Barnacle's Buddies: Proposed Overlay District for Downtown Petaluma Made Possible By Nefarious Relationship Between Building Decarbonization Coalition & American Institute of Architects
Before approving President of the American Institute of Architects' overlay project, Petaluma City Council utilized AIA as the sustainable design assistance team to develop the City's general plan
Petaluma Councilman Brian Barnacle & Climate Action Vice Chair Panama Bartholomy have weaponized their seats in local agencies to expedite the City’s Overlay District. As Executives to the Building Decarbonization Coalition, they have worked closely with the American Institute of Architects (AIA) to lobby bills requiring full electrification of homes and businesses. Utilizing the AIA to amend the General Plan (GP) presents a tremendous conflict of interest being that the AIA Redwood Empire President sought approval for his hotel project following revisions to the GP.
The Downtown Housing and Economic Opportunity Overlay project continues to move forward within the City of Petaluma, California, to pave the way for a 6-story, 93-room hotel project dubbed Appellation Petaluma – to be designed and built by EKN Development and Appellation Hotels – in the empty lot on the Boulevard.
The Downtown Housing & Economic Opportunity Overlay proposes to support housing and mixed-use development in a portion of the Downtown area through modification of Floor Area Ratio (FAR), building height, and lot coverage maximums, and associated revisions, including development and design controls for properties located in the overlay. The revised project reduces the originally proposed boundary to three smaller areas (depicted in the Downtown Housing & Economic Opportunity Overlay image at the top of this page). Amendments to the General Plan, Zoning Map, and Implementing Zoning Ordinance are required to implement the proposed Downtown Housing & Economic Opportunity Overlay.
The Downtown Housing & Economic Opportunity Overlay and EKN Appellation Hotel Draft Initial Study / Mitigated Negative Declaration was prepared by the City of Petaluma for review on October 2023.
DOWNTOWN HOUSING & ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY OVERLAY AND EKN APPELLATION HOTEL CEQA ENVIRONMENTAL CHECKLIST AND INITIAL STUDY
Project Title: Downtown Housing & Economic Opportunity Overlay (Overlay) EKN Appellation Hotel (Hotel)
Lead Agency: City of Petaluma, 11 English Street Petaluma, CA 94952
Contact Person & Phone Number: Greg Powell, Principal Planner, gpowell@cityofpetaluma.org
Project Location: Downtown Petaluma, City of Petaluma, Sonoma County, CA Area A:
Boundary: B St. (north); D St. (south); Petaluma Blvd. S (east); 4 th St.(west)
APNs: 008-063-005; 008-063-006; 008-063-007; 008-063-008; 008-063-009; 008-063-011; 008-063-012; 008-064-002; 008- 064-004; 008-064-005; 008-064-007; 008-064-008; 008-064-010
Area B: Boundary: South side of Western Ave. between Kentucky St. (east) and Keller St. (west)
APNs: 008-051-024; 008-051-025
Area C: Boundary: Washington St. (north); Western Ave. (south); Telephone Aly. (east); Liberty St./Court St. (west)
APNs: 006-361-028; 006-361-030; 006-361-033; 006-361-039; 006-361-040; 006-362-001; 006-362-002; 006-362-003; 006- 362-009; 006-362-010; 006-362-012; 006-362-014; 006-362- 015; 006-362-021; 006-362-022; 006-362-023; 006-362-024; 006-362-025; 006-363-001; 006-363-004; 006-363-005; 006- 363-007; 006-363-023; 006-363-025; 006-363-026
EKN APPELLATION HOTEL 2 - Petaluma Blvd S, Petaluma, Sonoma County, California Assessor’s Parcel Numbers 008-063-008; -009; -011
Project Sponsor: Mike Jolly, EKN Development Group, 220 Newport Center Drive, Suite 11-262, Newport Beach, CA, 92660, mike@ekndevgroup.com, 310-776-0621
Property Owners: DOWNTOWN HOUSING & ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY
OVERLAY PARCELS: Multiple property owners EKN APPELLATION
HOTEL PARCEL: Ross Jones, Phone: 707-971-9400, Email: ross@jonesarchitectureca.com, 2 Petaluma Blvd S Petaluma, CA 94952
I completed a reverse search of the property owner, Ross A. Jones’ email address presented within the draft study. I was directed to the website for Jones Architecture & Development.
