Petaluma SMART Station Areas Master Plan

Petaluma, California

Creating a series of “theatrical events” to link a new transit station to the downtown core

Funded through a Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) and the Association of Bay Area Governments’ (ABAG) Station Area Planning Grant, this plan and SmartCode seeks to increase transit ridership by maximizing the potential for Transit-Oriented Development around current and future transit stations. Opticos led a multidisciplinary team to complete a Station Area Master Plan for two planned station areas along the Sonoma-Marin Area Rail Transit Line (SMART) within the City of Petaluma, California.

The project included:

Completion of two, three-day charrettes where most of the designs were created; the full multidisciplinary team participated, working in an on-site studio
Incremental Transit-Oriented Development strategy to address short-term economics
A detailed design/vision plan established the basis for a land use plan and more clearly articulated the vision to the community
Macroscale mapping and analysis to understand the context of the site and transitions to and from it
Rewrote the SmartCode, which was the first adopted SmartCode in the country, to clarify and simplify it for users
Created Station Area Plans for a downtown and a suburban station with the same detail as a Specific Plan
Detailed microscale analysis to study lot conditions, lot size, building types to inform the vision, and the Form-Based Code

Project Team: Opticos (lead); Carlile Macy; Lisa Wise Consulting, Inc.; Nelson|Nygaard; Urban Advisors Ltd.

“Opticos is top-notch: Great public process, good project management, quality deliverables, and going beyond the work program to provide what's needed for a successful outcome.”
— Scott Duiven, Senior Planner, City of Petaluma, CA