downtowns had very little space for parking. As a result, farms and ranches on what was then the edge of town were developed into new residential and commercial spaces—motels, fast food, strip malls, and big box retail—with sprawling parking lots to accommodate car-dependent workers and consumers. Downtowns across the U.S. fell into disrepair, and sought to compete by creating space for cars at the expense of walkability. Sidewalks were narrowed to make room for on-street parking, and homes and businesses were demolished to make space for parking lots. By destroying homes, cities were also eliminating the local customer and employee base, which made downtowns even more dependent on cars, which led to even more demolitions and more car infrastructure. The destruction within cities like Boston, Philadelphia, Cincinnati to make room for car infrastructure was comparable to that in some European cities during the second World War.
Santa Rosa was similarly transformed. Fifty-one housing units, a pool hall, and a hotel were demolished to build highway 101 through downtown; eighteen storefronts were demolished to make room for the parking lot at 5th and B Street; the parking lot at 6th and B Street demolished four homes and a church; the parking lot at 3rd and E Street was once two storefronts and 16 homes; a small Chinatown on was demolished to build a parking garage on D Street. Slowly but surely, commerce shifted away from downtown into car centric developments like Montgomery Village (1950), Coddingtown Mall (1962), and Stony Point Plaza (1980). Even when commerce did expand downtown, as it did with the opening of Santa Rosa Plaza (1983), not enough people lived downtown to support it so parking infrastructure had to be built to accommodate shoppers and workers living far away. The resulting Santa Rosa Plaza parking garage occupies the space of nine football fields and is almost certainly the largest building in Sonoma County, even larger than the mall itself. Where it stands was once home to 71 homes and 23 storefronts.
Today, 47 percent of all land in Railroad Square and Courthouse Square, the center of Santa Rosa’s Downtown Planning Area, is just car infrastructure. That’s more than all businesses, sidewalks, public squares, parks, housing, and rail combined. Parking consumes 25 percent of the surface area of downtown, more than all housing and pedestrian space combined and up from basically zero in 1900. Highway 101—although perhaps the single most obvious piece of car infrastructure downtown—takes up about five percent. Streets take up about 17 percent and are entirely devoted to cars on account of the complete absence of dedicated transit lanes or class IV protected bike lanes.
Importantly, virtually all of the land currently used for parking required the demolition of a previous building—almost none was developed on open space. Using fire insurance maps from 1900 and 1950, we can see with extraordinary detail what Santa Rosa sacrificed to accommodate cars. Santa Rosa’s parking lots and garages were once home to 73 commercial storefronts, including furniture shops, printers, banks, offices, and another hotel; nine restaurants, a theatre, and a bowling alley; six churches, and the aforementioned Chinatown. Perhaps most of all, parking cost Santa Rosa homes. Sixty-three percent of the land currently used to park cars in downtown lots and garages was once housing—249 units in all.
Does Santa Rosa need all that parking? According to a parking conditions report commissioned by the city just prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, “approximately 4,936 public and private spaces [over half!] were unoccupied in Downtown Santa Rosa during design day parking conditions.” The report led city staff to recommend placing the dilapidated, 60-year-old 3rd street parking garage on the market for development into housing rather than invest $3 million repairing a garage that makes up less than 5 percent of all parking in a city with a huge parking surplus. Converting the third street garage is precisely the type of development the city has embraced since the Tubbs Fire destroyed 3,000 homes on the city’s northern edge and essentially squashed further development into the city’s highly flammable urban-wildland interface.
Yet the City Council recently walked back plans to develop the 3rd Street Garage following opposition from, ironically, a downtown business group (sign this petition urging the City Council to move forward with converting the 3rd Street Garage into affordable housing). Their trepidation is understandable; Santa Rosa’s downtown businesses have been dependent on people driving in from elsewhere for the past half-century. They should reconsider. There is tremendous opportunity in restoring Santa Rosa to the walkable, affordable, pedestrian friendly city it was when Luther Burbank described as “the chosen spot of all this earth”. New developments, including the Pullman Lofts on Wilson Street, Santa Rosa Station at 6th Street, and 888 Fourth Street, will add hundreds of residents downtown with thousands more on the way. The city is required by state law to build nearly 5,000 housing units over the next seven years, the majority of which will be built near downtown. Cars will make up an increasingly small share of all trips to downtown businesses while walking and biking will take an increasingly large share. This is the future downtown businesses should be trying to accommodate, here’s why:
Replacing car infrastructure with pedestrian infrastructure is more profitable as it creates a more pleasant vibe where people want to spend more of their time and money. Downtown Santa Rosa needs this transformation to compete with regional rivals like Napa and Healdsburg.
More housing downtown means more preserved open space, which fuels tourism and boosts quality of life.
More housing downtown means more potential workers. These workers won’t need to drive to work, freeing up more parking for customers.
More housing downtown means more potential customers. These customers won’t need to drive to downtown, freeing up more parking for those who do.
More housing downtown is good for sustainability. Cars and trucks are the single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in California. According to the California Air Resources Control Board, even with the projected maximum uptake of electric vehicles, Californians must drive 25% fewer miles if we’re going to have a shot at meeting our 2030 carbon emissions reductions goals. People living in the types of medium density housing projects being built and proposed downtown drive less often, have a smaller carbon footprint, and consume less water.
More housing downtown preserves open space, which benefits tourism, quality of life, and avoids increasing the city’s wildfire risks.
Increased public safety. According to the Santa Rosa police department, cars killed 55 people and injured 8,698 people since 2012. Nearly half of these deaths were pedestrians (25) and bicyclists (2). Better bike and pedestrian infrastructure will create a more pleasant and safer city.
Cost of living: Car ownership costs roughly $5,508 annually in California. That’s a big tax on families that either don’t want cars, or do but don’t want to drive them as often. Not surprisingly, census data clearly shows that poorer households are far more dependent on cycling and walking to get to work than wealthier households. More housing downtown will create opportunities for these and other households to save a lot of money they’d otherwise have to spend on cars.
Affordability (housing/homelessness): Expensive rental markets are the best predictor of high rates of homelessness in the U.S. According to California’s non-partisan Legislative Analyst Office, California’s high housing costs are the result of in sufficient supply of housing. More housing downtown will help alleviate Santa Rosa’s shortage of affordable units.
You can help by signing and sharing this petition urging the City Council to move forward with staff recommendation to transition the 3rd Street Garage into affordable housing.