Had City Council members actually read and understood their own report, they might have discovered their pet project was probably going to ruin downtown Santa Rosa.
The document was the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) related to the downtown shopping mall proposed by Los Angeles developer Ernest W. Hahn. State law requires a study be prepared before construction begins on a major project like that and it mostly addresses the sort of issues you might expect - will the project create air pollution, harm water quality, overload power lines, etc. etc. etc. A 321-page draft version written by a San Mateo company was delivered to Santa Rosa a few days before Christmas 1973.
In the following thirty days anyone could comment on what was found (or not found) in the draft. Questions were directed to city staff, the project architect or others involved. Their replies appeared in the final EIR, which was released Oct. 1974. In any EIR that last volume is worth a close read because it almost always has more of the real lowdown about what's going on.
(Here's also a reminder that this is part of a broader series on Santa Rosa redevelopment: "YESTERDAY IS JUST AROUND THE CORNER," which includes an index covering everything on the topic going back to the 1960s. This is chapter eight of the series just about the downtown mall)
Critics jumped on the uneven quality of the EIR, but I'll preface that discussion by noting the consultants didn't make much of an effort to learn about Santa Rosa or the history of the project. Not one of the well-informed commenters listed in the sidebar were interviewed. Instead, the people they spoke to included a pharmacist best known for collecting old bottles; a driver's ed teacher; the two women who researched Carrillo family history and the guy who ran the Robert Ripley museum. As far as I can tell, none of the interviewees contributed information or expressed a public opinion about the mall and redevelopment project, either pro or con.
The rest of this article can be read at the SantaRosaHistory.com website. Because of recurring problems with the Blogger platform, I am no longer wasting my time formatting and posting complete articles here. I will continue to create stubs for the sake of continuity, but will be publishing full articles only at SantaRosaHistory.com. - Jeff Elliott
Labels: 1973, 1974, development, downtown, URA
In the spring of 1972 a couple of notable men came to Santa Rosa. Peanuts cartoonist Charles Schulz moved here from Sebastopol and Los Angeles developer Ernest Hahn entered "exclusive negotiations" with the city to build a downtown shopping center.
One fellow inspired powerful men to believe they could pull off an economic miracle for their town. The other invented a kid who tried to delude people into believing in magic pumpkins.
Since there are already plenty of webpages devoted to Peanuts, let's just keep talking about the mall that many feel wrecked Santa Rosa.
This chapter is about public opposition to constructing the mall, particularly the "Save the Cal" campaign to preserve the town's great Art Deco moviehouse on B street. (Here's also a reminder that this is part of a broader series on Santa Rosa redevelopment: "YESTERDAY IS JUST AROUND THE CORNER," which includes an index covering everything on the topic going back to the 1960s.)
Two years passed before there was any citizen pushback to building the mall. That may be surprising but as discussed earlier, there could be many reasons why people weren't upset at first about a third of the downtown core being wiped out (and about to be sold to a developer for a fraction of its market value). Some probably thought a big shopping mall would be a good thing - after all, that's what the Press Democrat and all the city leaders kept saying. Some probably didn't understand the scope of what was going to be built; Hahn's architects hadn't shown anyone drawings or models of what it might look like. And some were probably wary because Hugh Codding and his lawyer were loudly opposing the project with its giveaway land deal, and Hugh was never more of a polarizing figure than during those years.
The rest of this article can be read at the SantaRosaHistory.com website. Because of recurring problems with the Blogger platform, I am no longer wasting my time formatting and posting complete articles here. I will continue to create stubs for the sake of continuity, but will be publishing full articles only at SantaRosaHistory.com. - Jeff Elliott