Open Space Transferred to Parks

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Nearly a decade after the Sonoma Developmental Center campus was permanently closed, its surrounding open spaces have been transferred into permanent protection! The state has come through on its promise to protect the natural, wild, healthy habitats by transferring 650 acres to California State Parks, expanding Jack London State Historic Park to more than 2,200 acres.

Preserving this land protects a crucial wildlife corridor between the Mayacamas Mountains and Sonoma Mountain, ensuring the safe movement of apex predators, including mountain lions, foxes, coyotes, and badgers. The transfer also means increased opportunities for recreation and dramatically improved fire safety for the region.

In anticipation of this event, we have secured funding earmarked for trail alignment and improvement, mapping and access upgrades, wildlife studies, and habitat restoration, and we have been waiting for this moment to partner with State Parks and Jack London State Park Partners to make it happen. We are thrilled to see this day finally come!

Read the full article: https://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/news/large-chunk-of-sonoma-developmental-center-land-to-be-transferred-to-state/

Sonoma County Launches Second Environmental Review Process for SDC Campus Development: How to Stay Informed and Engaged

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July 8, 2025. After various approvals today by the Board of Supervisors, Sonoma County is poised to launch a second round of public hearings and regulatory review under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) for a proposal to redevelop the shuttered campus of the state-owned Sonoma Developmental Center (SDC) property.  The last attempt by the County to approve a Specific Plan for SDC development in December 2022 was subsequently voided by an October 2024 Superior Court ruling (SCALE v. The County of Sonoma). The Court ordered the Board of Supervisors to de-certify all land-use approvals for SDC and prohibited “approval of any entitlements” based on the Specific Plan and discredited Environmental Impact Report (EIR).

The application under consideration by the County this time around was submitted by a consortium of developers in August 2023 (Keith Rogal and Grupe Homes via “Eldridge Renewal LLC”) in cooperation with the California Department of General Services (DGS) who still own and manage the SDC property. Promises of early community engagement were never realized as Rogal-Grupe filed a surprise “builder’s remedy” application that far exceeds the 630 homes contemplated in the 2022 Specific Plan. According to the Permit Sonoma “SDC Housing Development Project” website, the Rogal-Grupe proposal for a Major Subdivision, Design Review, and Density Bonus includes:

  • 990 residential units ranging from 500-3,200 sf with 200 “affordable to lower income households.”
  • 130,000 square feet of commercial uses, including office, retail, research and development, micro-manufacturing and other uses
  • A 150- room hotel (approximately 120,000 square feet in total) with a parking structure

Sonoma Land Trust (SLT), many of our local partners, and hundreds of individuals provided extensive public comment on the SDC Specific Plan EIR from 2020-2022. These comments formed the basis of the public record that Judge DeMeo relied on in the SCALE case to overturn the County’s approval of the Plan. The main concern for SLT and many in the community has always been the same: how much housing and associated development is reasonable at SDC while fulfilling the Specific Plan’s Vision and Guiding Principle to “Promote a sustainable, climate-resilient community surrounded by preserved open space and parkland that protects natural resources, fosters environmental stewardship, and maintains and enhances the permeability of the Sonoma Valley Wildlife Corridor for safe wildlife movement throughout the site [and] supports the responsible use of open space as a recreation resource for the community.

Coupled with the procedural and substantive advantages of the “builder’s remedy” application, the much larger development footprint proposed by Eldridge Renewal LLC creates a more difficult path for meaningful public participation and engagement. Here are next steps in the County’s review process for 2025-2026:

Notice of Preparation

Permit Sonoma will publish a Notice of Preparation (NOP) for responsible agencies and interested parties to provide comments on what should be included in the Draft Environmental Impact Report for the project.  The NOP is scheduled for August 15, 2025 which describes the project that will be analyzed in the EIR and identifies areas of probable environmental effects. Sonoma Land Trust will be filing comments in response to the NOP which we will post on the transformsdc.com site along with suggestions for public comments.

Scoping Period and Public Meeting

The scoping period for the NOP is 30 days, and sometime during this period the County will hold a scoping meeting “to provide an additional opportunity for agency staff and interested members of the public to submit comments, either written or verbal, on the scope of the environmental issues to be addressed in the EIR”. The tentative date for the scoping meeting is September 11, 2025, and we will post confirmation and more information when the date is finalized.

