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SALE OF THE

CHANATE PROPERTY

 

Surplus Property Sale of the Chanate Property

Status

Next Tuesday, August 31st, 2021, the Sonoma Board of Supervisors will authorize putting the Chanate property up for sale, again.
 
After reading the Summary Report and the Board of Supervisors’ Resolution, it appears that this time the County will be using the following “auction” process of selling the property: 
 

  • The Director of General Services will put the property up for sale on September 7th by listing it on a global auction website for commercial properties known as “ten-x.com."

  • The auction will remain open for bidding through November 9th at 9 am.

  • On November 9th at 11 am a virtual “public meeting,” the County will open all sealed bids received.

  • From 11 am to 1 pm, in the virtual public meeting, the County will solicit and accept any oral bids, and at 1 pm will announce the apparent highest bidder.

  • On November 16th, the Board of Supervisors will approve selling the property to the apparent highest bidder.

  •   Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that the Board of Supervisors will have any public discussion about selling this property prior to their acceptance of the highest bidder on November 16th, and that bidder could easily be an international buyer with little to no interest in our community, or concern for the neighborhood. We will keep you apprised of all details of the auction and bidding process as they become available.
     
    While Friends of Chanate is interested in the County finding a responsible buyer for this property, we believe that it is essential to have a buyer who will work with the City of Santa Rosa and the neighbors to achieve the best possible development for the site.
     
    Additionally, Friends of Chanate has been promised that the County will release the Seismic Study and the current appraisal to the public and thus far that promise has not been kept.  Supervisor Chris Coursey, who represents this district, is looking into this and will let us know when the documents are available to the public.  We very much appreciate his assistance.
     
     


 
 

OLDER INFORMATION



Sonoma County in December 2018 started the process of attempting to sell the Chanate property again. The Board of Supervisors has decided to offer the Chanate property in three parcels this time around.  They will NOT be offering Parcel J (the Paulin Creek Preserve) for sale to anyone, which is excellent news.  To view a copy of this map, see the link at the bottom of this page.

As required by law, Sonoma County is offering the Chanate property for sale to other governmental agencies and to non-profits in what is called a Surplus Property Offering.  This Surplus Property Offering was sent out in February, 2019 and responses are due on May 10, 2019 from those governmental agencies interested in purchasing the property.

Recently the County held three meetings in late March/early April which they called “community conversations.”  These meetings were held to explain the current process  and hear from concerned citizens.  We were pleased to see many Friends of Chanate members in attendance and to hear the excellent questions posed to the County.    The County will be posting a listing of questions and answers from the “community conversation” meetings on their website at some point, and we will post them on our  website too.  The PowerPoint presented at this meeting is available below.

At this point in time it appears that the County is in compliance with the spirit of the law by fully publicizing the offer to a long list of wide-ranging governmental and non-profit agencies.  This is in stark contrast to the prior offering which did not receive adequate publicity and, in fact, was only sent to seven (7) public agencies.   See links at the bottom of this page for the current Request for Proposals and for the list of recipients of the Surplus Property Offering.  We are hopeful that one of these public agencies will choose to pursue a purchase of the property.

Continuing Need for Transparency

Although the County is following the spirit of the law at this point in time, they continue to lack complete transparency.  For example, the last appraisals made available to the public for the Chanate Property were done in 2016.  We have been informed that Sonoma County has paid for and obtained new appraisals for the whole property and for each of the three parcels however the County is refusing to disclose the updated appraisals.  Presumably the appraisals were paid for with taxpayer money; the public is entitled to see this information.  We believe the updated appraisals should be disclosed to the public in the interest of transparency.  We will continue to encourage the County to be transparent and to release the updated appraisals.  

Additionally, as it stands now, after May 10, 2019, the County will make any/all offers they receive public as required, but only for 72 hours prior to their conclusive vote to sell or not sell the property as surplus.  This is not an adequate amount of time to engage the public’s participation.   We will continue to press the County to release information about the offers sooner in order to allow for public  input.  If the County decides to reject all public agency offers then the property will be made available for sale to private developers.  The public should have a say in such an important aspect of this process. 

Going Forward

Friends of Chanate believes that Sonoma County owes it to the taxpayers to get the best possible price when they sell the Chanate property, but we also believe that it is essential that any offers from non-profits to buy the property be seriously considered.  The Board of Supervisors can reject all offers they might receive in response to the Surplus Property Offering, and we hope that is not the case.  If the Board rejects all offers received from public agencies then it can proceed to sell the property to private developers.  Again, we hope this will not be the case.   The County has indicated its goal to sell the property by the end of 2019. Hopefully bad decisions will not be made simply for the sake of expediency.

As soon as we learn the identity of any public agencies interested in purchasing the property, Friends of Chanate will reach out to these agencies and schedule a neighborhood meeting inviting the bidders to appear and speak to us about their proposals.  Since the County plans to make their decision in August, watch your email to learn the date of our neighborhood meeting (if you would like to sign up for our email notices, send us an email to FriendsOfChanate@sonic.net).

Once a bid is accepted and the property actually sold, the City of Santa Rosa remains responsible for conducting public outreach on any development proposals for the Chanate property and will be ultimately responsible for all project approvals, including the requirement for all California Environmental Quality review. 

Friends of Chanate will carefully monitor both the property sale and any proposed development for the Chanate property and will keep everyone informed of the status both through this web site and through our emails.  To be added to our email list, please contact us at FriendsOfChanate@sonic.net.

The Documents

Click on the links below to see documents of interest. All are pdf documents, and will require Acrobat Reader to view.

Sonoma County Supervisors Agree to Sell Chanate Road Property for 7.8 Million Tuesday, October 13, 2020, Press Democrat, Tyler Silvy

Sonoma County Poised to Sell Troubled Chanate Road Campus After Legal Battle, Monday, October 12, 2020 Press Democrat, Tyler Silvy

Sales brochure created for the Sale of the Chanate Campus

 
 

We deserve THE BEST AND SAFEST development on the Chanate property

Contact us to get involved and stay informed.