Fire district pressed the state on overgrown vegetation at the SDC campus
In April, Sonoma Valley Fire said the 15000 Arnold Drive property was out of compliance with defensible-space rules; the state said a maintenance contract was coming.
GLEN ELLEN: In April, the Sonoma Valley Fire District publicly pressed the state over hazardous vegetation at the former Sonoma Developmental Center campus, saying the property at 15000 Arnold Drive remained out of compliance with Sonoma County Fire Code Chapter 13A, which sets minimum defensible space and vegetation clearance requirements.
The district's April 15 statement said it had been in direct communication with the chair of the county Board of Supervisors and her staff throughout the enforcement action, and that the chair's office had also been in touch with the California Department of General Services, the state agency that owns and manages the property.
According to the district, the Department of General Services acknowledged the hazardous vegetation conditions and was finalizing a contract with a vendor for regular ongoing maintenance and correction of the violations, with work expected to begin soon. The district said it would monitor compliance as the work got underway.
The dispute captures a structural problem with the campus: a vast state-owned property in high fire country, transitioning between uses, where maintenance responsibility is clear on paper and complicated in practice. For Glen Ellen residents living downhill and downwind, overgrown state land is not an abstraction.
The enforcement action landed as North Bay fire agencies were rolling out stricter defensible-space requirements for thousands of property owners in the highest-risk zones, with an emphasis on education before citations in the first year. The new rules go beyond the old 100-foot clearance standard, with tighter requirements for tree spacing, ladder fuels and even fence and deck materials.
The Post will check the campus's compliance status as fire season progresses and the state's maintenance contract takes effect.
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