A video interview conducted by John Patrick Sheehy
Link to video interview on Sonoma County Library website:
Skip Sommer Interview
Tag: Helen Putnam
The Birth of Petaluma’s Revival
When it came to business opportunities, Skip Sommer was superstitious. If a new venture didn’t include the number six, he approached it warily. If it referenced both six and an eagle, he doubled down.[1]
On May 11, 1975, Sommer drove his tan diesel Cadillac—license plate “Eagle 66”—into downtown Petaluma and pulled up beside the dilapidated Golden Eagle Mill at 6 Petaluma Boulevard North.[2]
Bingo!
Up the street, Petaluma’s statuesque mayor, Helen Putnam, was leading a group of 200 preservationists on a tour of the city’s historic downtown. As the group emerged from the new Lan Mart gallery of shops—Petaluma’s first adaptive reuse of a historical structure—Putnam steered them across the street to the Golden Eagle Mill.[3]
There, to the fanfare of popping champagne corks, she introduced Sommer, who emerged from a curtain of dusty cobwebs to announce his plan to save the river city. “In the old days,” he told the crowd, “schooners would tie up to the docks of this mill to pick up feed for the horses of San Francisco. Soon, it will be yachts tying up here to visit the new Great Petaluma Mill.”[4]
He proceeded to unveil his vision: transforming the old granary into a Victorian-themed arcade of specialty shops patterned after San Francisco’s Ghirardelli Square.
As crazy as it might have sounded, Putnam let it be known that Sommer’s scheme had her full support. The stakes were simply too high to fail.
Sprawling housing developments were overwhelming Petaluma’s infrastructure. The city’s attempt to pump the brakes—capping new housing units at 500 per year and imposing a greenbelt around the city—was met with a lawsuit from developers. After losing the first round in court, the city was granted an appeals hearing.[5] Optimistic about a favorable outcome, Putnam unleashed her side maneuver: revitalizing the downtown.
“The type of growth I’m interested in,” she declared, “is growth that retains Petaluma’s rank as a first-class city, not as a bedroom community.”[6]
For Putnam, that meant staging a comeback of the Petaluma River.[7]
For more than a century, the river served as the lifeblood of the city, its downtown banks dotted with grain mills and warehouses. Following World War II, the rise of large factory farms in Central California and elsewhere decimated the local poultry and dairy industries, leading to a sharp decline in commercial river traffic. Then came the opening of the freeway in 1956, placing Petaluma within easy commuting distance of San Francisco.[8]
Tract homes quickly sprang up across the flats east of town, accompanied by shopping centers, restaurants, and motels, all draining foot traffic from the downtown. No longer able to command premium rents, commercial landlords let their timeworn buildings slowly deteriorate, leaving the town pockmarked with boarded-up eyesores.
In the mid-sixties, the city began tagging old buildings as safety hazards. In most cases, demolishing them was cheaper than bringing them up to code for earthquake and fire risks. That opened the door to urban renewal, the federally funded movement sweeping America.
