traffic – Enviro Updates

Close to Home: Supervisors double down on ‘inebriation tourism’

November 2, 2025

Judith Olney, PRESS DEMOCRAT

Once again, the Board of Supervisors is ready to throw Sonoma County taxpayers under the proverbial bus — and then back over us.

On Oct. 28, the board will discuss a cannabis ordinance that would reduce permit fees for cannabis cultivation on properties of 10 acres or more with agricultural or rural resource zoning, with operations only 100 feet from neighboring residences. In addition, the ordinance would allow events with cannabis consumption and sales.

After lowering fees for cannabis growers, the county still must pay for infrastructure and other public services, which means increasing the burden on other taxpayers.

It was bad enough when the supervisors granted the cannabis industry significant tax breaks, leaving residential taxpayers and businesses to cover the shortfall in revenue. Now, contrary to state regulations, the proposed ordinance includes unmitigated rights to host cannabis events, even on parcels that don’t have permits for cannabis cultivation, which require safety measures and qualified on-site security personnel.

With up to 104 event days per venue, plus large-scale cannabis events under zoning permits, the cannabis industry is securing more rights than the wine industry.

Agriculture/Food System, Land Usecannabis, cannabis regulations, events, tourism impacts, traffic, Williamson Act

Sonoma County Supes endorse new cannabis industry regulations

October 29, 2025

Emma Murphy, PRESS DEMOCRAT

Sonoma County’s highly anticipated overhaul of its ordinance regulating the cannabis industry arrived this week before the Board of Supervisors, where debate raised and settled for now a thorny question — whether commercial cannabis farming should be governed as agriculture.

On Tuesday, a board majority endorsed that regulatory set up, over opposition from the region’s largest ag trade group, while also deciding on other rules governing commercial cannabis cultivation, sales and distribution outside city limits.

The changes advanced by the board include defining cannabis as a form of controlled agriculture and classifying it as a prime crop making farmers eligible for tax breaks on their enrolled cropland. Going forward, the rules also would include cannabis in the county’s Right to Farm Ordinance, which is intended to protect and promote agriculture by prioritizing it on agriculture-zoned land.

Tuesday’s discussion marked the culmination of the county’s multi-year effort to conduct an environmental review of its embattled cannabis regulations and subsequently revise rules after years of piecemeal tweaks failed to resolve a stalemate between the local industry and residents.

Agriculture/Food Systemcannabis industry, cannabis regulations, controlled agriculture, noise, odor, traffic

Local legacy vs. big business in quarry quarrel

March 25, 2025

Martyn Lees, NORTH BAY BOHEMIAN

Pointing at the houses dotted around an aerial photograph of his property, Jonathan Trappe, a Forestville quarry owner and operator, indicated how close his family’s homes are to the asphalt plant he hopes to build on the quarry site.

“My father lives there, my brother lives there, I live here and our kids swim in that pond,” he said. All are within about a half square mile. He was speaking in reference to the community pushback the plan had elicited that cited environmental and fire risk concerns.

The point was clear, but Trappe added it anyway: “Who has more incentive to make sure this plant is safe?”

Tucked into the sweeping bends of Pocket Canyon Highway just outside of Forestville reside two stone quarries that serve western Sonoma County’s construction industries, most crucially the road repair sector. The quarries sit on either side of that stretch of scenic Highway 116, and both are surrounded by protected waterways and wildlife.

Land Useair pollution, asphalt plant, Canyon Rick Quarry, Forestville, traffic

Cotati voters to have say on roundabouts — again

July 12, 2024

Amie Windsor, PRESS DEMOCRAT

Round and round they go: Cotati voters will have their say on roundabouts after a citizens’ initiative to repeal a citywide ban on the traffic configuration has gathered enough signatures to be placed on the November ballot.

A ban against the love-it-or-hate-it road junction has been in place since voters passed a measure in 2012 prohibiting the construction of roundabouts and traffic circles within city limits.

