Bottom-Up Shorts: How To Encourage Smart, Financially Strong Development
In today’s Bottom-Up Short, Norm is joined by Kevin McDonnell, the mayor of Petaluma, California, and Dave Alden, co-leader of Petaluma Urban Chat. Kevin and Dave discuss their Know Before You Grow initiative, a community-driven effort focused on smart, financially strong development. They share how this initiative has helped direct attention toward building housing in Petaluma’s downtown, where services already exist and infrastructure is more financially viable.
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Norm Van Eeden Petersman 0:06
Good afternoon, and welcome to bottom up shorts. This is norm with strong towns, and I'm so grateful that we have the opportunity to hear from strong towns members all over North America and actually in other parts of the world as well, that they're sharing their stories and telling a little bit more about what it took in order to begin to shift the conversations within the community around us. With us today are Dave and Kevin of Petaluma. And Kevin is the mayor of the city, and Dave is a long standing member of the Planning Commission, and together, they've been running Petaluma urban chat. And in that context, one of the amazing things that they've been able to do is really influence and guide many people to have a much more mature or deeper understanding of the core issues that are compelling within the community and the needs that have certainly arisen that need to be challenged and confronted at the local level. And so Kevin, would you introduce yourself and then Dave, maybe if you'd Introduce yourself as well? Sure.
Kevin McDonnell 1:04
Hi, Kevin McDonald, here. Um, been in Petaluma a long time. Raised all my kids here, and I've been involved in every kind of mischief kids will get you in, and at some point that gets you to have opinions on the big picture. And that's how I got involved in politics and how I got to be mayor.
Dave Alden 1:22
And just to be clear, I'm not on the planning commission. I think that would have been inconsistent with urban chat, but I've been in town for 25 years. Was always interested in better approaches to land use planning. Says I slid toward retirement. I began writing a blog on the topic. Some of my readers reached out and said, Let's meet face to face that was coming up on, 13 years ago, and from that initial meeting urban Chad group, and about five years into it, and there's a little strong towns connection here about five years into it, as part of a contract between the city of Santa Rosa and strong towns. Joe minicozzi came out here. He had a Tuesday evening off, so I hijacked him, got him down to Petaluma to give give his standard talk. And afterwards, a then Council candidate, Bill wolperts For for Kevin's benefit, said we got to do this more frequently. And that led to what became know, before you grow, which is our primary education arm, that Kevin was instrumental in getting going. So the
Kevin McDonnell 2:23
fun, the fun is with that Joe minicozzi visiting with City of Santa Rosa. The city is Santa Rosa, 180,000 people, and they have big resources, but they're not that nimble. And you come down to little old Petaluma at 50, 60,000 people, and we can jump up and a few people that are active can change the game in our town.
Norm Van Eeden Petersman 2:45
And what were some of the key components that I mean, not every community is able to bring in urban three and yet, I think that the threshold for doing so is actually lower than a lot of people assume it is. If there's a readiness in the community to have a conversation about the economic performance of a place, and to really probe those questions of, where do we assume that value lies in our community? In one place, I said your downtown is your money pot, not your money pit, really countering many of the narratives that a lot of people within the community held, Kevin for yourself as maybe now this especially influences your work as the mayor. What were some of those financial items that you were especially keen to sort of help people know before the community grew?
Kevin McDonnell 3:28
Well, an awful lot of my thought it is that housing, a good housing policy, is everything. I mean, housing policy is climate, it's education, it's health. Go down the list. If you don't have good housing policy and we're a sprawl community. We have a great downtown, but the sprawl is killing us. There's no way we could ever pave the streets. We have the worst streets rating in the nine Bay Area counties here. So you know, we knew we were in trouble, and we also knew we had a housing crisis. So the answer is, where do you put the housing so it, you know, isn't a liability, it's an asset, yeah, and you put it in your downtown where having people boost business, which boosts revenue. So we had to get through all mainly and anti growth, and now we built it so that the whole city council unanimously and most of the public will say we have a housing crisis. Sorting it out is a little tricky, but, but, but we, we have everybody on board that we need to do something about housing.