The wrecking ball began swinging in 1965, its first victim the original Golden Eagle Mill built in 1888 along the east side of the Turning Basin. Before the mill’s destruction, Golden Eagle moved its operations into the former G.P. McNear Feed Mill at Petaluma Boulevard and B Street, which it purchased in 1958.[9]
Once the mill was razed, Novato developer Walter Kieckhefer began planning construction of the Golden Eagle Shopping Center (today’s River Plaza Shopping Center) in its place.[10]
Putnam, first elected mayor in 1965, supported urban renewal, overseeing the expansion of Washington Street, the sole traffic artery to the burgeoning eastside, into a four-lane thoroughfare. That began with the demolition of three blocks of historic buildings at the intersection of Washington Street and Petaluma Boulevard.[11]
In the late sixties she backed the Core Area Plan, a federally funded redesign of the downtown that called for converting Kentucky Street between Western Avenue and Washington Street into a closed-off mall, and demolishing all the buildings along the east side of Petaluma Boulevard from D to Oak streets to install a six-lane thoroughfare along the river.[12]
Two months before the Core Area Plan was put before voters, Petaluma’s urban renewal bulldozer hit a speed bump. The Healey Mansion, a stately Queen Anne Victorian at the corner of Washington and Keokuk streets, utilized for half a century as a funeral parlor, was torn down for a new gas station. Its leveling became the rallying cry of a local historic preservation movement.[13]
In June, voters rejected the Core Plan bond issue while reelecting Putnam to a second mayoral term by a slim margin. Deftly, she pivoted her downtown stance afterward from destruction to restoration, and began chasing federal tax credits for adaptive reuse—retrofitting old buildings for new uses.[14]
The trend began in 1964 with the transformation of San Francisco’s Ghirardelli Chocolate Factory into a historically themed center of shops and eateries.[15] Two years later, Congress passed the National Historic Preservation Act, giving communities some means of protecting their historic fabrics from the slash-and-burn of urban renewal. Grants and tax credits followed.[16]
National Ice & Cold Storage Building, E. Washington & Lakeville streets, c. 1950. (photo Sonoma County Library)
Petaluma’s first attempts at adaptive reuse began in 1972. Developer Kieckhefer set out to convert the National Ice and Cold Storage Building, built in 1908 at the corner of East Washington and Lakeville streets, into a local Ghirardelli Square. Once he saw the price tag for seismic upgrading, he changed his mind, and instead tore the building down to erect the Lakeville Shopping Center in its place.[17]
That same year, Victor and Marisa DeCarli recombined the two Gross Buildings, extending from Petaluma Boulevard to Kentucky Street, to create the Lan Mart Center of boutique shops.[18] Their initiative inspired Putnam to marshal a crusade to revive Petaluma’s historic downtown waterfront, using the old Golden Eagle Mill as her cornerstone.
What she needed was someone to lead the charge, not just a developer, but a charismatic ringmaster like Bert Kerrigan. Hired as a front man for the Chamber of Commerce in 1918, Kerrigan unleashed upon the town an energetic, three ring circus atmosphere that boosted Petaluma’s prosperity and fame as the “Egg Basket of the World.”
For help, Putnam reached out to an old friend, Bill Murray, chairman of the Bank of Marin, who had started his banking career in Petaluma during the 1950s. He had just the man for the job: Ralph “Skip” Sommer, a former stage actor and IBM salesman turned theme developer. Growing up in Michigan, Sommer spent his summers driving horse-drawn carriages of tourists around Mackinac Island, a Victorian-era resort that still bans automobiles. He understood history as an economic engine. [19]
Murray, whose bank had financed two of Sommer’s conversions of historic buildings into shops and restaurants in Marin, drove him up to Petaluma for his first visit.[20] Lured by federal tax credits and Murray’s financial backing, Sommer jumped at the opportunity. With Putnam’s assistance, the proposal was fast-tracked through the city planning commission, bypassing the need for an environment impact report.
Then came the deal killer: $275,000 for seismic upgrading ($1.4 million in today’s currency). Sommer blinked, until Murray told him the bank would finance it.[21]
Sommer staged the grand opening of the Great Petaluma Mill in October 1976 with the razzle dazzle of Harold Hill in “The Music Man.” Soon, he was piloting his yacht, The Great Eagle II, up the Petaluma River to proclaim the Turning Basin the new port of call for recreational boating. The press ate it up, dubbing him the “new business czar of the downtown waterfront area.”[22]
That same year, the U.S. Supreme Court let stand the ruling of a lower appeals court which had granted Petaluma the right to preserve the city’s character and open spaces “by growing at an orderly and deliberate pace.”[23] Putnam’s two pronged approach—sustainable growth paired with a revitalized downtown—had worked.
In the first year of the Great Petaluma Mill’s operation, downtown sales taxes increased by 30% thanks to increased foot traffic. A restoration fever soon overtook the downtown with developers of adaptive reuse flocking to town.[24]
But Putnam wasn’t finished. She wanted to anchor the new recreational Turning Basin with the warmth of Victorian homes.
