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Greenbelt Alliance In the News

July 17, 2005

Cloverdale grows up

Fastest-growing city in Sonoma County moving away from farm-town roots

The panorama framed by wooded hills and the Russian River takes in an upscale retirement community, Furber's subdivision of about 325 homes and 90 condominiums and in the distance, his shopping center and even more homes under construction.

"It's more of a city now than it ever was," said Furber, surveying the newest subdivision outside his driveway gate, with its gilded letter F. "I'm pleased to see it. We're pleased the way things are going."

Cloverdale, once Sonoma County's rural outpost, is fast becoming the latest bedroom community along the Highway 101 corridor as families move ever farther north in search of homes they can afford in towns that are less crowded.

A little more than a decade ago, Cloverdale was a farm town with a main street bookended by the Owl Cafe and a Foster's Freeze, a social calendar marked by the annual Citrus Fair and a new freeway that made it the town that almost everyone drove past.

Today, Cloverdale is an extension of the county's suburban way of life. It grew 67 percent from 1990 to 2005 -- the fastest rate in a slow-growth county -- topping out at about 8,200 people.

It has the lowest home prices in the county -- but also prices that are rising faster than any other city except Healdsburg.

And it has gained an upscale retirement community of more than 500 residents, a refurbished main street that is starting to sport trendy restaurants, an art fair and a summertime music series at the town plaza.

The changes are causing political tension between new residents opposed to growth and development interests that want to put Cloverdale on the regional map by building a major golf course clustered with homes and two Indian gaming casinos.

Amid it all is a clamor to create more jobs.

"The city is trying desperately to get new business here," Furber said. "But it's slow-coming. In the meantime, we've got population growth."

Much of that new population has found a home in Cloverdale even as more than half the workers commute to jobs out of town.

In the valley below Furber's hillside home, Michelle Hansen sits with her two sons, Morgan, 7, and Jace, 5, in the living room of one of the developer's first tracts on Marguerite Lane -- a street Furber named after his mother.

Hansen and her husband, Richard, bought the three-bedroom home in 1998 and paid $150,000 for a place free of traffic congestion and daunting mortgage payments.

"We came here because it was small," said Michelle Hansen, 34. "This was the only area we could afford."

Since then, hundreds of homes have sprung up in the surrounding neighborhoods, and asking prices have soared beyond $500,000.

Cloverdale, which Hansen viewed as a "hick town" when she was growing up in Sebastopol, is beginning to look like more populated cities to the south.

"We don't understand how other people get by," said Hansen, who works from home as a bookkeeper. Her husband, a truck driver and volunteer fireman, commutes each morning to Novato.

Growth in Cloverdale is expected to continue over the next 20 years. Population could hit 12,000 as the city adds another 1,500 homes, said Planning Director Bruce Kibby.

Cloverdale is the only one of Sonoma County's nine cities that does not have an urban growth boundary -- a geographical line signaling its maximum intended size -- and growth is expected to continue. Much of the development will be in-fill, but houses and commercial buildings are likely to go up south of the city limits off Sandholm Road, and apartments will adjoin the city's rail station, expected to open to commuters in about five years, Kibby said.

More homes are planned for a golf resort east of the freeway near the Russian River, and houses will be permitted on hillsides below 400 feet.

Otherwise, the city has no plans to expand into the unincorporated county, Kibby said.

Cloverdale's growth is raising concerns in the region, drawing calls for regulatory limits.

"There is pressure to sprawl into the Alexander Valley," said Kelly Brown of the land conservation group Greenbelt Alliance. She has been participating in an update of the city's 20-year growth plan.

"An urban growth boundary puts the citizens in charge of where the city goes. Citizens are very concerned about preserving the rural character of the community. They are advocating for growth control."

Luring business to Cloverdale -- and with it, jobs -- has been a major focus since the city suffered a double economic whammy in the mid-1990s of sawmill closures and the opening of a four-lane freeway that bypassed the central commercial strip.

A $4 million downtown facelift completed last year was a step in that direction. New sidewalks and street lights are expected to appeal to tourists who come to see where "the vineyards meet the redwoods," as the city's motto goes.

A vibrant arts program has emerged with 19 public sculptures including a winged manikin that appears to be struggling to free itself from the burdens of the world.

"We are very much part of Wine Country, but we don't have three dozen tasting rooms and we don't have the wine traffic," said Paula Wrenn, the city's publicist and columnist for the Cloverdale Reveille newspaper. "We're for people who want a quieter, unplugged Sonoma County experience."

But more homegrown jobs are needed. Officials say that about half of all employed residents in 2005 leave the city for work, most driving at least 35 miles to jobs near Santa Rosa.

At $42,300 a year, Cloverdale had the lowest median household income of the nine cities in the 2000 U.S. Census. It also had the highest level of people living below the poverty line at 10.4 percent of the population, the census said.

Friday, about 50 people lined up outside the Cloverdale Food Pantry on Second Street for weekly bags of groceries. Organizers said many come from the city's sizable immigrant population, the senior community or the unemployed.

Part of the transportation solution might come from a promised rail line that would ferry residents to jobs in Sonoma and Marin counties, as far south as San Rafael. While a new rail station visible from Highway 101 already has been built, rail services hinges on voter approval of a sales tax on the 2006 ballot.

New economic development might come in the form of a casino. Two separate tribal groups are proposing Las Vegas-style gambling halls on the outskirts of town, each promising hundreds of jobs.

The Blue Lake Rancheria -- casino developers from Humboldt County -- and Hopland Pomo leaders from Mendocino County have plans for a $70 million, 24-hour-a-day, 1,700-slot machine casino on land owned by a Cloverdale family.

It would offer 500 permanent full-time equivalent jobs, paying between $12 and $25 an hour with full benefits, the tribe said.

Nearby, the Cloverdale Rancheria Band of Pomos is planning its own casino, but has not submitted specific plans. Leaders said only that they will build a similarly sized casino and hotel.

Both projects are tied up in governmental red tape and could be years away. And an anti-casino group has begun swaying local opinion against them.

A recent City Council meeting on the casinos drew more than 300 people. The turnout was unprecedented.

"I have mixed emotions about it," said Bill Adler, 78, who moved from Westcliff, Colo., to the 360-home Clover Springs retirement community about five years ago. "I don't believe in gambling. But on the other hand, it could bring money to the community. The schools have great needs. The fire department has needs."

Meanwhile, grading has begun on a $200 million golf resort by Concord-based Tyris Corp. The proposed 267-acre Alexander Valley Resort will be Cloverdale's largest and most lucrative development in years, bringing hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax revenue to the city annually. It will include up to 210 houses and apartments.

All add up to big differences between the Cloverdale of today and the town that Mayor Gail Pardini-Plass knew when she moved from Alameda County in 1973.

Lumberjacks filled the 18 bars along Cloverdale Boulevard. Their wives found solace in one of nearly two dozen churches, she said.

Everyone knew everyone. A general store served as an unofficial meeting place.

But no longer.

"You can't stop growth," Pardini-Plass said. "We're changing. We're becoming a larger community that still has that hometown feel."

You can reach Staff Writer Paul Payne at 521-5250 or ppayne@pressdemocrat.com. News researcher Michele Van Hoeck contributed to this report.

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