According to Mr. Jones’ LinkedIn profile, he is the current President of Jones Architecture & Development and served as the President of The Board Of Directors for the American Institute of Architects Redwood Empire from January 2021 - January 2022. Additionally, he was the Project Manager for TLCD Architecture from March 2019 - Oct 2022.
Mr. Jones’ bio with TLCD Architecture states:
In his role as President, Ross supports the chapter’s mission of “advancing design and the built environment through education, public awareness and empowering its members”. The focus over the next 1-3 years will be on climate action, justice and equality diversity & inclusion (J+EDI), education and recognition of architects, as well as financial stability for the chapter. Ross sets the agenda for Board of Director’s meetings and helps to facilitate and develop the goals the Board wants to act on.
“The events of 2020 have created the opportunity to realize ‘collateral beauty’ within the damage. Work from home tools like Zoom, Slack, Teams have given us new ways to connect with each other. The benefits of reduced greenhouse gasses, and more time with family are real and durable. For the AIARE Chapter, we will reach out and connect, serving AIA members far beyond Santa Rosa and Sonoma County. We have an opportunity to scale-up our chapter and bring benefits to more architects. I look forward to highlighting our Chapters’ endeavors, showcasing successes and humbly taking lessons learned as opportunity to get it right, and get more stakeholders in society involved.”
-Ross Jones
TLCD built Sonoma Clean Power’s Advanced Energy Center which is utilized by BDC to promote the technology and incentives they are paid support through the California Energy Commission.
The M-Group was hired by the City of Petaluma to completely outsource planning services. M-Group staff convened and served as liaisons to the General Plan Advisory Committee, managed a General Plan consulting team and their outreach work, and facilitated visits from both the Urban Land Institute (ULI) and an AIA Sustainable Design Assessment Team to complete the General Plan update.
Per the City of Petaluma’s General Plan website:
In August 2022, The City of Petaluma received a group of leading design professionals specializing in architecture, landscape architecture, urban design, sustainability, and equity from the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Sustainable Design Assistance Team (SDAT). This team of experts shared their vision of Petaluma based on research on existing conditions, tours of our city, discussions with stakeholders, and a community meeting. Their proposals related to how to make the “15 Minute City” a realty in Petaluma provide inspiration and food for thought for the GPAC and other community members to consider.
Take a look at the presentation and watch the recording of the presentation and their discussion.
The Sustainable Design Assessment Team (SDAT) is a community design program run by the American Institute of America since 1967. The program is grounded in key tenets that each community represents a unique place that is the product of its own history, tradition, and evolution, that successful community strategies require whole-system, integrated analyses and working together for the common good, and that Community development requires collective public work that encourages civic leadership, empowers resident partnership, and strives to build a platform for cross-sector collaboration.
To this end, the primary goals of the SDAT program include:
Use citizen-driven community involvement in development processes, providing a new way of working together.
Identify the community’s values and vision for the future.
Focus on a particular project, listening to the community’s concerns and ideas.
Develop a strategy and set of actions to realize that vision.
Relate concepts to current practices and priorities of the community.
On May 3, 2021, Mr. Jones sent the following letter to Petaluma City Council alongside Mark Christian, Hon. AIA, CA Director of Government Relations:
Re: All-Electric Reach Codes on May 3, 2021 Agenda -- SUPPORT
Dear Petaluma City Council Members:
The American Institute of Architects has formally adopted a policy supporting urgent climate action as a health, safety, and welfare issue, and an exponential acceleration of the 'decarbonization' of buildings. Aligned with this resolution, the 11,000 members of AIA California strongly support local "reach" codes that encourage immediate adoption of cost-effective electrification in new buildings. These reach codes will help reduce carbon emissions and other pollutants, improve health outcomes, lower energy costs, help mitigate fire risk, and aid California in meetings its legislated carbon reduction targets.
We encourage reach codes that require the electrification of heating and hot water systems for all new homes, as these systems are both feasible and available today, and retrofit later for full electrification makes it often infeasible. For building types and end uses that are not required to be electric, it is critical to make them electric-ready, with panel capacity necessary to facilitate later electrification. Making new buildings completely electric-ready costs just a fraction of retrofitting later, and avoids locking customers into high-cost, high-emissions buildings or committing them to expensive and unnecessary retrofits.
Allowing gas for cooking and other minor uses necessitates the installation of gas piping in streets and new buildings, costing more upfront, and requiring expensive retrofits later in order to meet California's 2045 climate goals.
