The Kirkman Lok Zombie Re$ort PLP18-0012 The applicant is working on conditions compliance. (The Conditions of Approval are attached in the BZA resolution pdf) There is no timeline for project build out at this time, but the conditions do require the use permit is used within 4 years. There will be a Design Review Committee public meeting and a Project Review Advisory Committee meeting during this 4 year timeframe, as required by the conditions of approval. The public will be notified of these meetings once the applicant is ready to move forward. Hannah Spencer is now the planner assigned to this project. Hannah.Spencer@sonoma-county.org ––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– Tuesday,
Oct 17, 2023 Someone expressed dismay about the removal of 76 redwoods. Kirk Lok referred to them as the "saplings" that came up after the old growth redwoods were cut down last century. I think this was meant to suggest that it was okay to remove them. Lok never referred to these trees by what they are today: 2nd growth mature redwoods. After the meeting I approached Carrillo directly, for several minutes, and to his credit he didn't run away, even as some folks attempted to herd me away from him like they were border collies. All this direct conversation did for me was to confirm that he has the party line , evasive answers, down pat. Amusingly, he had the nerve to ask me if I was also against affordable housing. This is another common ploy used to suggest that those with serious concerns about the size of this project and the negative impact to our dilapidated infrastructure, natural environment and ability to evacuate in an emergency are just nimbys against all "progress". Of course, on social media like local Nextdoor this is used as more than just a suggestion. It's used to falsely accuse and bully those who think that the project is just too big. On April 24, 2023 Forest Unlimited announced that they were stepping up to file an appeal of the BZA decision.
Please contact the Board of Supervisors and directly to Lynda Hopkins NOW and urge them to protect the numerous mature redwood tree slated to be cut down and to protect the public’s safety now and into the future. On Thursday, March 23, 2023 the Board of Zoning Adjustments voted to move this project forward with variances for less than code required parking and encroachment into the riparian corridors of the Russian River and Hulbert Creek, ignoring community concerns of serious public and environmental safety hazard impacts. The BZA ignored their own directive to the developer to lower the building height while maintaining the same footprint which was estimated to bring the room count down to 80. CLEARLY, THE DEVELOPER'$ LOBBYING EFFORT$ PAID OFF! • A Press Democrat article dated 2/25/23 "...appears headed for approval" • All BZA board members present (4of5) mentioned meeting with the developers shortly before this meeting during the disclosures portion of the meeting. • The projects 2 meeting rooms are designed for a 500 person capacity. This suggests that their primary advertising will be targeted to Corporations and Convention Planners. • This Addendum rescinds and replaces all Comments and Conditions listed under the “PERMIT SONOMA FIRE PREVENTION” section of the “Sonoma County Board of Zoning Adjustments Draft Conditions of Approval Exhibit A” for File No. PLP18-0012 with the following updated Fire Prevention Comments and Conditions: PERMIT SONOMA FIRE PREVENTION It specifically states on page 2: II. Additional Fire Safety Conditions for Projects in Both the SRA and LRA: Occupancy and Operation x. Prior to operation, written approval that the required improvements and comments have been addressed and/or corrected shall be provided to PRMD from the County Fire Marshal/Local Fire Protection District. x. The subject property (or properties) shall be in full compliance with Building Code regulations, Fire Code Regulations and Hazardous Materials regulations a. A fire inspection shall be conducted by the Sonoma County Fire Prevention Division to determine if the subject property (or properties) is currently in full compliance with applicable Building Code regulations, Fire Code Regulations and Hazardous Materials regulations.
• Their Mitigated Negative Declaration did not address the updated CA Fire Hazard Severity Zoning of our area from Moderate to High which is now considered a significant issue.
My Comment: According to the state's revised Fire Hazard Severity Zones map, the project site IS located in a high wildland fire hazard area. This is the evacuation plan for Guernewood Park, across Hwy 116 from the Lok project (Lok location has been added to map): From, Fire Prevention Sonoma County Community Wildfire Protection Plan Update pg28:
Directly across Hwy 116 from the proposed hotel are the side by side ingress/egress roads of Old Monte Rio Rd and Lovers Lane that hundreds of residents rely on as the sole means of evacuation. This is already a difficult intersection to exit from our residential area on busy weekends without adding the huge numbers that this project will attract.
On Pg 14 of the MND, the developer states: hotel buildings " ...will be built on pier
foundations to allow for construction amongst the redwoods without damaging their roots as well as to
elevate and support the buildings to withstand flooding and seismic shaking." FEMA FLOOD PLAIN MAP shows this area as flooding at 56-57ft. Photo evidence shows flooding at 45 and 48ft: February 27, 2019 Russian River flood crested at 45. 38 ft. 1995 - River crests at 48ft.