In 1976, the Wendy’s hamburger chain purchased the Burns-Farrell house at East Washington and Wilson streets with plans to demolish it for a burger joint. Putnam negotiated a deal to have Sommer buy the house for $1, and then move it to an empty lot on the Turning Basin, where he converted it into a restaurant called the Farrell House (today’s River House).[25]
Burns-Farrell House being moved from E. Washington Street to the Turning Basin, 1979 (photo courtesy of Skip Sommer)
The next year, she did the same with the Pometta House, a Victorian on Petaluma Boulevard South between C and D streets, slated for destruction for a new bank parking lot. Sommer moved it to 1 C Street, beside today’s Petaluma’s Yacht Club, converting it into an office building.[26]
Pometta House, Petaluma Blvd South, between C & D streets, 1977 (photo Sonoma County Library)
In 1979, Sommer sold the Great Petaluma Mill in order to help fund his next adaptive reuse performance out on the coast and his producer, Mayor Putnam, began her newly elected term as a Sonoma County supervisor. Petaluma would never be the same.[27]
*******
A version of this story appeared in the Petaluma Argus-Courier, May 12, 2023.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] “He’s Not Your Typical Developer,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, August 28, 1975; Interview with Skip Sommer by John Sheehy, December 23, 2022, Sonoma County Library Archives.
[2] Interview with Skip Sommer by John Sheehy, December 23, 2022, Sonoma County Library Archives.
[3] “Unique Development Announced,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, May 12, 1975.
[4] “Unique Development Announced,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, May 12, 1975.
[5] “Design Plan Passes; Is Effective at Once,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, March 28, 1972; “Good Case for Housing Limit,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, April 26, 1973; “City Growth Ordinance Outlawed,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, April 29, 1974; Growth Suit Decision Not Expected for Some Time,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, February 15, 1975.
[6] “Helen Putnam, First Woman Ever to Seek Office of Mayor,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, May 25, 1965.
[7] “River May Be Making a Comeback,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, August 28, 1975.
[8] “Cotati Man is First Fatality on Freeway,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, November 17, 1856.
[9] “Golden Eagle Completes McNear Deal,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, June 17, 1958; “Mayor Discusses Golden Eagle’s Present Property,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, March 24, 1964 “Golden Eagle’s Century Old Mill Site,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, February 13, 1965.
[10] “Golden Eagle, Once Towering Over Petaluma, Like a Phoenix Reborn,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, April 26, 1975.
[11] “Rezoning Aids Expansion Central Business District,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, January 17, 1967; “Our Most Important Need,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, September 11, 1967.
[12] “More Parking Would Boost Downtown Area,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, August 3, 1968.
[13] “Money to Decide Mansion’s Fate,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, March 1, 1969; “Thanks for the Effort,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, May 13, 1969.
[14] “Putnam Wins, Bonds Lose,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, June 11, 1969.
[15] “Old, Familiar Glow,” San Francisco Examiner, November 30, 1964.
[16] Historic Preservation & Development, September 20, 2006, U.S. Department of the Interior.
https://www.doi.gov/ocl/hearings/109/historicpreservationdevelopment_092006
[17] “Center Project Proceeds,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, December 14, 1972; “New Building to Follow Razing,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, February 17, 1973.
[18] “Lan Mart Stores are Commercial Experiment,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, February 15, 1973; “Lan Mart Center Has Grand Opening,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, September 6, 1973.
[19] Interview with Skip Sommer by John Sheehy, December 23, 2022, Sonoma County Library Archives; “He’s Not Your Typical Developer,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, August 28, 1975.
[20] “Skip Sommer’s Ideas Pay Off Very Well at Lark Creek Inn,” San Rafael Daily Independent, October 13, 1972; “Old Western Look,” San Rafael Daily Independent, October 30, 1974.
[21] “Great Petaluma Mill Needed Quake-proofing,” Santa Rosa Press Democrat, August 1, 1976; Interview with Skip Sommer by John Sheehy, December 23, 2022, Sonoma County Library Archives.