Norm Van Eeden Petersman 4:33
And I'll throw it to you, Dave, in a moment. But Kevin, do you find that many of the projects that are now being proposed for your community, are maybe more right sized to what the community needs and influenced by the fact that there is this healthy conversation about what our community wants, like a positive vision of what your community can be about, rather than, I think in California, is marked by, in some cases, these knock down, drag them out, battles between a private developer that wants to move a project forward. Because they need to in order to stay in business, versus a community that just is all over the map in terms of what they don't want, but really lacks that core understanding of what a good community consists of,
Kevin McDonnell 5:10
right? That's a great point. Whenever a proposal is made, it's shot at from every different side. You know, is there a water supply? Is there a traffic is there? But that lumens problem is that really no development is occurring. So we've only opened 100 doors a year for last eight years, and of that 2030, of them a year, 20 30% are affordable. And so, I mean, you'll subsidize government housing. So we're really having a hard time getting any developments over the finish line through entitlement, no finish line. And, and that's the story we have to tell when people complain about rents or house price or availability, it's because there is absolutely no new and when our schools are cratering and and they're having to close schools because there's no children in the community, these become demographic stories you can tell in public.
Norm Van Eeden Petersman 6:05
Yeah, and Dave, you have described yourself as retired, but you seem to be extremely active in so many other things. I'd love to hear more about the Petaluma urban chat and maybe that interface, as you mentioned at the outset, that by not being on the planning commission yourself, you maintain sort of healthy relationships in that way, and not sort of like create a closed door environment. But at the same time, it sounds like one of the things you're able to do is work with people like Kevin, work with many others to continue to boost the presence of this group that is helping you. Know, I love that, that language of know before you grow, or know as we grow, maybe I'm making a mess of it, but yeah, do you want to share a little bit more about what you've been doing and what maybe the other part that stands out is how long you've been at this, and the impressive sort of track record, with that
Dave Alden 6:51
impressive track record for longevity or accomplishment? No, I mean, we have, we have accomplished a lot. And every time I feel a little discouraged, Kevin tells me the conversation is different in town, because urban chat exists. And he's right. So we have made a difference. How we make a difference, to a large extent, is being nimble. I spend more hours a week than I should keeping urban chat going. My wife is in earshot here. She's nodding her head as I'm saying this. But a lot of so a lot of it becomes when I find a volunteer who wants to get involved, I am almost asked them, What do you want to do? Where would your passion be? As long as it falls within our mission statement, we can find a way to accommodate it and help you move ahead. So we don't always get to decide where our next mission is going to kind of go. It's where somebody will put effort into making it happen. Like I just had a really great conversation today that Kevin doesn't know about you, but I'll brief him
Kevin McDonnell 7:50
next week here. First, folks, don't let Dave undersell this. He's done so much to help get this off the ground and make it a known commodity in the community. It started with educations like, what is the general plan? That's a pretty dry forum to hold, what is the general plan. But then we have a follow up on that. Why we get the development we get. And Dave wrote a script that was all female cast, a little play, and one gal was the developer, one was the banker, one was the city permits, one was the public. Just brilliant ways of connecting with people and bringing people in. More recently, we've had preservation, repurposing, you know, for our historical buildings. You know, some of the topics are super sexy, and some of them, you know, less so land use, yeah, well,
Norm Van Eeden Petersman 8:42
and isn't that the case for many people that are newly elected to City Council or maybe run for mayor, and get elected as mayor with a large, expansive vision of what they want to do, and then they find that 90% of the discussions around zoning and land use, and for some that is very frustrating, if they were the Little League, you know, President and decided that their main focus was making our community more healthy and active. And they're like, but I'm always just talking about building setbacks and roof lines and things like that. And maybe that perhaps raises the question for you, first, Kevin, like, what? What inspired you to take the next step as a member of your city, a concerned citizen living within the community, to then actually step up and run for office?
Kevin McDonnell 9:22
Well, part of it was that my kids were growing up, and they really couldn't afford to live in this community. There was nothing being built here and no no way for them to stay viable. And on a personal level, I'd like to have my grandkids somewhat close, and that message resonated with everybody, and I could had a long history as a soccer guy in town, and so I'd knock on doors, and people would say, Oh, you're that soccer guy. And I had done a community bond, a ballpark bond before, so I knew how government work, and I've been involved, and it's just looking around, saying, who's going to help us get to a better place? And you know, I stepped up.
Norm Van Eeden Petersman 10:07
Yeah. And then Dave, you've taken a slightly different path. You're a strong downs member for many years now, you've been active and engaged in so many different ways. Share a little bit more about who you are, because one of the core elements of this podcast is always introducing people to kind of a whole collection of backgrounds and paths to really being passionate about these things.