Currently Sonoma County’s agriculture communities and large resorts have ZERO conservation requirements or even basic use limits despite their residential and small farm neighbors running dry. There are also no fees being charged for the use of groundwater unless the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) has that capacity in limited basins. From The Russian River County Sanitation District (RRCSD): During heavy rainstorms associated with atmospheric rivers, the RRCSD sewer collection system could possibly become inundated with storm and flood water, which may contribute to an increased chance of sanitary sewer overflows (SSO) which could increase the risk to the public. We are asking residents to assist by following these suggestions during heavy rains: - Please do not drain any non-sewage, into the sewer system. According to this 2022 listing for a lot just uphill from the project site, "Sonoma PRMD confirmed sewer and electricity readily available at street level. There is a water moratorium in existence for the area and no new connections available for the next 5 yrs. Buyer to find other alternatives for water." From the 2023 revised Mitigated Negative Declaration, pg. 69: 11. LAND USE AND PLANNING: Would the project: a) Physically divide an established community? Developer's comment: "The project site is located within a rural, unincorporated area northwest of the community of
Guerneville along Highway 116 (River Road). It would not block or otherwise physically divide
Guerneville or areas adjacent to it. The project includes connections to public transit, bikeways and trails." • The public transit schedule is seriously limited and inconvenient. Hwy 116 between the project and Guerneville is DANGEROUS for pedestrians and bicyclists because it ISN'T connected with bike lanes, trails or paths! b) Cause a significant environmental impact due to a conflict with any land use plan, policy, or regulation adopted for the purpose of avoiding or mitigating an environmental effect? Developer's comment: "Lodging facilities may not exceed 50 rooms per site in rural areas and 200 rooms per site in Urban Service Areas (the project site is in the Guerneville Urban Service Area)." • Considering the current condition of our infrastructure it's outrageous that Guerneville (not to mention, MONTE RIO!) is designated an Urban Service Area. The 2020 Sonoma County General Plan (see page 57) needs a SERIOUS OVERHAUL!
Note that their swimming pool will be right against the Russian River. There has been no mention of pumps and storage tanks to remove the clorinated water before flooding washes it into the river: Threatened Anadromous Fish Killing Coho salmon with urbanization and… a highly toxic chemical used in the production of millions of tires every year is killing salmon in the Pacific Northwest, and it is being detected in streams across Northern California, a new study finds. The Hotel on River…and on Hulbert Creek as well, will create forseeable and predictable problems. Migrating fish, Coho and Chinook salmon and Steelhead must have navigable, undisturbed, unobstructed and unpolluted pathways to reach and depart their spawning sites. Somewhat ironically this particular hotel footprint has a problematic, negative footprint. It has considerable direct contact on the riparian habitat of hulber Creek and the bank of he Russian River.. These issues have never been admitted nor have plans been studied for amelioration. WHY NOT? These fish have a huge economic, recreational and conservation role to play in Sonoma County and California. (Read the Press Democrat article by Mary Callahan, December 2, 2023. King Salmon Fishing Season At Risk) The developer is remiss in not addressing this problem by working with the many volunteer organizations, and government agencies, local, regional, statewide and federal.
Scientists have known for decades that stormwater runoff from roads, highways and other urban areas has been linked to high rates of coho salmon deaths in Washington state, where as many as 90% of salmon in the Puget Sound area have died before they could spawn. Videos of Salmon in Hulbert Creek HERE.
"Local redwood forests are crucial in providing a healthy, stable climate. Studies show that coast redwoods capture more carbon dioxide (CO2) from our cars, trucks, and power plants than any other tree on Earth." - Sempervirens Fund 1. SR 116 (Main Street)/River Road "In February 2016, in response to County peer and staff review of a previous traffic study for the project
prepared by W-Trans traffic engineers, an updated traffic analysis for the project was submitted by W-
Trans on behalf of the applicant in 2018, and was subject to TPW peer review. The project analysis
included the following: The only nearby traffic impact study was done in 2018 at Guernewood Lane, a short through road with few homes, NOT the more critical intersections of Old Monte Rio Rd and Lovers Lane, needed for emergency evacuation for hundreds of people directly across from the hotel. In fact, their map, below, doesn't match up to the GIS zoning map or the Sonoma County ESRI map. It has the project site misaligned with the nearby intersections and ignores the existence of Lovers Lane right beside Old Monte Rio Rd:
Our area's traffic and emergency evacuation problems are further exacerbated by unreasonable occupancy allowances permitted to existing Vacation Rentals (10-18 total daytime visitors per unit). Among the several variances that the developer is seeking is less than code required 225 parking spaces with a controversial (and dangerous) plan for valet stacked/shared parking:![]() Click HERE for an enlargement of the Lok Parking Plan. The developer has said that the hotel will rarely be at full capacity. This makes no sense from a business perspective. A fully jam-packed parking area would be a hellish nightmare in the event of an emergency evacuation. And how many people would be willing to wait for their cars to be unwedged just to visit other area restaurants in the area? What happens when the valet parking service doesn't show up for a shift?
