No Peace in 'Build Baby Build' Santa Rosa

In a stunning reversal of Santa Rosa’s climate goals and a slap in the face to voluminous testimony of concern about public health and safety from the community-members and experts, the Santa Rosa City Council blithely reversed a unanimous and carefully crafted April 10 Planning Commission decision to deny the permits for a new gas station at 874 North Wright Road at the western edge of Santa Rosa (The intersection of Highway 12 and Fulton/Wright Roads).

Citing the need to be “business friendly” along with “offers,” “commitments,” and “promises” that were made to the developer, Santa Rosa Mayor Mark Stapp, Vice Mayor Eddie Alvarez, and councilmembers Dianna MacDonald, Jeff Okrepkie, and Natalie Rogers voted to overturn the Planning Commission and the community will. Only councilmembers Caroline Bañuelos and Victoria Fleming supported the Commission and the community.

The community’s will was robustly expressed with 30 people speaking up at the August 19 City Council meeting. Several
others were in the chambers and stood in solidarity when called on to show their support. Many more wrote letters-to-the-editor, emails, made phone calls, and gathered petitions. A coalition of over 20 Sonoma County organizations submitted a letter outlining specific, rule-breaking reasons why the proposed gas station plan is not in compliance
with long-standing zoning code rules,

General Plan elements, and Conditional Use Permit requirements. Evidently, as in Washington DC these days, and now in Santa Rosa, facts don’t matter. At least not to the Santa Rosa City Council. Here’s a brief summary of the project history so that readers might understand what appears to have happened in this case:

• Plans for a gas station at this location were first submitted by the local developer, Mangal Dhillon in 2006 (“MD” branded markets and gas stations – there are about a dozen located throughout Sonoma County). That plan was rejected by the Planning Commission in 2007;
• In 2013 MD came back with a scaled-down plan and it was approved, but MD never built the project and the permits expired;
• In 2017 the Tubbs fire hit and the climate “Age of Consequences” became real;
• In 2019 the Coalition Opposing New Gas Stations (CONGAS) filed an appeal of a Planning Commission subcommittee that voted to approve a paper buffer “lot-split” so that the gas station portion of the property was not immediately adjacent to property zoned for multi unit dwellings. The appeal was denied and the project proceeded;
• In 2020, Santa Rosa adopted a Climate Emergency Resolution committing itself to a transition away from fossil fuels;
• In 2022 Santa Rosa adopted its ordinance prohibiting the construction of new gas stations. It was agreed by CONGAS that the new gas station ban was a forward looking ban and that developers that had already been following the rules would be able to continue and succeed or fail in the permitting process. At that time there were two gas station proposals already “in-the-pipeline.” This project was one of them. CONGAS stopped the other one. It was made clear at the time that the exemptions from the ban did not mean that either of these projects were approved;
• In 2021 MD reapplied with the same project plan that was previously approved in 2013. Because it is a new application, it must receive new review and the 2013 approval does not guarantee a 2025 approval;
• When the project re-emerged in late 2024, CONGAS began its scrutiny and found numerous conflicts and rule violations and this was part of what led to the Planning. Commission’s unanimous denial of the Conditional Use Permit on April 10, 2025. The Planning Commission, which had nothing to do with any “promise,” to the developer, rightly found many instances of fact where the project is inconsistent with zoning, General Plan, and Conditional Use Permit rules about approvals of projects. What are some of these concerns, also expressed by the community?
• New information about the severity of health impacts of exposure to toxic compounds in gasoline like benzene, for which there is no known “safe” level of exposure and which has been found to be linked to childhood leukemia;
• New information about daily spills of gasoline and the contamination of drinking water wells from both surface runoff as well as leaking underground storage tanks;
• New information about “vapor intrusion.” Vapor intrusion is air toxics entering buildings via subsurface contaminated soil. The plan calls for a single room apartment to be built on top of the mini-mart on the gas station property
• New information about the rapidly increasing consequences of climate pollution including drought, extreme heat episodes, flooding, and mega-fires.

The August 19 Council vote was the very last stop in the administrative process for this project. There is no opportunity to appeal. The only options going forward are trying to swing some kind of deal or a lawsuit. Opponents of the project are evaluating their limited options.

For more about CONGAS see www.con-gas.org
Woody Hastings is Co-coordinator of the Coalition Opposing New Gas Stations.

Read the September Peace Press online

---

---