Sonoma County’s 72-acre Chanate Road campus in northeast Santa Rosa has long been eyed by city and county officials for housing redevelopment as the region continues to struggle through an intensifying shortage.

On Thursday, the county is set to finalize a sale of the property to Iyad “Eddie” Haddad, a Las Vegas based developer who bid $15.05 million for the site in a Nov. 9 auction.

Yet there is little in Haddad’s real estate track record to indicate he has ever successfully developed such a large project.

Haddad’s background is checkered with dozens of allegations from current and former tenants and others, many asserting he exploits vulnerable renters and routinely flips properties out from under them, a Press Democrat investigation found.

His development history and many of the complaints against him and his companies are verifiable through court judgments and other public records.

Sonoma County officials, however, made no effort to delve into Haddad’s real estate dealings before advancing a deal that gives him the exclusive right to develop the Chanate campus.

In an interview with The Press Democrat, Haddad defended his record and pushed back against the allegations from tenants of his homes in Las Vegas while reaffirming his commitment to working with the local community to redevelop the Chanate campus.

“We have an excellent track record,” Haddad said. “Customer service is key. We go out there and take care of issues.”

County elected leaders who authorized the auction sale and administrators who oversaw it were interviewed late last week about the process and the Press Democrat’s findings.

Santa Rosa city officials, who are set to oversee and ultimately approve any development on the site, also shared their concerns their interviews.

Here are excerpted quotes from those interviews:

Sonoma County Board of Supervisors Chair Lynda Hopkins:

“This process has been completely hands off.”

“I think everyone in county government will be grateful to turn this over to the city of Santa Rosa. The reality is we are all part of the same community.”

“There is zero space for that kind of behavior in Sonoma County and all eyes are going to be on this development. It is a very active neighborhood I’m sure the city of Santa Rosa will take a very active role in oversight.”

“Naturally, any of these kinds of allegations cause concerns. I hope that we do a better job in California than Nevada does in holding developers' feet to the fire.”

Santa Rosa Mayor Chris Rogers:

“I wouldn’t be surprised if some of the lessons that we’ve learned (from your reporting) don’t in some way make their way into any approval agreements to try to make sure that won't happen here.”

“It highlights the need to make sure that we dot every 'i' and cross every 't' and make sure that any requirements are clearly articulated and then follow up to make sure that they are met.”

Santa Rosa Councilwoman Victoria Fleming:

“The process that they used prevented them from saying anything but ‘yes’ to the highest bidder. It’s not perhaps the decision that I would have made. However, I wasn’t in the room. I’d like to think they did their best for the public good.”

“The city and the communities that we represent that will be most affected by the sale of Chanate will need to be even more vigilant and more prepared which is really saying something. What we cannot do is prejudice a developer based on previous bad behavior … what we can do is take that information and be very alert.”

“We went through a whole process, we determined what the minimum price would be and we put it out there. We don’t get to change the rules after the fact because we heard a rumor or we saw something about someone’s previous actions.”

Sonoma County General Services Director Caroline Judy:

“It’s been a long-standing county objective, it certainly predated my tenure as a director, to get this property sold. And I’ll be very happy to see it move along in its history and trajectory and hopefully become a useful property.”

You can reach Staff Writer Emma Murphy at 707-521-5228 or emma.murphy@pressdemocrat.com. You can reach Staff Writer Andrew Graham at 707-526-8667 or andrew.graham@pressdemocrat.com.

The decisions of Sonoma County’s elected leaders and those running county government departments impact people’s lives in real, direct ways. Your local leaders are responsible for managing the county’s finances, advocating for support at the state and federal levels, adopting policies on public health, housing and business — to name a few — and leading emergency response and recovery. As The Press Democrat’s county government and politics reporter, my job is to spotlight their work and track the outcomes.

Business enterprise and investigations, The Press Democrat 

I dig into businesses, utility companies and nonprofits to learn how their actions, or inactions, impact the lives of North Bay residents. I’m looking to dive deep into public utilities, labor struggles and real estate deals. I try to approach my work with the journalism axioms of giving voice to the voiceless, comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable in mind.

UPDATED: Please read and follow our commenting policy: