05/25/2025
Hi, this is Heather, owner of the future Floodway Community Marketplace! Our lawsuit against the city of Petaluma for illegal takings in violation of our fifth amendment property rights is slowly moving forward and I remain very confident that we will prevail.
What happened to me and my family with this lot is unfortunately not a unique problem, but just one symptom of a much bigger problem in our city. Nick the Greek on the eastside waited two years for a simple use permit to take over an existing restaurant space while paying commercial rent the entire time. Stellina Pronto downtown waited three years for a simple use permit to fire up their wood fired pizza oven, forcing them to adjust their business model to survive the long delay. There are many more examples, but the bottom line is that small businesses like mine that don't generate big development revenues for the city's outsourced for-profit M-Group planners are considered a very low priority and treated poorly by our city government.
I submitted the below commentary to the Argus-Courier and Press Democrat papers to explain how the outsourced M-Group bent over backwards to help a hotel developer violate existing zoning laws while causing great harm to two other local small businesses and property owners. The city's ongoing unwillingness to hold the M-Group accountable and support small businesses - the backbone of our local economy - is inexcusable.
If you haven't already signed the petition in support of a voter referendum that will give our community a voice in the future of our historic downtown, I respectfully encourage you to do so. You can contact Petaluma Historic Advocates at [email protected] to find a signing location near you OR to request a volunteer come to you. You can also reach out directly to me here as I am one of the many volunteers collecting signatures.
Thank you for reading and for supporting all of our local small businesses! We can and should demand better from our city government.
Thanks,
Heather
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Why are we even considering an overlay (zoning amendment) in our historic downtown?
Over the years, great effort has been put into protecting and preserving our registered historic downtown, making Petaluma one of the best preserved and most unique historic downtowns in the region, if not the entire country. Petaluma's historic charm attracts residents and businesses and is critical to the tourism dollars that support our local economy. One example of such historic protections is to limit building heights to 45 feet and lot coverage to 80% via zoning laws.
When Ross Jones, owner of the tiny 0.33-acre lot located at 2 Petaluma Blvd S, and his hotel developer, EKN Development Group, approached the city with the idea of building a 72-foot tall / 6+ story hotel with 100% lot utilization, the city should have responded with a simple but firm "no". When the applicants explained they’d have to exceed height and lot utilization limits to make a profit, the city should have told them this is clearly not the right lot for a hotel and to come back with an idea that works within the existing zoning rules.
Instead, the city's outsourced for-profit M-Group planners offered to collaborate with the lot owner and hotel developer on an overlay (zoning amendment) that would allow them to violate the existing zoning laws. To accommodate this hotel, the outsourced M-Group suggested increasing the maximum building height from 45 feet to 75 feet and increasing lot utilization from 80% to 100%. This change allows for a huge, out of character, mass that will overshadow our historic downtown and forever harm its character.
The city council, staff, and M-Group consultants willing to risk our protected historic downtown for short-term profits have at the same time ignored existing buildings, property owners, and small businesses that are critical to our long-term economic success. They often point to the properties located at 101 4th Street (the old Fourth and Sea restaurant) and 310 D Street (the old Walnut Park Grill) as being "blighted" and claim that this overlay is somehow the solution.
What those same people fail to mention is that the city's outsourced M-Group has for years denied simple use permits to allow those properties to be used. Their excuse has been "insufficient parking", even though both lots have off-street parking, an absolute rarity downtown, that had been deemed sufficient in the past.
They also point to the chain link fences as blight, but neglect to mention that those unused properties (due to the denial of simple use permits) have been subject to vandalism, graffiti, and garbage dumping. The city responded to those crimes by citing the property owners. Yes, the victims of those crimes were cited and held responsible for the cleanup by the city. The obvious choice was to put up a fence to prevent further vandalism, dumping, and unwarranted fees. The "blight" these city folks continue to point out was in fact caused by the city and their outsourced M-Group.
It's not a coincidence that the Fourth and Sea and Walnut Grill lots sit within the overlay. The city and M-Group could have easily worked with these property owners over the years to prevent blight and support local business. There simply isn't enough profit in that approach and those lots are much more valuable to the city and M-Group if those property owners are forced to sell to a developer.
Whether you support the idea of a new hotel or not, it's important that we all understand why we are even having this conversation in the first place.
Heather Kratt
Petalumans for Accountability
