Sebastopol looking at limits on formula businesses

Sebastopol, a town that prizes its funky, homegrown feel, has launched a new effort to define limits on development of chain restaurants and other formula businesses within city limits.

In part an echo of the public outcry over controversial plans to build a new CVS store downtown, officials say the move reflects a general desire to support locally owned businesses and the unique commercial centers they help create.

It will be some months before a proposal comes forward. The city’s seven-member Planning Commission is just taking up the issue now in hopes of establishing parameters for the City Council to build upon this spring.

City leaders say it’s anyone’s guess how a final draft of the formula business regulation might look, given the varied approaches taken in other ?California communities to protect their commercial districts from cookie-cutter development.

Limits could target fast-food eateries, “big box” warehouse retail stores, and everything in between, or regulate only businesses that wish to open in certain areas of town. The rules could be drawn broadly, turning away most chain businesses, or narrowly tailored to exclude only one kind of business, in certain areas.

The range of options “is incredibly wide,” Mayor Patrick Slayter said, “so there really isn’t a boilerplate kind of thing. .?.?. I think that where we are with it is trying to figure out where we want to land on this thing, if anywhere. That certainly is an option - the do-nothing option.”

The discussion on formula business development is a continuation of one begun two years ago amid controversy over plans by CVS drugstore to move from its current location in a Gravenstein Highway strip mall to a high profile corner in the center of town.

Under the leadership of then-Mayor Michael Kyes, the City Council acted unanimously in September 2013 to adopt an interim ordinance prohibiting development of new formula restaurants and retail stores defined as “substantially identical” to 10 or more other businesses in the United States on the basis of merchandise, menu, employee uniforms, interior or exterior design, signs, trademark and other listed features.

The temporary moratorium was extended after the first 45 days for another 10½ months, leaving time for Kyes and Councilman Robert Jacob to work in subcommittee on a proposal for permanent regulations. But the interim ban expired last fall, after Kyes’ unexpected death in May and before a new proposal had been developed.

The council in October tasked planning commissioners with outlining parameters of a new ordinance by April for the new subcommittee of Jacob and Councilman John Eder to consider.

Jacob, mayor until last month, said he believed the council generally favored some action on chain businesses but said opinions were mixed. The goal, he said, would be finding “the sweet spot for the city of Sebastopol.”

“I believe an outright ban on anything is rarely the right option,” he said.

A key concern in developing any regulation is ensuring it doesn’t price out lower-income residents, city officials said.

Planning Director Kenyon Webster said the city also wants to avoid the kinds of unintended consequences experienced elsewhere, such as in Calistoga, when a narrowly drafted ban on formula businesses stood in the way of expansion plans ?for Copperfield’s, the region’s independent bookseller, and in 2012 in Sonoma, when ?a proposed rule threatened the return of Williams-Sonoma kitchenware to town. The city later scaled back its rule to apply only to chain restaurants on the plaza.

“This is an area rife with various nuances and innumerable questions and opportunities,” Planning Commission Chairman Russ Pinto said at Tuesday’s commission meeting.

The Planning Commission held a brief discussion of its new mission last Tuesday with plans for a more in-depth debate at its next regular meeting Jan. 27.

You can reach Staff Writer Mary Callahan at 521-5249 or mary.?callahan@pressdemocrat.com.