Release of Draft Environmental Impact Report

Once the consultant preparing the EIR (Dyett & Bhatia) have completed all necessary studies and received input and direction from local, state and federal regulatory agencies through the NOP process, the County will release the Draft EIR. Dyett & Bhatia’s scope of work indicates the Draft will be released on January 5, 2026 with public comment through February 19, 2026. The “builder’s remedy” statute limits the County to only five public hearings/workshops in total, so this will be a very truncated process with a Planning Commission and Sonoma Valley Citizen’s Advisory Committee hearing set for February 4, 2026.

Consideration of Final EIR and Revised Specific Plan

Once all public comments have been reviewed and responded to, the Final EIR will be released on April 29, 2026. The Planning Commission will consider approval on May 21, 2026 with the final vote by the Board of Supervisors scheduled for June 9, 2026.

Sonoma Land Trust will use this blog, our e-news and website, and public workshops later this fall to make sure that everyone has the information you need to submit effective and compelling comments and testimony through the CEQA process.

Coalition Unites Around SDC Conservation Priorities and Wildlife Corridor Study

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August 26, 2024

With large-scale housing and resort hotel development proposed for the campus of the Sonoma Developmental Center (SDC) and a new regional headquarters for CAL FIRE in the planning stages, the 900-acre property is facing unprecedented threats to the integrity of a regionally important wildlife corridor and the abundant water resources of the Sonoma Creek watershed. In response, a coalition of NGO’s including the Sonoma Land Trust, Jack London Park Partners, Sonoma Ecology Center, and Audubon Canyon Ranch, have united to design and fund a comprehensive studyto develop recommendations for the conservation and enhancement of the irreplaceable natural resources of SDC.

As part of the final state budget approved in June 2024, the Legislature appropriated $200,000 in funding through the Wildlife Conservation Board (WCB) to contribute to a study analyzing “the impacts on wildlife and habitat from the redevelopment plans for the core campus submitted to Sonoma County, the proposed siting of a new regional headquarters and fire station for CAL FIRE, and addition of portions of the property to Jack London State Historic Park.” 

Sonoma Land Trust (SLT) is in the process of submitting a grant proposal to WCB to secure these funds and will match the investment to employ the leading scientists and experts to focus on three areas of research and recommendations: 

  1. Developing a baseline of current habitat conditions and wildlife use of the property
  2. Designation of areas most appropriate for limited development and public use to protect sensitive wildlife habitat
  3. Design guidelines that recommend avoidance, minimization, and mitigation measures for any known development plans for the property.

There are serious concerns that the various development proposals for the Sonoma Developmental Center (SDC) will lead to several negative environmental and community impacts, including increased fire risk, thousands of additional cars on already congested roads, water quality degradation, and the permanent loss of the rural and agricultural character of the Sonoma Valley. The recent Superior Court decision in the case of SCALE v. County of Sonoma highlights these issues. The Court found that the SDC Specific Plan included “toothless and vague” mitigation measures for environmental impacts and “did nothing more than set forth hopeful intentions and vague statements…with no definition of what any of this means.” The SDC Specific Plan was approved in December 2022, so the CAL FIRE regional headquarters project was not considered in the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) or planning documents.. 

It is unclear if or when Sonoma County will revise the SDC Specific Plan to comply with the Superior Court’s ruling that overturned the plan and its Environmental Impact Report (EIR). For Sonoma Land Trust and our partners, protecting the wildlife and habitat resources of SDC has always been the top priority for the property’s future use. Instead of waiting for the state or county to develop a meaningful conservation strategy, the community will be prepared this time with focused, science-based recommendations. These recommendations will guide any future development while ensuring that the wildlife corridor, water resources, and open spaces are not ignored or discounted.

CAL FIRE proposes new Regional Headquarters on SDC Open Space Lands

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August 22, 2024

In early 2024, a surprise proposal to build a new regional headquarters for CAL FIRE on a portion of the Sonoma Developmental Center (SDC) property was included in Governor Newsom’s FY 2024-2025 Draft Budget. In December 2023, the land in question—about 52 acres along the eastern part of SDC’s open space—was transferred from the Department of General Services (DGS) to CAL FIRE through a ‘transfer of jurisdiction’ that was not previously disclosed to the public or Sonoma County officials. This land was originally intended to be added to Jack London State Historic Park. 

