A city website dedicated to the Chanate campus indicates any large-scale proposal would likely require rezoning the use of the property, conducting an exhaustive environmental review and amending Santa Rosa’s general plan.
Councilwoman Victoria Fleming’s northeastern Santa Rosa district includes the Chanate campus and the hillside neighborhoods above it. Fleming, who described herself as a “staunch and fierce” advocate for housing, said her principal worry is that housing, a resort or a hotel at the site would increase traffic along narrow, winding Chanate Road during any future nighttime fire evacuations.
She said any development at Chanate would have to be carefully calibrated to win the backing of her wary constituents, and her.
“The safety of the surrounding neighborhoods and the residents who inhabit those neighborhoods is paramount,” Fleming said. “I will be monitoring this situation as it develops very closely.”
To assuage residents’ immediate concerns about security once the property changes hands, Haddad said he aims to start the demolition of all vacant buildings at Chanate as soon as the sale goes through.
Haddad said the construction contractor he selects to tear down the site would be in charge of hiring a private firm to monitor the property during demolition, which could take about sixth months. After that, he doesn’t anticipate needing security before the project is completed.
“This is why we want to pull the demolition permit immediately,” he said. “If we get the demolition permit, that would be all taken care of by the contractor.”
Talk of a tribal casino
Following the auction of the property, there’s been speculation that Haddad — a relative unknown in the North Bay — could team up with an Native American tribe to build a casino, according to a half dozen interviews with local officials and housing advocates.
In an interview with Haddad on Friday, he ruled out any plans for a casino.
“No, we’re not proposing a casino site,” he said.
But in a follow-up call on Monday, Haddad said he raised that possibility with his lawyer after a Press Democrat reporter’s earlier questions about tribal gaming.
“I did ask my attorney about it and he said, ‘Let me know when you’re ready to discuss. It’s certainly been done,’” Haddad said.
To build a casino at Chanate, a tribe with ties to the area would need to apply to have the federal government designate the property as tribal land, before seeking additional state and federal approvals, a process that generally takes years to see through. The city or county would not have jurisdiction in that process.
Haddad said he has not yet contacted any tribes about the property, adding he hasn’t been involved in casino development in the past.
The most recent step toward casino development in the North Bay came from the Koi Nation, a federally recognized tribe based in Sonoma County, which in September announced plans to turn a 68-acre vineyard southeast of Windsor into a $600 million casino resort.
Representatives with the Koi Nation; the Lytton Band of Pomo Indians, which is based near Healdsburg and operates a casino in San Pablo; and the Dry Creek Rancheria Band of Pomo Indians, which is based near Geyserville and operates the River Rock Casino there, all said they had not been contacted by Haddad.
The Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, which owns the Rohnert Park-area Graton Resort and Casino, the largest tribal gaming destination in the Bay Area, did not return a request for comment.
If Haddad intends to take into account residents’ concerns in coming up with a proposal for the property, Fleming, the Santa Rosa councilwoman, said any plans for a casino should be a nonstarter.
“I think it’s a big stretch to imagine the neighbors or the community more broadly getting to a place of welcoming a casino,” she said. ”I just think that is unimaginable.”
Developer’s past and present projects
In recent years, Haddad has bought two other large-scale properties to redevelop in Nevada and California.
One is the shuttered Legacy Golf Course in Henderson, Nevada, which he purchased for $1.5 million in 2017 with partner Georges Maalouf to build luxury apartments and a hotel around the course. Neighbors filed a lawsuit to stop the project in 2018, before the parties agreed that only part of the property could be developed, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
Then in March of this year, Haddad and Maalouf won a bid for a 59-acre former Coast Guard site in Contra Costa County. The site, known as Concord Villages, is currently empty military housing bordering a separate massive planned housing development at a former naval base and Superfund site. The pair paid $58.4 million for the property, where they hope to add 2,000 housing units, according to the San Francisco Business Times.
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Chanate campus buyer's plans could include housing, hotel, casino - North Bay Business Journal
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