Update from Kate

Seminary Tomorrow Working Group Status Report

Please Share Widely:

The Seminary Tomorrow Working Group participants - North Coast Land Holdings (NCLH), which owns the Seminary property, and the community caucus members - have asked me to share this status report on the conclusion of their talks with residents who subscribe to my District Three news and information.

I very much appreciate the Working Group's collaborative process and the ongoing relationships it has fostered, and look forward to continuing conversations widening to include the larger community in the future.

Seminary Tomorrow Working Group – Community Update

November 20, 2019

This is the sixth in a series of updates on facilitated discussions between North Coast Land Holdings (NCLH) and community representatives about the future redevelopment of the Seminary site in Strawberry.

The Seminary Tomorrow process was born from a letter from Josh Sale to NCLH in January 2017. The letter called for NCLH and community representatives to come together, without preconditions, in a facilitated process with the goal of seeking a compromise that all parties could live with. Any compromise would then be brought to the larger community for their review and input. The process actually began in May of that year with the hiring of a professional facilitator, Marie Rainwater.

Over the past 18 months, the group of eight community members and two NCLH representatives has met at least twice a month with Ms. Rainwater. In between these group meetings, NCLH worked to respond to feedback and to improve and refine its proposal. Similarly, the community representatives met amongst themselves between group meetings to formulate responses to NCLH that reflected the interests of the community and to develop their own suggestions for NCLH where applicable.

As you probably recall, back when the Seminary still owned and operated the site, things were quite simple: an up to 1,000 student graduate-level seminary and as many as 299 units of student and faculty housing to support the Seminary. What emerged through the Seminary Tomorrow process was a more complex development scenario:

 A smaller campus of an internationally recognized top-tier university with a graduate-level student body with some percentage of them living on site.

 A continuing care residential community offering a mix of independent, assisted and memory care units for seniors.

 A blend of affordable and market rate housing with a preference given to those who either work on site or are affiliated with the academic campus.

 A fitness center that supports the campus and continuing care facility and is open to Strawberry residents but not to those who live outside of Strawberry.

 A traffic management plan including a full time coordinator whose duty is to ensure compliance.

 A childcare center with preference given to families that live in Strawberry.

 Protection for the key open space areas.

 A network of trails and sidewalks that make the site more accessible and reduce reliance on cars.

 An increase in the number of taxable parcels to ensure that the new development doesn’t become a burden on our institutions (fire, school, etc.) that depend on parcel taxes.

As anticipated in the original letter, this scenario wasn’t loved by anybody in the Seminary Tomorrow process! But the group was very close to saying "we can live with it" …at least enough that we thought it was ready to be brought to the community for their consideration and feedback.

A key outstanding item was quantifying the number of students at the university and how many of them were guaranteed to live on campus. Based on the description of the school, everybody (both NCLH and community representatives) anticipates school enrollment will be small. However, the school is still in the midst of its internal planning for the new campus and is unable to commit to specific operational characteristics at this point in time (planning might take another year). NCLH is unwilling to commit to the smaller numbers before the school is ready. Page 2

The community representatives in the Seminary Tomorrow group struggled to find a way to proceed in the face of this uncertainty but in the end couldn’t endorse the academic use without a better understanding of operational parameters that define the maximum student population and how many students are guaranteed to live on campus. As a result, the Seminary Tomorrow participants determined that our October 16th meeting would be the final Seminary Tomorrow meeting.

In the coming weeks, NCLH will hold a publicly noticed open house where it will share details of its plan. The plan reflects ideas and suggestions that emerged from the Seminary Tomorrow process. NCLH intends to file their application with the County at some point following the open house. The community representatives, as well as the two community groups (Seminary Neighborhood Association and Strawberry Community Association), will be considering next steps.

Everybody involved in the Seminary Tomorrow process is disappointed that we couldn’t find a compromise on the project and the details of the academic use. However, it’s important to recognize our successes. Respectful communication between NCLH and the community representatives now exists and will continue into the future and the NCLH plan has been improved as a result of this process.

We thank the community for its patience as we worked through this process.

For more information about the Seminary Tomorrow working group or to be added to our project mailing list, please contact:

Josh Sale, SeminaryNeighbors@gmail.com

Tracy Craig, 510-334-4866 (nights/weekends okay) or tracy@craig-communications.com

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