Historical Precedence and Economic Imperative Proponents like to say that the Lower Russian River has always been a resort area, attracting huge numbers of visitors with a huge hotel previously at this proposed building site. While it did become a blue collar seasonal vacation destination after the logging boom their claims are grossly exaggerated and completely ignore the population growth since 1900. In the early 20th century visitors arrived by train. After WWII large families arrived in packed station wagons. Now many visitors arrive 2 per vehicle.
Our local infrastructure hasn't kept pace with population growth. Of course we are still a charming seasonal visitor destination but over time we have also become an area for year-round residents, many on low to moderate fixed incomes. There isn't enough acreage or infrastructure for unlimited tourist Industry growth. The hotel previously at this site was much smaller, as was the population when it was there, otherwise why the need to remove 76 mature redwoods? What we need for our area is a sustainable and safe balance of visitors and full-time residents for a healthy local economy.
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* Source: macrotrends.net per US Census Bureau - Population Estimates This eloquent post from Nextdoor comments on conclusions being reached by cherry picking examples from the past. "Primary industries shift. Maybe we should be viewing this inflection point as an opportunity to build a local economy around sustainable practices of conservation." Some have suggested that a large hotel will reduce the demand for single family dwellings used as vacation rentals. While is an attractive argument to gain support from the many residents negatively impacted by the VRBO industry it ignores that fact that these two types of lodgings have very different target audience demographics. April 2019 - Shows parking required for the 1985 easement to the public beach: March 2023 - Sometime after April 2019 Lok violated the easement for required parking to the pubic beach by erecting a fence too close to CA-116: Restoration of the Riparian Corridor. Even without a hotel the riparian corridor could be restored. The developer is dangled this carrot since they seeking a variance to encroach into the riparian corridor with the hotel and swimming pool. It's zoned for a hotel! Actually it's zoned for Rec and Visitor Serving Commercial. It could be a public park with the only free beach access in Guerneville and have a restaurant. The following is excerpted from Sonya Karabel, Researcher, UNITE HERE Local 2850 Union: The local 2850 hotel hospitality workers union for the North Bay can tell us something about what some people widely want to believe here in Sonoma County: Most jobs in the Sonoma County hotel industry are not good jobs. The union has no reason to believe the proposed hotel will provide a living wage of stable employment for local residents, that will lift up the community and improve the economy of the Guerneville area. Low-wage hotel jobs, form the foundation of a deeply unsustainable economy in Sonoma County, based on low wage tourism jobs. People should not deceive themselves by believing that hotel jobs will provide a living wage, and the possibility of purchasing a home along the Russian river or elsewhere. These will not be great jobs. Residents of the Russian River, should say “NO” to a luxury hotel development that serves wealthy travelers, while leaving behind local workers, and residents. |
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RUSSIAN RIVER ALLIANCE: A local non-profit and a major vocal supporter of the Lok Project lists the Lok Group as a financial Supporter/Donor. Curiously, their members page has no information on how to become a member, no e-news letter for public outreach and no information on board meetings or elections. It's also questionable whether or not the listed members are even aware that they are official members of the RRA. The Russian River Alliance's main program is the called the Work Force Fund.They collect donations and get grants to financially support local workers. They require that those who apply for financial help be currently employed at least 24 hours a week. This begs the question: Who benefits more, local workers or the local employers? Who are they really supporting? I learned about this requirement from a friend who looked into getting some financial assistance from the RRA. She was a long time local resident senior citizen who had been forced to live out of her car for several years. She was ineligible because she only worked 8 hours a week. The Russian River Alliance is one of two local non-profits started by Chuck Ramsey, the other being the Monte Rio Community Alliance, which charges $25 annual dues. The Monte Rio alliance focuses on making code compliance complaints and parking violations to the County on behalf of it's members. Sonoma County takes these type of complaints from anyone for free. There is no evidence of any new activity on their website since 2019. Chuck Ramsey writes in his (only) Monte Rio Community Alliance 2019 Spring Newsletter, "We represent the Monte Rio Community in the Russian River Alliance." and further states that the Russian River Alliance incorporated as a 501c3 non-profit in 2012 "... as the successor to Redevelopment" and, "We provide outreach by attending meetings, by encouraging communication on Nextdoor, and through our website, Facebook, and monthly columns in the Sonoma County Gazette." He also mentions the Municipal Advisory Council "... of which we have strong representation on." , a reference to Jeniffer Wertz, co-founder of the Russian River Alliance. At that time Jeniffer was serving to represent all of Guerneville as a MAC Rep, not just the agenda of the Russian River Alliance. Jeniffer Wertz (Russian River Alliance) made an authoritative post on Nextdoor in support of the Lok project in 2021, saying it was in response to concerns presented on this page. Apparently she didn't know that I had moved from Monte Rio to Guernewood Park. This 11/02/21screenshot shows that she was still presenting herself as a MAC Rep on her Nextdoor bio page... long after her MAC term was expired: Chuck Ramsey is correct in stating in his resume that he has been on other local boards but I don't believe he was able to secure any of these appoints when there was an election challenge for the position. On Feb 2nd, 2023, coincidentally one day before it was announced that public comments were again being taken by the BZA on the Lok project, he wrote a column titled: History corner: Monte Rio Hotel celebrates more than 100 years in river area The Monte Rio Hotel was NOT there for "more than 100 years". It only existed for about 30 years before being torn down. He wrote that the hotel "consisted of 100 guest rooms." an implausible and unsubstantiated claim. He eventually explained that this information came from an Artificial Intelligence application. I think the purpose of using this A.I. created text as the lead into his column was designed to further convince the public that a hotel with 100+ rooms was an historic precedence. The Monte Rio Hotel certainly was an architectural curiosity, each floor apparently being accessible at ground level from Starrett Hill which it was built against. By examining photographs you can see that, while the hotel was tall and wide, it was quite shallow in depth. Just count the doors.
