NORTH BAY DESTINATIONS | ROHNERT PARK
Willowglen Apartments, above, and Santa Alicia Gardens, right, are among the affordable housing stock in Rohnert Park.
“A diverse community is a vibrant community.” —Calum Weeks, Generation Housing
Such zoning is created by government ordinances that require or provide incentives to make a certain percentage of units in a new development affordable. “Rohnert Park has great inclusionary zoning code. Keeping it and strengthening it will continue to create more affordable housing. The City’s new Housing Element cycle also began last year. There are new programs that are just taking effect,” says Goetschius. Rohnert Park has room to move in other directions, like reforming impact fees. “The 2024 Generation Housing Action Plan proposes a right size impact fee policy that would incentivize deed-restricted affordable and affordable by design housing,” says Calum Weeks, policy director for Generation Housing. The organization is a Santa Rosa-based nonprofit focused on increasing the supply, affordability and diversity of homes throughout the North Bay. It is a concern for Sonoma County that cities other than Rohnert Park as well as unincorporated parts of the county have seen the pipeline of new housing projects slow down. This is in spite of the fact that cities and unincorporated areas updated their housing goals for the eight-year period from 2023 to 2031. “Additional action is needed to ensure we continue building a steady volume of housing that supports people from all walks of life. A diverse
community is a vibrant community,” says Weeks. HLT views education as key to helping new owners of affordable housing retain ownership. The organization currently provides pre-purchase support and education for applicants and prepares for the close of escrow. “(We) continue in that role while they are in their home, ensuring a successful homeownership experience,” says Goetschius. Having a spectrum of housing in certain areas may also encourage renters and owners of affordable housing to remain in the city where they currently live. Other cities and unincorporated areas of the North Bay could adopt Rohnert Park’s strategy for creating this type of spectrum. “[Establishing a spectrum of housing] is epitomized in the Willowglen development, which has housing from rentals to Housing Land Trust homeownership homes to a variety of market rate homes. We are also seeing this in other cities, where both the inclusionary units and market rate units are a variety of housing types, such as Makenna and Riverbend developments in Petaluma. In these developments, there are identical market rate units next to inclusionary units,” says Goetschius. g
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Rohnert Park 2025
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