AIA California understands that the normal pace of code upgrades is insufficient to address the climate emergency. We support the 2 adoption of reach codes by local jurisdictions and stand ready to help in this critical endeavor.
On July 22, 2022, Petaluma Climate Action Commission Chair Ann Edminster forwarded an attachment to the City of Petaluma’s Climate Action Commission to inform them that the town won a grant worth $180k of design assistance from the AIA Sustainable Design Assessment Team.
Ms. Edminster previously partnered with Climate Action Commission Vice Chair Panama Bartholomy, Founder of Building Decarbonization Coalition to lead the Switch is On electrification campaign.
Petaluma Climate Action Commissioners Received California Energy Commission's Statewide Funding for "Switch is On" Campaign Supporting Widespread Home Electrification In California
Since passing a Climate Emergency Resolution in May 2019, the Council has established a Climate Action Commission, lent support to legislation to cut carbon emissions, and adopted climate-friendly ordinances such as a ban on polystyrene products.
In prior years, she was hired by PG&E to develop a Zero Net Energy Builder Resource Guide & Primer for Architects to transition to the state's 2019 Energy Code.
Petaluma Climate Action Chair Edminster Hired by PG&E to Develop Zero Net Energy Builder Resource Guide & Primer for Architects Prior to Transition to State's 2019 Energy Code
Prior to serving on the Petaluma Climate Action Commission, Chair Ann Edminster, Design AVEnues LLC, was contracted with PG&E in 2018 to develop a Zero Net Energy Builder Resource Guide as part of Pacific Gas and Electric Company’s Zero Net Energy Production Builder Demonstration.
She shared the following on her blog:
The American Institute of Architects California Council recently published the Zero Net Energy Primer. I had the privilege of developing the Primer for them under a contract with PG&E. The Primer (if I do say so myself) is a handsome, concise, and accessible guide — a mere 24 pages, including lots of pictures of ZNE homes of all flavors (small, large, single- and multifamily, luxury and affordable). The AIACC’s goal in publishing the document is to ease the task facing California architects with the roll-out of the State’s 2019 energy code (“Title 24”). The new code will go into effect January 1, 2020 and — while it doesn’t quite get us to ZNE — represents a significant advance in residential energy performance, and the first time that homes will be required to install renewable energy systems. (Of course, there will be byes for projects where it’s simply not feasible to install them.) The Primer will, I hope, help architects get a handle on the ZNE requirements ahead of the looming 2020 deadline.
Kudos and many thanks to designer Debra Turner for the engaging design, and to architect Steven Lee for his terrific illustrations.
Petaluma Councilman Brian Barnacle is currently employed as the Director of Strategy & Development, Building Decarbonization Coalition (BDC).
The BDC website features a summary of SB 527 – Neighborhood Decarbonization Program. The Coalition is the sponsor of the bill while the AIA is advocating support.
Collectively, the AIA California & BDC sponsored and contributed to The Building Decarbonization Practice Guide, a zero carbon future for the built environment.
The content leadership named Panama Bartholomy, BDC, Miranda Gardiner, AIA, Teresa Jan, AIA, and many others.
On June 1, 2023, Southern California Edison Company presented their 2022 annual report to the Public Utilities Commission of the State of California.
The supporting documents segment stated the following:
In addition to developing new cost-effectiveness reports, the Reach Codes Subprogram, independently and in collaboration with other organizations, supported reach code adoption by creating supplemental support documents. Beginning from a common core helps to support consistent code language across jurisdictions with similar objectives. The RC Subprogram continued partnering with the Building Decarbonization Coalition and Community Choice Aggregators (CCAs) to support jurisdictions through events, resources, and training, while being careful to avoid overlapping efforts.
The collaboration with partners segment stated:
The CI Subprogram continued its emphasis on targeted online education content and outreach, specifically through the Energy Code Ace components of the subprogram (EnergyCodeAce.com, webinars, and online trainings). The CI Subprogram also strengthened strategic partnerships with key industry organizations, such as the following, in order to provide their members with training and resources targeted specifically to their needs.
American Institute of Architects (AIA)
California Building Officials (CALBO)
California Association of Building Energy Consultants (CABEC)
Regional Energy Networks (RENs)
US Green Building Council (USGBC)
International Code Council (ICC)
California Retailers Association (CRA)
Compressed Air and Gas Institute (CAGI), and
Passive House California (PHCA)
Mr. Panama Bartholomy is a former Board Member for the former U.S. Green Building Council.
