St. Vincent’s and Silveira Ranch
When viewed from Highway 101, the bucolic St. Vincent’s and Silveira
ranchlands remind people of the way California once looked. The open vistas of a
working dairy, grazing cows and a pastoral landscape extending to San Pablo Bay
was once a common sight in the North Bay. One by one, over the years, these
vistas have been replaced with housing and commercial development. The
approximately 1,110 acre St. Vincent’s/Silveira properties serve as an important
community separator between northern San Rafael and Novato.
The 1994 Marin Countywide plan presumed that the City of San Rafael would
annex these two properties and they would be developed as a new neighborhood
within the City. Some San Rafael elected officials backed an aggressive plan
for large scale development of the area with up to 1,800 housing units and
several hundred thousand square feet of commercial space. There was a
tug-of-war of sorts between the County of Marin and the City of San Rafael
regarding which government agency would have jurisdiction over the site.
When I first ran for office, the City of San Rafael was processing a
development application from Shapell Industries that proposed 856 homes and
assorted commercial buildings on only the St. Vincent’s portion of the
properties. Shortly after I joined the Board of Supervisors, the San Rafael
City Council voted to drop the Silveira/St. Vincent’s properties from the city’s
sphere of influence, transferring full control of the land use planning to the
County of Marin.
I have long been committed to curtailing, as much as possible, large scale
development of these lands and I believe the voters supported this position when
they elected me to the Board eight years ago. I believe Marin County residents
do not want to see the type of growth, which the business and construction
industries support and which is evident in so many other areas of California
where one city or town sprawls into the next.
As the Countywide Plan was in the beginning stages of a major revision,
County planners, Supervisors and the public were in a position to take a fresh
look at the future use of these properties. A comprehensive analysis by the
County found that there were a number of extremely important resource areas on
the St. Vincent’s/Silveira lands, including tidelands; diked baylands; Miller
creek and its riparian corridor; large areas within the 100-year floodplain; and
the hills leading up to Pacheco Ridge at the northern edge of the site.
As part of the new Countywide Plan approved in 2007, a fourth planning
corridor was created. This new “Baylands Corridor” was established to protect
important baylands and large adjacent undeveloped uplands (including St.
Vincent’s and Silveira) along the bay shoreline. In the new Countywide Plan
these properties are assigned the land use designation: “Agricultural and
Environmental Resource Area”. Potential uses include agriculture and related
uses, limited residential development, education and tourism, places of worship,
institutional uses, and small-scale hospitality uses.
The Board of Supervisors set the planning guidelines for these properties to
include up to 221 dwelling units for the combined St. Vincent’s and Silveira
sites. This equates to 121 market-rate dwelling units plus up to 100 additional
units for low income households. Dwelling units would be allocated
proportionally to the respective St. Vincent’s and Silveira areas, based on the
total acreage of each property. Any new development would be located to protect
resource areas and be concentrated in locations that minimize interference with
the view corridor from Highway 101 to the bay.
To date, no formal development plans have been submitted to the County for
either of these properties.
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It is time to vote Susan Adams out. She does not have our interests in mind, not even in the slightest. She is pushing a radicalized agenda that forever will destroy our Marinwood community. I don't think anyone in Marinwood (other than Susan) wants their property values to drop, taxes go up, violence, crime, drugs, and everything else that comes along with low income housing which is occupied by welfare recipients. Plus, where are these people going to work (hypothetical, they don't work as why would they when the gov't gives them free checks)? The master plan cites Audoesk, Kaiser, and 1 other company. Autodesk is about to pull out of Marin for their move to SF (CEO/CFO/etc is are in SF now), Kaiser isn't expanding. And oh, these places require people whom want to work and are educated.
ReplyDeleteAnd why is the government building this stuff? To raise our taxes, punish us for working hard, saving our money, and NOT sucking off the system.
This housing which Susan loves to say will house our fire, police, and EMTs, will not house any of these people, it never does. It will house welfare people who will be paid by the government to move here from Oakland, Richmond, and in some cases even Watts CA where they will simply sit around and do nothing except cause trouble, burden the services of taxpayers (police, fire, emt), all while we pay for it.
Do you want this in your community?
"It is time to vote Susan Adams out."
DeleteGood luck with this. Before wasting your time with a recall petition please note that the current petition, which asks for nothing more than a 6 month delay, is nonetheless, unable to garner a paltry 200 signatures.
I can only conclude that opposition to subsidized housing in Marinwood Plaza is woefully inadequate. So after 30 years here, my wife and I will be leaving this neighborhood of Adam's sycophants to be hoisted upon their own petards by their local representatives and their, soon to arrive, new neighbors.
I hope you'll stay. I don't think you should read too much negativity into the petition. Remember, Susan Adams only won with 700 votes. 125 votes to delay is statistically significant. The reason for the meek response is not because people are opposed. In fact, if you relay the facts about the coming housing, people are in total disbelief the massive change that may come to our community. It doesn't help that so called "Neighborhood Leaders" and CSD Board Members have been complicit in their silence. I think our greatest challange as a community is that we are basically very happy and tend to mind our own business. Many of us moved here to ESCAPE local politics. Unfortunately, we have been thrust into a housing crisis. Other communities are fighting against much smaller housing allocations because they know what it will bring.
DeleteI ask you to join us and "give the good fight" to secure responsible planning for the community.