[22] “Reviving a Turn of the Century Town Center,” Santa Rosa Press Democrat, November 8, 1977; Bill Soberanes column, Petaluma Argus-Courier, November 25 1977.
[23] “Growth Review Denied,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, February 23, 1976.
[24] “Ambitious New Business Owners See Potential in Old Buildings,” Santa Rosa Press Democrat, November 8, 1977; “Mill Played a Key Role in Downtown Revitalization,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, January 9, 1980.
[25] “Historic Home to Become Restaurant at New Site,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, October 6, 1976.
[26] “House on Wheels,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, June 5, 1978.
[27] “Putnam Elected Supervisor,” Santa Rosa Press Democrat, November 8, 1978: “Marin Investors Buy Great Petaluma Mill,” Petaluma Argus-Courier, April 19, 1979.
The Exclusionary Effect of Petaluma’s Growth Controls
A Problem 50 Years in the Making
On January 19, 1971, the Petaluma City Council, led by Mayor Helen Putnam, did the unthinkable—in the midst of a construction boom, they declared a moratorium on further land annexation and zoning changes within the city, essentially stopping the boom in its tracks. They then hired a consulting firm to convene Petaluma’s first community-wide planning process in developing an Environmental Design Plan to manage growth and curb the suburban sprawl overtaking the city.
Challenged legally by developers all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, the council won a landmark decision to preserve the city’s character and open spaces “by growing at an orderly and deliberate pace.” The victory made Petaluma the darling of the so-called “slow growth movement.”
It also gave birth to a chronic problem with affordable housing, one that today has reached epidemic proportions.
Petaluma’s suburban housing boom began immediately after World War II, as developers, armed with government subsidies for returning servicemen, descended upon the area, buying up cheap farmland east of town and building tract homes. The city’s population, which stood at 8,000 in 1945, quickly mushroomed to 25,000 by 1970.
That same year, new housing starts, which averaged 300 per year throughout the 1960s, tripled. When the City Council convened in January, 1971, not only were they facing a population surge to 32,000 by 1972, they were also presented with a new slate of development proposals, that, if approved, would further raise the population to 37,000 by 1973, completely overwhelming the city’s infrastructure, particularly its wastewater treatment plant.
The sudden growth spurt was caused by water. The City Council agreed in 1961 to divert water to Petaluma from the newly constructed Coyote Dam on the Russian River. With the exception of Novato, Marin County refused to follow suit, placing a natural limit on its housing development, which in turn increased land costs. San Francisco commuters looking for affordability turned to Petaluma, where, in 1970, they could purchase the same quality and same-sized home as in Marin for 20% less.
In 1972, Petaluma adopted its growth management plan, limiting new home development to 500 units per year, and allocating those units evenly between the town’s east and west sides in hopes of preserve the vitality of the downtown. To improve the quality and variety of home construction, it placed a 100-unit cap on each developer, seeking to create a field for competition. To protect Petaluma’s agricultural heritage, they imposed a greenbelt around the city.
The quality issue was in response to complaints from homeowner associations of the shoddy construction of their new tract homes, in particular those built by one of the city’s largest builders, Condiotti Enterprises of Santa Rosa, who offered the lowest priced houses in the area.
Most of the defects were due to poor construction techniques, including squeaky floors that humped and dipped, buckling walls, ineffective heating, cracked and overflowing toilets, defective tubs, broken drain pipes, cracked stucco, and wavy roofs.
The popularity of Condiotti’s poor-quality, cookie-cutter homes spoke to an underlying driver of Petaluma’s housing boom: affordability.
A primary argument in the lawsuits developers waged against the city’s managed growth plan was that it would drive up home prices, excluding lower income buyers. To withstand the legal challenges, the city required each new development to allocate between 8% and 12% of its units to affordable housing. Market forces quickly rendered the allotment woefully insufficient.
By the time the Supreme Court allowed Petaluma’s plan to stand in 1976, the growth tsunami had rolled northward to Rohnert Park, where land was selling for 30% less than in Petaluma. That city’s population, which stood at 7,200 in 1972, quickly tripled to 22,000 by 1978, causing them to impose their own growth management plan.