That original ban was also a voter-driven initiative after the council planned to install two roundabouts on Old Redwood Highway as part of a $3.5 million redesign of its downtown. The plan was part of a long-planned revitalization intended to maintain Cotati’s small-town feel, spur economic activity and make the highway safer for pedestrians and cyclists.

At the time, opponents said the traffic circles would jam traffic, cause accidents and stifle business along the half-mile corridor. Ultimately, they were never constructed.

Eris Weaver, one of three proponents for the repeal, said the original arguments against roundabouts were false.

“I don’t know why people lose their mind about roundabouts. I think it’s fear of the unknown, maybe,” Weaver, who serves as the executive director for the Sonoma County Bicycle Coalition, said.

Transportationroundabouts, traffic

Neighbors in rural Petaluma fight winery over tasting room proposal

June 27, 2024

Jennifer Sawhney, NORTH BAY BUSINESS JOURNAL

A neighborhood battle has quietly erupted west of Petaluma among the bucolic, rolling hills along Spring Hill Road. The cause? A local winery’s proposed tasting room.

Azari Winery’s owners have spent five years and more than $100,000 so far on the 2,800-square-foot tasting room, which they say is well-considered, safe for the area and perfectly legal.

But a group of over 30 neighbors has a different take, calling the winery’s new addition an “event center” and saying it could have harmful environmental and agricultural impacts on their rural neighborhood, and be an inroad to further development.

“You’re never going to tear a building down to put it back to farmland,” said Shelina Moreda, a fifth-generation dairy farmer who pointed to the loss of dairy farms as cause for concern. “Once these things come in and move in, you have forever lost that farmland — forever. The problem with it is that it’s not just one building, it’s the chain reaction that it affects.”

Some of these neighbors have had family in the area for over a century, while others arrived more recently for the calm setting. Evidence of their growing dispute with Azari Winery is already visible along the roadside, where they’ve posted red-orange signs reading, “No event center on Spring Hill Road.”

Land Useevent centers, traffic, wineries

Sonoma County releases draft environmental report for Sonoma Developmental Center

August 10, 2022

Phil Barber, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

A long-anticipated draft report released Wednesday calls for approximately 1,000 housing units — including 283 affordable units — to go along with 940 on-site jobs and a resident population of 2,400 at the site of the historic Sonoma Developmental Center near Glen Ellen.

Those numbers, which are in line with previous proposals, are bound to add fuel to the ongoing debate about how best to use a property that has been called a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity by neighbors and officials alike.

“I think 1,000 is too big, and 283 is too small,” said Tracy Salcedo, a longtime Sonoma Valley resident, writer and advocate for the former institution for the developmentally disabled. “And we are stuck in a conundrum where financial feasibility is dictating how we do right thing. The right thing should be to provide more affordable housing, and turn our creative energies toward that rather than inundating the north end of the valley for what’s essentially too few affordable units.”

Sonoma County’s land use planning and development agency released the draft Environmental Impact Report and accompanying Specific Plan on Wednesday.

Totaling more than 800 pages, the two reports constitute the first narrowly drawn proposal for redevelopment of the iconic 945-acre site, which was home to a state-run hospital for the developmentally disabled that was established in 1891 and closed in 2018.

Land Usedevelopment of open space, housing, Sonoma Developmental Center, traffic, wildlife corridor

Planning commission works on new rules for Sonoma County winery events

May 19, 2022

Bill Swindell, THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

The Sonoma County Planning Commission on Thursday made some progress to finish new rules to regulate winery events that have triggered disputes between neighborhood activists and the wine industry over past years.

The panel revisited the draft that it initially considered last June, and again in February, in its quest to find a balance between rural neighbors who have complained about traffic and noise among wine tourists, against the local industry that contends the need for visitors.

But after five hours of debate, commissioners said they realized they had more work to do and would reconvene June 7 in attempt to finish the proposal. The Board of Supervisors is slated to take up the proposal on Sept. 27.

The rules would apply to only new and modified event applications. There are more than 460 winery permits in Sonoma County and roughly 60% have visitor components, such as tasting rooms, according to county staff.

Agriculture/Food Systemevents ordinance, tourism impacts, traffic, wineries