Santa Rosa owns the Southeast Greenway, has hired a firm to plan it and has paid for that plan. Nobody has paid to build it yet. The City bought 49 acres of the old Highway 12 corridor from Caltrans in October 2024 for $1.8 million. In June 2026 it awarded a $2.67 million master-planning contract to CMG Landscape Architecture. Neither source names a construction date or a construction budget.
That gap matters for anyone living near Hoen Avenue, Mayette Avenue, Summerfield Road or Spring Lake. The money on hand pays for drawings. The drawings will decide which grants and donations the project goes after next. That makes the online survey and the two November workshops the point where the corridor's future is still easiest to shape.
What the land is right now
The master plan covers the strip from Hoen Avenue, south of Montgomery High School, east to Spring Lake Regional Park. It runs between rows of mostly single-family homes along Mayette and Hoen avenues. Three creeks cross it: Matanzas Creek, Sierra Park Creek and Spring Creek.
There are already a few signs of care on the ground. This spring the Greenway volunteers reported split-rail fencing along one section by Summerfield Drive, an air-quality monitor near Yulupa Cohousing and a volunteer-run wildlife camera on the property. Volunteers also held a clean-up to add to the City's own maintenance.
None of the sources says the property is open for drop-in visits. No published map shows gates or finished trail segments. The confirmed way onto the land is a scheduled event.
The next one is Saturday, Oct. 10, from 10 a.m. to noon. It's a free, easy 2-mile guided walk led by volunteers. A shuttle brings back anyone who doesn't want to walk the return leg, and you need to register. An earlier 2026 notice described the volunteer route as starting near Montgomery High School and ending just past Summerfield Road. The October listing doesn't restate those endpoints, so check your registration details.
Sonoma Land Trust has also run programs on the property, including yoga and bird watching. This spring's calendar added forest bathing, a BioBlitz and sound-healing sessions. Thea Hensel, the campaign leader, told the Press Democrat that volunteers plan to keep up monthly walks while the plan takes shape.
Following the money
The Greenway's whole history has moved at the pace of its funding. Caltrans started buying the original 58-acre corridor in the 1950s for a Highway 12 extension, and the state dropped those plans in 2014. Neighbors had organized as the Southeast Greenway Campaign in 2009. More than 300 residents joined a community-planning process in 2011. The state approved the sale in May 2024, and the City closed that October.
Here is what each stage has cost and who paid for it:
- Buying the land: $1.8 million in October 2024. A $1 million grant from the Sonoma County Agricultural Preservation and Open Space District covered part of it, and donations from community groups and individuals covered more.
- Planning the park: a $2.67 million contract with CMG. It's funded by $1.2 million in park impact fees paid by developers, a $750,000 Metropolitan Transportation Commission grant, and campaign donations passed through Sonoma Land Trust. MTC announced the grant in December 2024.
- Environmental review and early design: listed as optional in the City's January 2026 request for proposals, to go ahead only if more funding comes in. That request also mentioned a $700,000 Caltrans planning-grant application that had been submitted but not yet awarded.
- Building it: no committed budget and no start date in any source reviewed.
The RFP shows how far the paid-for work goes. It lists 30% construction drawings for the multi-use path, street frontages, crossings and neighborhood access points as optional work for April through November 2027. Even the best case on paper ends with partial drawings, not crews on site.
Hensel has been clear about this. She told the Press Democrat that the campaign is now turning to raising money for design and construction:
"It's a long haul. We are going after grants and we already have some people interested in donating … but this is not going to get built in a year."
The ideas already on the table
CMG isn't starting from a blank page. Past public input pointed to a mix of active and quieter uses. The flat land could hold ball fields or courts and picnic areas, and the far eastern end would stay mostly natural open space. Earlier conversations also brought up community gardens, play areas, public art and space for education.
Other ideas from past input include:
- A new entrance to Spring Lake at the eastern end.
- Better trailheads and crossings where the three creeks cut through.
- Access points that link the corridor to surrounding neighborhoods.
- A walking and bike path along the full length, connecting west to the Prince Memorial Greenway and the SMART trail and east to Spring Lake and Trione-Annadel State Park.
The western link in that last item has a complication. The plan area starts at Hoen Avenue. Caltrans kept the land west of Hoen toward Farmers Lane, plus a tract just west of Yulupa Avenue, and both sit outside the master plan. The Press Democrat reports that the state kept about 9 acres near Farmers Lane, which will be developed into housing. So the connection toward downtown depends partly on land this plan doesn't control.
Location also affects which of these ideas will matter most to a given household. Someone near Montgomery High lives by the flatter western end, where fields and courts have been floated. Someone near Summerfield Road or Spring Lake is closer to the natural open space and the possible new park entrance. Mayor Mark Stapp's District 2 covers the part of the Greenway west of Summerfield Road.
Why input carries extra weight this year
The project stalled for more than a year while the City reorganized its parks department. In January, Transportation and Public Works went looking for a consultant. CMG, the San Francisco firm that led planning for Petaluma River Park and some of the waterfront near Oracle Park, spent the summer reviewing past studies and meeting the partners.
The City calls this first stage the Discovery Phase. What it collects feeds the preliminary concepts, which go back to the public before a recommended master plan is finished in summer 2027. The plan will cover more than layout. It will also set out management and stewardship strategies and ideas for programming. Questions like who looks after the place and what happens there after opening get settled in the same document.
Dan Hennessey, Transportation and Public Works Director, described the goal this way earlier in the year: "We're not delivering a park to deliver a park, we're delivering a park so that people can use it, so I want as much of the community's ideas to be reflected in our plans."
The fall calendar
There are three ways in, all free:
- Guided walk, Oct. 10, 10 a.m. to noon. Register through SoutheastGreenway.org.
- Online survey. Available now in English and Spanish at segreenway.fillout.com/dream.
- Community workshops at Montgomery Junior Senior High School, 1250 Hahman Dr. Nov. 4 is in English and Nov. 5 is in Spanish, with more details to come closer to the dates.
More feedback sessions are expected later in the fall and early winter. After that, consultants and City staff will spend the winter and spring turning the input into alternatives for public review. A final draft goes to the City Council next summer. Hensel said volunteers and Sonoma Land Trust will also contact property owners along the corridor, school officials and local nonprofits directly. Updates and sign-ups are at SoutheastGreenway.org.
Have questions about how a future park, trail or new access point could affect a home near the Greenway, now or once the 2027 plan is adopted? The Cozza Team follows east Santa Rosa projects like this one as they move. Schedule a free, no-obligation home consultation, and we'll walk you through what's been decided and what's still open.