Meanwhile, construction of small, lower-priced houses almost disappeared from Petaluma. While only 20% of new homes in 1970 sold for more than $30,000, by 1976, almost 70% did (in 1970 dollars). The average home size during that time also expanded from 1,600 to 1,900 square feet.
Some of the price increase was due to higher costs. The 100-unit cap reduced building efficiencies for developers, and construction on the hilly westside proved more costly than on the eastside flats.
But builders also surmised that luxury housing was more likely to get approval from city officials, who placed more weight on quality and amenities than on affordability in assessing development proposals. Luxury housing also played well with nearby residents, who formed housing cartels to protect their property values.
The final kicker was passage of Proposition 13 in 1978, which limited property taxes to 1% of a property’s assessed value. To help replace funding the taxes had provided for infrastructure, the city was forced impose new development fees, which raised building costs about 25%.
By 1982, less than 50% of the city’s new homes quota had been built since the growth plan went into place in 1972, delivering a further blow to any meaningful production of affordable housing. The city increased the quota for affordable units to between 10% and 15%, and also offered builders the option of paying a fee in lieu of designating certain units for low or moderate income residents.
However, the ability of even these stronger incentives to overcome the adverse impacts of growth control programs on affordable housing weren’t able to keep pace with housing scarcity that would face Petaluma in years to come, further driving up homes prices, and reducing mixed-income housing.
Back in 1971, after the City Council declared a moratorium on further land annexation and zoning changes, they hired a San Francisco consulting firm to recommend revisions to the city’s 1962 General Plan. The consultants began by surveying residents.
They found that the majority wanted light industrial growth for jobs, open space of surrounding agricultural land, and a permanent greenbelt between Petaluma and towns to the north and south.
Most importantly, they wanted controlled growth with a target population of no more than 40,000 people, considerably lower than the ultimate population of 77,000 envisioned in the city’s 1962 General Plan.
That became clear in June of 1971, when the mayor and the city council put a $2 million bond issue before voters, to be matched by federal funds, for expanding the sewage plant to accommodate a maximum population of 100,000. It was soundly defeated.
For the past 50 years, Petaluma’s growth management plan has succeeded in holding the city’s population well below the ultimate target of of 77,000 set in the 1962 General Plan. As of 2020, the population stands at 60,700.
However, the curb on growth has come at the expense of affordability. In December, 2020, Petaluma’s median home price stood at $769,000. Discounting for inflation, that’s the equivalent of $115,000 in 1970 dollars. The median home price for a home in Petaluma in 1970 was only $20,600.
*****
A version of this story appeared in the Petaluma Argus-Courier.
SOURCES:
Newspapers
Petaluma Argus-Courier: “Annexation Rejected by Council,” December 8, 1970; “Moratorium on City Rezoning,” January 19, 1971; “Planning Department Pays Key Role in Area Future,” April 24, 1971; “Residents favor Industry, Open Space,” April 13, 1971; “Support the Sewer Bond,” June 1, 1971; “Bind Measure in Close Vote,” June 9, 1971; “Planners Ask that Citizens’ Committees be Established,” September 9, 1971; “Sewage Disposal Problems Council’s Latest Headache,” October 21, 1971; “Environmental Design Plan Report Tuesday,” November 17, 1971; “Sewer Improvement isn’t Answer,” January 12, 1972; “Design Plan Passes, is Effective immediately,” March 28, 1972; “How to Control Growth?” April 11, 1972; “House Builders Meet with Council on 500,” March 23, 1972; “Design Plan Passes; Is Effective at Once,” March 28, 1972; “Petaluma Environmental Play Fails to Get OK,” January 25, 1973; “Controversial Growth Policy Goes on Ballot,” April 4, 1973; “Housing Limit Challenged,” April 25, 1973; “Good Case for Housing Limit,” April 26, 1973;“Owners Itemize Condiotti Homes Complaints,” May 11, 1973; “Growth Case Moves to High Court,” AC, December 31, 1975; “Growth Review Denied,” AC, February 23, 1976; “Disgruntled Homeowners Say Agreement Reached,” June 18, 1976; “Scharer Brings Different Personality to City Manager Post,” October 5, 1981; “Petaluma’s new Housing Element Conforms to State Law,” October 27, 1982; “Council Adopts In-Lieu Fee System,” August 21, 1984.
