photo credit: Flickr
The main building at the Sonoma Developmental Center in Eldridge, CA. 

Sonoma Valley residents vented their anger, frustration and widespread opposition on Sept. 25 to a plan to build what one person called unwanted new city on the former Sonoma Developmental Center campus, just south of Glen Ellen.

A county-held meeting called a scoping session was held at a middle school in Sonoma and virtually on zoom. Staff said it started at 6 p.m., but when people arrived or tuned in via zoom, they found the first hour had been set up as on open house.

"I want to thank the folks who had this meeting, but I also want to comment on something," said public commenter Patty Kozlovsky. "People came here at six o'clock, probably five times the number of people that are in this room right now. We're here and ready to talk. People found out they had to wait around for an hour or an hour and a half, and they left. I hope they will put their comments online, but I also hope that was not an intentional way of approaching getting comments from people."

Once underway, Wil Lyons of Permit Sonoma gave a presentation on how the county is preparing an environmental impact report for what developers want to build on the just under 1000-acre property.

A court order  forced the county to scrap it's initial specific plan for the site.

The development company "Eldridge Renewal" is aiming to use the "builders remedy" to construct 990 new residential units.

Here are some perspectives of those who spoke at the public meeting:

"I appreciate people are sticking around... this speaks to how committed the community is to getting the right solution for this situation. You know, we want to see SDC come out in a good place, not a bad place where It's going to erode quality of life and disturbed wildlife and possibly endanger people's lives in the next fire. The reason the EIR got thrown out was because it was inadequate. So I sure hope that the county and the consultants can do a much better job and come up with a better plan and a better EIR. The thing that solves the problems is scaling this whole thing down."

"Hello, I'm Sanford Horowitz. I'm a 31 year resident of Glen Ellen... I'm proud to be part of this community of people that care. So it's really important to state we're not against affordable housing and housing that's needed and things that are compatible, compatible with our community. There's a very compassionate community. What we're against here is this complete overreach. And speaking of lawsuits, I'm a civil rights lawyer, so I've read a lot of judges' opinions. I encourage people to read the opinion that the judge wrote in this lawsuit. He basically called what Permit Sonoma's doing, what the county is doing, what our supervisors are doing...he called it magical thinking."

"If you can't evacuate us now, you have no business building anything else here. If there's no jobs here to support it, or for example, let's say there's only 50 jobs here, then build 60 units of housing. You don't build 900. This is not a commuter town. We are not close to anything. If you want to build these type of big block buildings, shove it over there on your Highway 101, stop turning towns into cities. This is not this place for this. I know you want to have more housing in name only. None of it's affordable ever...you have investors buying this stuff. I know what you want. You want property tax money because you can't spend it quick enough and you can't budget it either."

"Now with the passage of California's Proposition 1, a new path is opened. Prop 1 allocated $6.4 billion to support inpatient mental health care, a goal that directly aligns with the SDCs historical purpose. It's a painful and obvious truth that our state has a profound need for mental health services. Instead of building a massive residential and commercial complex that would overwhelm our small town, why can't we not imagine the SDC property as a modern mental health treatment center? This would not only honor the site's legacy, but also contribute to a solution for our state's mental health crisis. I would argue that such a facility could also alleviate some of the housing crisis by providing residential opportunities for those in treatment and staff, making the project a win-win for all stakeholders."

"The proposed demolition of a majority of the SDC campus, including the historic Sonoma House, which was built in 1897, is completely unacceptable. At one point, the developer suggested that the building's history is repugnant and should be erased. You know, I believe erasing historic structures does not erase history, nor does it allow for meaningful reflection, learning, or reconciliation."

Those were public commenters during the Sept. 25, 2025 SDC scoping session.