Petaluma Fairgrounds – Guiding Principles

The City of Petaluma is committed to providing our residents, who own the fairgrounds property, with the annual fair, increased access and more community services, uses, and events onsite, and improved property management to ensure the Petaluma’s community hub reflects the pride our residents have for our beloved fairgrounds property.

On October 24, 2022, following the input from our community, your City Council adopted guiding principles directly from your feedback to ensure our community’s needs and desires for its property are reflected in any activity, improvement, or planning effort that occurs. (Click HERE to view the full meeting.)

The 8 guiding principles that will guide all future efforts on the city-owned property are as follows:

• Acknowledge and build upon community input regarding the fairgrounds property while continuing to engage with the community going forward.
• Create, maintain, and enhance authentic partnerships across stakeholders and community groups with an interest in the fairgrounds property.
• Provide civic and institutional stability during the transition period and beyond so that the fair event and other key uses continue.
• Affirm a renewed, generational commitment of the City to the Petaluma community's agricultural past and present for which the fairgrounds property continues to be a focal point, to the people who have utilized and want to utilize the fairgrounds property, and to the fairgrounds property itself and its unique challenges and potential as an asset for the whole community through near-, medium-, and long-term actions and milestones for the property and related programs.
• Preserve and enhance key elements, resources, and activities at the fairgrounds property that the community is connected to and that make the place unique.
• Honor the legacy of history, place, and community while fostering safety, health, inclusivity, cultural connectedness, accessibility, and useability of the fairgrounds property for the benefit of all.
• Preserve and enhance the capacity of the fairgrounds property to provide critical emergency response resources for Petaluma and the region.
• While preserving the essential and unique feel and presence of the fairgrounds property and its core features, ensure that future fairgrounds property uses, including fair event uses, are maximized to effectively and compatibly accomplish as many of the community's needs and wants for the fairgrounds property as possible.

We look forward to working with you to uphold these Guiding Principles and increasing access to the Fairgrounds for the community. Sign up above right to stay up-to-date on events, programming, and the future master planning process!