Santa Rosa Press Democrat: “Census Says Median Value of 78,060 County Homes is $20,900,” March 4, 1971; “No Permits Until Builder Makes Good,” November 24, 1976; “Growth: Tract home, bedroom community has much to offer,” March 14, 1979; “Development Plan Embroils Builder in Political Scrimmage,” October 4, 1992.
Journals, Magazines, Books, Websites
California Planning & Development Report, “Petaluma Marks 30 Years Of Growth Control”
Apr 1, 2002. https://www.cp-dr.com/articles/node-962
Conor Dougherty, Golden Gates: Fighting for Housing in America
Bernard J. Frieden, “The Exclusionary Effect of Growth Controls,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 465, Housing America (Jan., 1983), pp. 123-135.
Douglas R. Porter and Elizabeth B. Davison, “Evaluation of In-Lieu Fees and Offsite Construction as Incentives for Affordable Housing Production,” Cityscape, Vol. 11, No. 2, (2009), pp. 27-59.
Benjamin Schneider, “How to Make House Crisis,” Bloomberg Citylab, February 21, 2020. citylab.com.
Seymour I. Schwartz, David E. Hansen, and Richard Green, “The Effect of Growth Control on the Production of Moderate-Priced Housing,” Land Economics, Vol. 60, No. 1 (Feb., 1984), pp. 110-114.
“Home values in Petaluma, CA,” realtor.com.
“Petaluma, California Population 2020 (Demographics, Maps, Graphs,” worldpopulationreview.com.
Helen Putnam Video Presentation
The Birth of Petaluma’s Slow Growth Movement
Up until 1970, the idea of citizens having a say in shaping the future of their city was largely unthinkable. In towns like Petaluma, outside developers were in the driver’s seat, and used their financial muscle to squelch anyone who got in their way.
But Petaluma, led by its first woman mayor, Helen Putnam, did just that, shutting down all new construction to spend a year engaging citizens in hammering out a new planning policy to curb the helter-skelter urban sprawl.
It was revolutionary, and produced a landmark plan that limited new homes to 500 units per year and created a greenbelt around the city to help maintain its integrity and character. It also led to a colossal three-year battle with developers in the courts that advanced all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, establishing a precedent for communities across the country struggling with similar growth pressures.
In this video presentation sponsored by the Petaluma History Room and the AAUW, historian John Sheehy looks back at the lessons of Petaluma’s historical 1970s planning process that changed not only how we think about urban development today, but served to demonstrate that nothing gives people a stronger sense of belonging than the opportunity to shape the community where they live.
Petaluma Historytelling 1920-1970: with Katie Watts & John Sheehy
Onstage with Jim & Tom
Jim Agius and Tom Gaffey welcome historians Katie Watts and John Sheehy for a deep dive into Petaluma’s history from the the 1920s to the 1970s. We explore how Petaluma became known as the world’s egg basket, Prohibition, speakeasies, massive bootlegging rings, famous people-meeter and Petaluma booster Bill Soberanes, the post-war boom, Gilardi’s, Mayor Helen Putnam, the near decimation of Petaluma’s downtown, how the east side developed and much more.
Katie Watts is a writer, editor, and Petaluma historian, who as features editor for the Petaluma Argus-Courier, for years edited the popular “Yesteryears” column highlighting local history.
John Sheehy is the author of On a River Winding Home: Stories and Visions of the Petaluma River Watershed, which features intimate historical stories of the Petaluma River Watershed paired with the stunning photography of Scott Hess.
Tom Gaffey is the general manager and Jim Agius the talent buyer of the Phoenix Theater, where Onstage with Jim & Tom is produced.