According to CAL FIRE’s Budget Change Proposal, the area will be the site of a new Sonoma-Lake-Napa Unit Headquarters and relocated Glen Ellen Fire Station. The project includes the acquisition of property, design, and construction of a new administration building, an Emergency Command Center (ECC) building, an auto shop, a service center, a training building, Captains Barracks, a training tower, a communications tower, a fire pump test pit, a generator/pump and storage building, a self-contained breathing apparatus recharge building, and a radio vault/repair building. Total project costs are estimated at $152,392,000, including a performance criteria phase ($7,619,000) and a design-build phase ($144,773,000). The performance criteria phase is estimated to run from Summer 2024-Summer 2026, and the design-build will be completed by June 2029.

After reviewing the budget proposal, Sonoma Land Trust worked with our lobbyist and legislative staff to create a new statutory requirement that CAL FIRE include protections for the wildlife corridor and natural resources in the performance criteria phase of the project. Specifically, CAL FIRE must ensure that:

“the design, siting, acquisition, planning, and construction of the facilities and related infrastructure conserve and protect to the greatest extent feasible the habitat, open space, and wildlife resources of the area within the former Sonoma Developmental Center property that is designated as a Habitat Connectivity Corridor and Community Separator in the Sonoma County General Plan. The design and location of the facilities and related infrastructure including, but not limited to, the placement of the facilities, lighting, and fencing, shall avoid and minimize impacts to the habitat connectivity corridor to the greatest extent feasible.”

Sonoma Land Trust will be meeting with CAL FIRE, the California Natural Resources Agency, and other interested parties throughout the fall to ensure that these statutory requirements are included in the performance criteria for this newly planned facility. It remains to be seen how the cumulative impacts from the campus redevelopment proposal and CalFire headquarters will be analyzed to ensure that environmental review is not done in a piecemeal fashion. It is also critical that the performance criteria ensure the protection and compatible use of the adjacent recreational and open space resources of Jack London State Historic Park and Sonoma Valley Regional Park.

Redevelopment Proposal for SDC Campus in Legal Limbo

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August 22, 2024

The developers chosen by the State of California to purchase the 180-acre Sonoma Developmental Center (SDC) campus faced a major legal challenge earlier this year. The Sonoma County Superior Court ruled in SCALE vs. The County of Sonoma that the Board of Supervisors violated the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) when they approved the SDC Specific Plan in December 2022. In a sweeping ruling overturning the Specific Plan and associated Environmental Impact Report (EIR), Judge Bradford DeMeo found that the “purported mitigation measures in the Plan are, as a whole, ineffective, vague, and devoid of any semblance of performance standards in violation of CEQA.”

As reported in the April 2023 Transform SDC article, the California Department of General Services chose Keith Rogal and Grupe Homes as the “selected buyer” for the redevelopment of the SDC campus. Promises of early community engagement were never realized as Rogal/Grupe filed a surprise application with Sonoma County in August 2023 that proposed a housing, hotel, and mixed-use development that far exceeded the 630 homes contemplated in the Specific Plan. As reported in an August 23, 2023 article in the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat article, the developers used a “newish interpretation of California law (SB 330) that allows developers to skirt local zoning ordinances and specific plans when a local jurisdiction doesn’t have a state-approved housing element” to propose over 930 homes for the environmentally-sensitive SDC site. 

 As Supervisor Susan Gorin said in the article, “I was absolutely blindsided, and Permit Sonoma was as well,” referring to the county’s planning and building agency. “It came in at the very last minute. I felt comfortable about Keith Rogal and Grupe, and how they were engaging the community. And this came out of nowhere.”  Keith Rogal promised that “Six months from now, we will submit a full planning application that will have a lot more detail,” he said. “Along the way, starting very soon, we want to be getting lots of input and feedback, and we expect to improve and refine what we’re doing.”

The full application was submitted by Rogal/Grupe to Permit Sonoma in February 2024 with none of the promised public input, dialogue or refinements. In March, Permit Sonoma found the submittal incomplete with disagreements over the number of affordable units proposed, the placement of a hotel in the northwest corner of the campus along the wildlife corridor, the overreliance on single-family detached dwellings, and underutilization of housing types for middle-class buyers. Under the name ‘Eldridge Renewal,’ the developers resubmitted the application in June with an even higher housing count of over 960 homes, only to have it rejected again a month later as incomplete. The County found numerous shortcomings in the application, including a lack of sufficient detail on the placement and architectural design of the homes, no open space framework, not enough information on water supply and wastewater treatment, and numerous other deficiencies. Rogal/Grupe have 90 days to resubmit the application for a third round of review. 