Kirk Lok and Some Business History PERMIT HISTORY LOOKUP: Searching by address seems to pull up the records for the 3 lots involved with the hotel project: 17155 Hwy 116, GUERNEVILLE, CA 95446 http://www.thelokgroup.com/ The Lok group website, originally given to the community as a link to project plans, no longer exists. Covid Bailout loans: https://projects.propublica.org/coronavirus/bailouts/loans/lok-group-of-companies-inc-1001588410 Our former District 5 Supervisor, Efren Carrillo: was hired by the Lok Group of Companies(Kirkman Lok) as some kind of liaison to the public. The same Efren Carrillo who neglected to tell his constituents that there was a small window open to apply for a Vacation Rental Exclusion Zone in their surrounding area for free instead of $8,400. Residents would have to pay this fee even if the Exclusion Zone is needed for public safety reasons such as poor road conditions for emergency vehicle access and high fire risk terrain. Thanks to Efren, there were zero VR X Zones in District 5 created under his leadership. https://www.zoominfo.com/c/the-lok-group-of-companies/146834098 https://www.sonomacountyhospitality.org/page-18054 https://www.linkedin.com/in/kirkman-lok-6351324/ Legal actions are starting to be taken against County Agencies across California for allowing developments/commercial projects in high fire risk/poor access areas: Fire Experts Warn:
05/10/23 Russian River County Sanitation District Virtual Community Meeting (starting at 12:14): 03/24/23 Press Democrat article announcing BZA approval and some serious misinformation: Mary Callahan wrote: "Last fall, commissioners required developers to pare down what had been planned as four-story buildings and 120 guest rooms to three stories and 108 rooms." It was actually last SPRING and they were directed to keep THE SAME FOOTPRINT, certainly NOT to increase the footprint by 5,230 sq ft. 03/23/23 BZA Audio of final public hearing and Board of Zoning Adjustments voting to approve the project. At 0:00-1:47of the recording, all present BZA board members disclose recent meetings with applicant representatives. 02/25/23 Press Democrat article With developer's vision of rebranding the Lower Russian River as the Wine Country with some redwoods. 02/19/23 River Talk Episode 2 show archive - Joe Rogoff in conversation with Bradley Dunn of Permit Sonoma, regarding Lok project starting at 51:08. Bradley Dunn makes it clear that it's up to the public to confront the Board of Zoning Adjustments when they decide to allow variances for parking requirements, updated traffic study requirements, etc. 02/16/23 River MAC Meeting: 02/09/23 MAC Land Use Committee Meeting: Cynthia Strecker (Monte Rio MAC Rep) was prevented by Mike Nichols from making comments on the Lok Project as a member of the public at this meeting (on the grounds of being a Brown Act violation?) and advised her to save her comments for the next full MAC meeting. (See below video where she previously was allowed to speak and provide relevant information which contradicted Mike Nicholls glowing report.) This is a shame since she has put the most time into studying the impact of the Lok project and has the most thorough knowledge on the subject. It's strange (suspicious to me) that she wasn't asked to be on the Land Use Committee in the first place for this very reason. 11/22/22 MAC Land Use Committee Meeting: 11/02/22 revised MND for recirculation: HERE. 08/11/22 revised application documents: HERE. 02/24/22 UPDATE: PROJECT SENT BACK TO THE DEVELOPER BY THE BZA Link to the Full BZA 02/24/22 Zoom Meeting HERE. Link to previous Lok Project BZA documents including written public comments: 11/22/21 Eric Koenigshofer from the BZA Meets with MAC Land use Ad Hoc Committee to discuss The proposed Lok Hotel and the size of the project:
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