The report outlined third-party contracts held with Southern California Edison Company. The Emerging Technologies Program, Electric, was led by Cohen Ventures, Inc. dba Energy Solutions. The total contract value was $67,533,849.00 with a start date of 9/14/2021 and end date of 12/31/2027.
As the former Senior Manager of Energy Solutions, Councilman Barnacle failed to publicly disclose this source of income on his SEI. Therefore, I reported him to the Fair Political Practices Commission for this omission.
Additionally, Mr. Bartholomy failed to disclose his reportable financial interests for all years. The FPPC has opened a case to investigate this matter further.
In January 2010, The Architects Newspaper published an article regarding the City’s concerns with outsourcing the planning department to M-Group:
In the early 1970s, the Sonoma County town of Petaluma solidified its place in urban planning history by becoming one of the first cities in the country to implement a growth-control policy. Last spring the city made news again when, struggling with revenue shortfalls, it laid off most of its planning staff in favor of a team of consultants. Since then, planners, architects and residents have been watching closely to see if this extreme measure works, and whether it might be repeated across the country.
As far back as April 2008, shortly after he took office, Petaluma City Manager John Brown said, “We considered an alternate solution using in-house staff, but the privatized solution offered more flexibility.” On July 9, a one-year consulting contract was awarded to the Metropolitan Planning Group (M-Group). Brown said the firm was selected because of its extensive experience with nearby municipalities—the firm consults with about a dozen Bay Area cities, including Cupertino and Santa Clara.
The move is still fodder for local discussion, as well as for the larger planning community. Petaluma-based architect Mark Albertson, who sits on the board of directors for the Redwood Empire Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, said the changes caused consternation in the tightly knit community of nearly 60,000.
“An original concern was the loss of institutional memory,” he said. But it’s still too soon to make an assessment, he noted. “As new projects move into the pipeline that rely on historical understanding, we’ll see if that materializes as an issue.”
Steven Preston, city manager of the city of San Gabriel and former president of the California Chapter of the American Planning Association, agreed that institutional memory is often at risk with contractors. “Most communities operate off complex city codes, in some cases hundreds or thousands of documents that require interpretation, and when you lose staff, all of the memory is lost,” he said.
M-Group principal Geoff Bradley, now serving as Petaluma’s contract planning manager, acknowledged that understanding Petaluma’s peculiarities is a challenge. His firm has seven people assigned to the city, including three former city staffers (two senior planners and one technician). “We’re relying on them to learn how things were done in the past and what issues were important,” he said, adding that he also attends city council meetings and references city policy documents for guidance.
Developers are worried, too. “There was concern that they were not going to get the same level of service,” Brown said. Improving customer service was an easy challenge for M-Group. At one point, counter hours at the planning department were available by appointment only. M-Group has restored regular counter hours, has hosted a community meet-and-greet, and tried to familiarize local businesses with its online planning tools.
San Gabriel’s Preston said it is fairly common for cities to experiment, relying more on contractors during periods of economic turmoil, though he added it is “exceedingly rare” to dismantle virtually all community development operations and substitute contract staff. In the early 1990s, Irvine implemented a plan similar to Petaluma’s, and a couple of years ago San Gabriel tried contracting out its building and safety work before returning to an in-house staff. “We found the costs with consultants skyrocketed over a period of years,” Preston said, owing largely to contract renewals.
M-Group is working on a cost-recovery basis, with Petaluma paying for non-reimbursable planning services from its general fund. The firm estimates it needs to generate $300,000 in development fees to make a profit. But media reports peg the city’s fee revenue in 2008 at just over $150,000.
With M-Group focused only on current planning, Petaluma has just one city employee dealing with advanced planning. “That is an awfully thin level of support,” Preston said, noting that components of any city’s general plan require periodic revisions by state law.
While admitting the difference between a staff and having one planner looking at one plan at a time, Brown said he is pleased with the arrangement because the planning firm has restored customer service and has been flexible in its approach. Though the contract is not yet renewed, he expects the arrangement to last for a couple of years. “We’re not in a position to hire city staff right now, even if we wanted to,” Brown said.
“Everything that is hidden will be shown, and everything that is secret will be made known. What you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in an inner room will be shouted from the housetops.”
-Luke 12:2-3