What does the April 2024 Superior Court ruling mean for the future redevelopment of SDC? Without an approved Specific Plan for the property, the developers have no underlying authority or Programmatic EIR to rely upon to determine what level of development is permitted, and what mitigation may be required to reduce significant environmental impacts. Even though the court overturned the Specific Plan, Rogal/Grupe can still legally proceed with their application for just the campus development. This will require a very detailed Project EIR, which will have none of the procedural advantages of using the Specific Plan as a reference point. Because the application falls under the auspices of SB 330, which streamlines approval for development to address California’s critical housing shortage, Permit Sonoma explained that while public hearings will be required before the project is reviewed, “there can be a maximum of five for a project like this, so none are being scheduled until the application is complete.”

As we await Judge DeMeo’s final published ruling, it remains to be seen when or if the Rogal/Grupe development proposal will be able to meet Permit Sonoma’s application completeness requirements.

DGS has made their decision

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In an announcement made today by the California Department of General Services, the Rogal & Partners proposal was selected. See notice below:

NOTICE OF SELECTION 

[Request for Proposal No. AMB 2022-05-17] 

In accordance with Request for Proposal No. AMB 2022-05-17 (the “RFP”), while reserving all rights reserved in the RFP, the State is hereby providing notice of the selection of The Grupe Company and Rogal & Partners as the Selected Buyer for the developed portion of the campus. 

If you have any questions, please contact DGS, Asset Management Branch, Attention: Branch Chief, MS-501, 707 3rd Street, West Sacramento, CA 95605. 

Dec 16 Board of Supervisors Meeting Update

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The December 16, 2022, Board of Supervisors meeting was an important milestone in the future of the Sonoma Developmental Center with some wins for nature including expanded boundaries and wider integration of wildlife permeability throughout the campus.

However, much uncertainty remains due to the fact the EIR is still so broad, and the future site developer (which the State will select next year), has a great deal of latitude to make choices that will greatly impact Sonoma Valley, one way or another. 

We applaud Supervisors Gorin and Coursey for their thoughtful engagement in this process. Balancing the different perspectives associated with this project is no easy task, and we appreciate their efforts to keep the ecological issues at the same level of importance as the other factors considered in the discussion.

We look forward to partnering with them further when the developer is selected so that ongoing concerns can be addressed in the subsequent Development Agreement. To learn more about what’s at stake, and our involvement, please see our Q&A sheet that attempts to answers the common questions circulating around this phase of the process.

We are grateful for the opportunity to be a voice for nature and will continue to stay engaged each step of the way. 

Eamon O’Byrne
Executive Director
Sonoma Land Trust

Sept 8 Webinar Follow-up

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Dear SDC workshop participants, 

Thank you for registering for the September 8 workshop on the SDC draft EIR and specific plan. If you missed it, please take the time to view the recording here. To learn more, please also visit www.transformsdc.com where we will be posting the presentation slides of the “Tips for Reviewing the Sonoma Developmental Center Specific Plan and Environmental Document” in the next few days. Remember to make your comments personal and from your own impressions and personal experience. 

As Sonoma Land Trust prepares our public comments for the upcoming Planning Commission hearing on September 15,  we will be focusing on how incompatible levels of development and new roads pose serious risks to the integrity of the Sonoma Valley Wildlife Corridor. Roads and wildlife corridors don’t mix well, and insufficient buffers between new housing and commercial uses on the campus and the corridor itself threaten to eliminate an already narrow “pinch point” for wildlife movement.  

 
If you are looking for more information about SDC planning, sale, and open space transfers, here are some important links: 

·         California Department of General Services- SDC Surplus property RFP 

·         Council of Infill Builders:  www.councilofinfillbuilders.org 

·         Sonoma County Specific Plan website:  https://www.sdcspecificplan.com 

Please also remember that there is a parallel process underway for a long-held community goal of transferring the 750+ acres of SDC open space lands into state and county park ownership. To learn more about how this can happen, please review the SDC Land and Water Protection Proposal on our website. 

Keep an eye out for further communications from Sonoma Land Trust with future action items before the September 26 comment deadline on the Draft Specific Plan and EIR. 

Thank you, 

John McCaull 
Land Acquisition Director
Sonoma Land Trust

Free Webinar Sept 8

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Please join Sonoma Land Trust and their partners in a free webinar that will help you understand the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) and the County Specific Plan.

Public comments can be made at the September 15 Planning Commission meeting or via email or mail by September 26. We will discuss what you need to know to make your voice heard.

Understanding the Sonoma Developmental Center (SDC) Specific Plan and Draft Environmental Impact Report (EIR)

Zoom Webinar Online

Thursday, September 8, 6:30-8pm

Register HERE