Dave Alden 10:27
Well, in my profession, I was a civil engineer. Did that as a consultant for about 50 years. So 40 years, let's say, and in that profession, I gradually became uncomfortable with our land use patterns. Had a specific example where I had become aware of walkable urbanism, but only in a historic perspective. Went to historic Williamsburg and thought that was the coolest thing ever, and didn't really think it applied to our current world. But I was at the time. I was an engineer for a new project up in Bend Oregon. The Architect came forward with a walkable urbanism Town Center to this Golf Resort, and it sort of, geez, you really can do that stuff today. And that completely changed the way I viewed it. The planning director up there, who was on board with me, started loaning me some of her books on planning, which is one of the best things ever planning director has done for me. She's still my favorite planning director. And from there, I just became more and more engrossed in the topic. When strong towns came along, I quickly became a member. I belong to CNU. I, you know, just it's just become an avocation for me. And urban chats a way to take some of that knowledge I've gained and give it back to my community, you
Kevin McDonnell 11:41
know, there's a role outside of government, and often times Dave and I kid, he can get more done outside of government because he puts 100% of his time into these issues. And I've gotta go to a dog park or, you know, homeless conference, or things like this. There's so much that your city has to worry about that. It takes someone with some smarts locally, some vision locally,
Norm Van Eeden Petersman 12:07
and that knowledge transfer, that that sharing of of wisdom, I think, goes both ways, because I think a lot of strong towns advocates have realized that there's real value in sharing resources with city staff members or with city council members. I often recommend, if you're going to share an article, don't just be like, hey, busy person, go read this. Always like, highlight, like, one key paragraph and say, our city, city is grappling with this issue right now. I read this, and I actually think that this really speaks into the conversation we're having right now. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Let's grab a coffee. And it's amazing how many people actually respond to that. But also for city staff, the idea of sharing resources with people in your community in order to help them to be you know, that person on the outside taking both lanes, I think, is really valuable there. I always love to end because we like to keep these somewhat short, which is a real challenge for me personally, because I just want to keep the conversation, conversation going. But the thing that I love to ask is, what is it that gives you hope? Maybe Dave first and then Kevin. What gives you hope right now, as you look out at your community,
Dave Alden 13:08
we're having better conversations than we did 10 years ago. We are making some better decisions. We're talking about downtown parking management. Parking meters are part of a conversation that 20 years 20 years ago, you wouldn't have had that conversation. So, you know, we aren't there yet, but we're never there. Land use planning is always evolving, but we're having the right conversations in a way we didn't before urban chat existed.
Norm Van Eeden Petersman 13:33
Yeah, I love that, and that that is really the heart of why we call them local conversation groups. And we see, you know, now 264 all over North America with an international one almost. You know at the door, whether it's in Colombia, an ice cream parlor owner in Colombia that's trying to get a local conversation group going. There's another one in New Zealand, another one in Japan. We are actually having a little inner office pool as to where the first local conversation group outside of North America will be but our primary focus is like you, in the places where we have residents, concerned citizens that are keen to do this, the last word to you, then, Kevin, what? What's something that is hopeful for you, aside from your mayor, mayoral term,
Kevin McDonnell 14:14
right? Right? Well, no, I mean, I think we're at a moment where the environment and the economy conspire against us, and it's going to be very difficult to move anything forward in this economic environment and but what we have now is well educated people. What know, before you grow, what, what our strong towns look has done is it's brought people to the table, educated. So we're seeing people who show up at our meetings, getting on planning, getting on council and and being able to push back to the the ignorance of of traffic as the the burden and all the the others. And they're saying no, housing is the thing we need to do. We need to have. People, and so I see there being opportunity for housing in our future.
Norm Van Eeden Petersman 15:06
100% Yeah. And I think on the idea that, you know, we're in a tight situation right now, there's sort of that reality that help isn't coming in the way that maybe previous generations would have assumed that there would be, you know, large outlays of cash or things like that. But what it really underscores, then, is the necessity to do, you know, to borrow a sports analogy from baseball, like to play small ball, to make those really key incremental sort of steps actually be successful. And do many of them always getting on base, always sort of moving the needle that way. And the result is the cumulative benefit is far more than what we imagined when we first begin in this in this process. And so with that, thank you to both of you for participating in this episode of bottom up shorts. And for those that are listening, please go visit Petaluma. It is a place where some really exciting things are happening. We'll continue to keep you abreast of what is next within Petaluma, because it is part of the strong town story. Thank you to all that are for listening. Take care and take care of your places.
ADDITIONAL SHOW NOTES
Petaluma Urban Chat (site)
Norm Van Eeden Petersman (LinkedIn).
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