HEALDSBURG, CA — A proposed four-story senior living development near Healdsburg's future SMART station will go before the Planning Commission Tuesday, bringing 67 senior housing units and 10 affordable apartments to a former lumber yard while reigniting questions about transit planning, affordability, and whether the city's zoning allows the project as proposed.
The Planning Commission on Tuesday will be considering a proposed four-story senior living building on Hudson Street.
Gallaher Signature Living LLC's wants to put the roughly 3.6-acre project on land formerly occupied by Healdsburg Lumber at 359 Hudson St.
City staff recommends approving the project, its requested permits, a tentative map, density-bonus waivers, and a California Environmental Quality Act exemption.
Gallaher's proposal, called "The Hudson," outlines a four-story senior living building with 67 independent and assisted-living units, a single-story memory care building with six rooms and a manager's unit, and a separate building containing 10 deed-restricted affordable rental units.
Gallaher would divide the property into two parcels, separating the senior community from the affordable housing.
Eight of the affordable apartments would serve very-low-income households, while two would serve low-to-moderate-income households. The apartments would range from 372 to 385 square feet, considerably smaller than the proposed senior units, which would range from 1,075 to 2,017 square feet.
The developer describes the senior component as a Continuing Care Retirement Community for residents 62 and older, with dining areas, a movie theater, library, salon, art studio, fitness center, yoga and Pilates studio, medical suite, swimming pool, bocce and pickleball courts, gardens, walking paths, and a pet park.
The proposal includes assisted-living services but not skilled nursing facility services, according to project documents.
The project would try to use California's Density Bonus Law to increase the property's allowable housing count from 51 base units to 77 units. Eight very-low-income apartments represent 15.7 percent of the 51 base units, qualifying the project for a 50 percent density bonus, according to the city's staff report.
That density bonus would also allow Gallaher to seek concessions and waivers from several city development standards.
Among them, the developer wants permission to increase the main building's height from the 35 feet normally allowed next to single-family residential zoning to 58 feet, 8 inches.
Gallaher also seeks to increase the floor-area ratio from 1.0 to 1.31, reduce setbacks, allow residential uses on the ground floor, and eliminate a planned street connection between Hudson and Mason streets.
Instead of the street connection envisioned by the Central Healdsburg Avenue Plan, Gallaher proposes a public bicycle and pedestrian path between Mason and Hudson streets.
City staff supports that waiver, saying the planned street would be difficult to align and would interfere with the density allowed under state law.
Parking figures vary between the city staff report and the applicant's narrative. City staff lists 145 vehicle spaces — 130 for the senior development and 15 for the affordable housing — while Gallaher's narrative describes approximately 151 spaces when garages, surface spaces, and street parking are included. The applicant also proposes bicycle parking and chauffeured transportation for senior residents.
The project's location near the planned SMART station has become one focus of public opposition voiced in comments emailed in advance of Tuesday's meeting
Healdsburg resident Myrtle Rochioli urged city officials to preserve the Hudson Street property for a future parking lot and transit hub, arguing that residents who cannot walk or bicycle to the future rail station will need a place to leave their vehicles.
"This parcel is ideal for a combination parking lot/transit mall," Rochioli wrote in an Aug. 5 email to city leaders. She argued that the city should preserve land for transit infrastructure even if doing so ultimately required eminent domain proceedings.
Another resident, Marie Butler, questioned whether the development would address Healdsburg seniors' need for affordable housing. Butler wrote that she did not object to a senior facility at the location but feared that many longtime residents would eventually have to leave Healdsburg if smaller, safe, affordable senior housing remains unavailable.
A separate written objection challenges the project on legal grounds.
Lewis Bangham and Jon B. Eisenberg argued that the proposed Continuing Care Retirement Community does not qualify as the "residential care, general" use conditionally permitted in the property's Mixed Use zoning district. Their letter contends that a Continuing Care Retirement Community is legally different from the nonmedical residential-care facilities covered by the city's zoning definition and argues that Healdsburg would first need to change the property's zoning.
City planning staff reached the opposite conclusion. Its report says general residential care is conditionally permitted in the Mixed Use district and recommends that commissioners approve the conditional use permit.
Staff also recommends finding the development exempt from further CEQA review under the state's Class 32 infill exemption. The report concludes that traffic, noise, air-quality, and water-quality impacts would remain below applicable significance thresholds and says the property can be served by existing utilities and public services.
The commission can approve the Hudson project as proposed or with modifications, continue its consideration to another meeting, or deny it.
The Hudson proposal will not be the commission's only potentially contentious item Tuesday.
Commissioners will also consider giving a previously approved wine tasting room at 430 Foss St. another year to move forward.
The commission approved a conditional use permit in September 2024 for a 1,220-square-foot tasting room inside an existing downtown warehouse. The proposal generated a heated debate at the time over the proliferation of wine tasting rooms and the future of longtime non-wine businesses, including Ramos Shoe Repair, a decades-old business operating at the property.
The tasting-room permit received an automatic 12-month extension and is scheduled to expire Sept. 24.
The applicant requested another 12-month extension on June 12, and city staff recommends granting it. Healdsburg regulations allow a maximum of two 12-month extensions, according to the staff report.
Commissioners will also accept nominations for Planning Commission vice chair and conduct an election by voice vote.
The Planning Commission meets at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 11, at Healdsburg City Hall, 401 Grove St. and online.
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