We need community impact reporting

Petaluma is as famous for its innovative spirit as it is for its charm. In 1975, Petaluma residents made history as the first city in the country to affirm our right to manage growth through the Environmental Design Plan, a challenge we took all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. And in 1998 residents voted to establish our urban growth boundary to reduce sprawl and create infill development.

A coalition of various concerned groups is advocating for a CIR ordinance. Peta-luma Community Coalition — composed of Living Wage Coalition, Sonoma County Conservation Action, Acc-ountable Development Coali-tion, North Bay Labor Council, Petaluma Indep-endent Business Alliance, New Economy Working Solutions, Petaluma Neighborhood Association, Peta-luma Tomorrow, Conservation Action Fund for Educ-ation, Petaluma Federation of Teachers and students from Casa Grande and Petaluma High — support adoption of a CIR. This coalition is not anti-development. The mutual goals of these groups include living-wage jobs, safe, pedestrian-friendly communities, responsible development, and a vibrant local economy.

With a CIR, policy-makers can generate sound decisions on proposed commercial development projects. The CIR functions as a corollary to the EIR (environmental impact report) by factoring in the hidden costs: impacts on small businesses, public health and safety, welfare services, job quality, and affordable housing. The proposed ordinance being presented to the City Council is similar to a recent state law passed in Maine, the Informed Growth Act.

CIRs provide a non-biased publicly reviewed cost-benefit analysis, enabling the public and our elected council to make informed land-use decisions, and establish crucial criteria for prioritization of projects. This is essential to evaluating the 1.5 million square feet of new retail projects currently waiting processing. A CIR would occur after a community scoping meeting, and be triggered based on project size. The report is not costly or time-consuming — and in fact could expedite a project by initiating a public dialogue at the application, thereby reducing impacts to the community, avoiding backlash and lawsuits that stop or significantly delay projects, reducing costs to the city, the community and the developers.

CIR-type ordinances have been implemented successfully in many cities including Benicia, Calif.; Albuquerque, N.M.; and Carbondale, Colo. Simply put, CIRs are good public policy; they allow our council, our chamber, developers and the public to look at the economic and lifestyle effects of any large-scale developments so that we, the residents and businesses of Petaluma, will be well informed before decisions are set in stone.

In 2006, Petaluma was rated No. 1 out of 101 Bay Area cities by Greenbelt Alliance, based on our smart growth policies. The Office of the State Attorney General also commended Petaluma’s commitment to adopt goals of the climate protection campaign: reducing greenhouse gases 25 percent below 1990 levels by 2015. To reach our goals and keep our commitments, we need to apply new development and economic standards for responsible land use and planning. The CIR will help us get there.

If we are to develop a truly durable, green local economy and maintain our small-town charm, we need significant greenhouse gas reductions through transit-oriented green building within our UGB, clean air and water conservation initiatives, and green jobs for the emerging energy-independent green economy — and we must do it in a responsible way that supports our local businesses. The CIR offers that informed, responsible decision-making tool. A public CIR presentation to City Council takes place at 7 p.m. Monday, Jan. 28 at City Hall. I urge you to attend this important presentation.

(Tiffany Renee chairs the city’s Technology and Telecommunications Advisory Committee, is vice-chair of the Sonoma County Commission on the Status of Women and is a fellow of the Leadership Institute for Ecology and the Economy.)