MARIN COUNTY CAN TRACE the origins of its conservation ethic back more than 100 years.
In 1912, U.S. Congressman William Kent assembled thousands of acres of forested lands on the north slope of Mount Tamalpais to help start the Marin Municipal Water District.
Kent already had donated land to the federal government that became Muir Woods National Monument and helped spearhead formation of the National Park Service. In January 1908, President Theodore Roosevelt signed legislation creating the national monument and preserving the stand of old-growth redwoods. Kent asked that it be named after John Muir.
"Kent's pioneering work in preserving large parts of Mt. Tamalpais as state and national parks laid the groundwork for the purchase of the Point Reyes National Seashore and the Golden Gate National Recreation Area some forty years later," wrote Martin Griffin of Belvedere in his book, "Saving the Marin-Sonoma Coast."
Today, 84 percent of Marin County's 332,800 acres has been either reserved as permanent open space or shielded from development by strict zoning laws. But the county's pristine beauty has faced some grave threats over the years, and there are no guarantees it will endure into the future.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, there were plans to extend Highway 17 from San Rafael across West Marin to Point Reyes National Seashore and to build five sprawling developments that would house 241,000 people.
One of the projects, dubbed Marincello, would have covered the Marin Headlands from the Golden Gate to Fort Cronkhite Beach. The Gulf Oil-backed project called for 16-story apartment houses, town houses, a resort hotel and scores of retail shops and light industrial development. Another project would have built a new city on Tomales Bay with a population of 150,000.
Marincello's supporters on the Marin County Board of Supervisors, which included millionaire developer Ernest Kettenhofen, noted that the project's density had been cut from 5.9 homes per acre to 3.5. Kettenhofen also supported building a parkway on the Bolinas Ridge crossing Mt. Tam from Mill Valley to Olema.
But the tide suddenly turned in 1968, when Peter Arrigoni, a Republican stockbroker who would later become head of the Marin Builders Exchange, ran against Kettenhofen and defeated him handily. Arrigoni, a former Fairfax mayor, became the crucial third vote when Marin County supervisors withdrew their support of Marincello in 1970 and the next year repealed the West Marin General Plan, which envisioned the massive development in Tomales Bay.
"There was a distinct change in the Marin County political climate at that time," Arrigoni said.
The capper came in 1973 when Arrigoni and two fellow supervisors voted to adopt a Countywide Plan that divided the county into three corridors — coastal/recreational, inland/rural and city-centered — and limited development to just the city-centered corridor. Owners of agricultural land were allowed just one house for every 60 acres of property.
Former Supervisor Gary Giacomini, who also cast his vote for the plan, said the A-60 zoning may not have endured if not for the creation in 1980 of the Marin Agricultural Land Trust, which acquires agricultural conservation easements on farmland. MALT has so far permanently protected more than 41,800 acres of land on 66 family farms and ranches.
MALT was the first land trust in the nation to focus on farmland preservation. It was formed by ranchers and environmentalists.
In subsequent years, Giacomini worked with Congressman Philip Burton and others to purchase thousands of acres of Marin coastal land leading to the expansion of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area and the Point Reyes National Seashore.
The Countywide Plan also recommended the creation of an open space district to acquire 13 unblemished ridges totaling 21,774 acres. Today, the Marin County Open Space District manages about 18,500 acres of land.
When supervisors updated the Countywide Plan in 2007, they removed more land from the reach of developers by carving out 43,332 low-lying acres from the eastern edge of the city-centered corridor and creating a new bayland corridor.
"That was something that environmental groups had been calling for 15 or 20 years," said Nona Dennis, president of the Marin Conservation League.
At the same time, supervisors limited development on the St. Vincent's School for Boys and Silveira ranchlands north of San Rafael to 30 to 40 acres of the 1,100-acre site. Affordable housing advocates had sought a larger development.
Don Dickenson, a member of the Marin County Planning Commission and board member of the Marin Open Space Trust, sees a need for still more open space acquisitions and says the current economic downturn is creating new opportunities. Dickinson says some property owners who previously proposed development are showing interest in selling their land to organizations such as MOST, which can offer tax benefits.
"The real estate market is so tanked they can't find anyone interested in buying it for real estate development so they're looking at other options," Dickinson said.
Perhaps the biggest threat to the continued preservation of Marin's thousands of acres of undeveloped land is the embattled state of West Marin agriculture. Giacomini says that in the past courts upheld the A-60 zoning because agriculture was a viable industry, but future legal challenges could turn out differently.
"If all these ranches were to fail, you can't keep A-60 because it's a facade," Giacomini said. "It would be like reverse dominoes."
In 1912, U.S. Congressman William Kent assembled thousands of acres of forested lands on the north slope of Mount Tamalpais to help start the Marin Municipal Water District.
Kent already had donated land to the federal government that became Muir Woods National Monument and helped spearhead formation of the National Park Service. In January 1908, President Theodore Roosevelt signed legislation creating the national monument and preserving the stand of old-growth redwoods. Kent asked that it be named after John Muir.
"Kent's pioneering work in preserving large parts of Mt. Tamalpais as state and national parks laid the groundwork for the purchase of the Point Reyes National Seashore and the Golden Gate National Recreation Area some forty years later," wrote Martin Griffin of Belvedere in his book, "Saving the Marin-Sonoma Coast."
Today, 84 percent of Marin County's 332,800 acres has been either reserved as permanent open space or shielded from development by strict zoning laws. But the county's pristine beauty has faced some grave threats over the years, and there are no guarantees it will endure into the future.
In the late 1950s and early 1960s, there were plans to extend Highway 17 from San Rafael across West Marin to Point Reyes National Seashore and to build five sprawling developments that would house 241,000 people.
One of the projects, dubbed Marincello, would have covered the Marin Headlands from the Golden Gate to Fort Cronkhite Beach. The Gulf Oil-backed project called for 16-story apartment houses, town houses, a resort hotel and scores of retail shops and light industrial development. Another project would have built a new city on Tomales Bay with a population of 150,000.
Marincello's supporters on the Marin County Board of Supervisors, which included millionaire developer Ernest Kettenhofen, noted that the project's density had been cut from 5.9 homes per acre to 3.5. Kettenhofen also supported building a parkway on the Bolinas Ridge crossing Mt. Tam from Mill Valley to Olema.
But the tide suddenly turned in 1968, when Peter Arrigoni, a Republican stockbroker who would later become head of the Marin Builders Exchange, ran against Kettenhofen and defeated him handily. Arrigoni, a former Fairfax mayor, became the crucial third vote when Marin County supervisors withdrew their support of Marincello in 1970 and the next year repealed the West Marin General Plan, which envisioned the massive development in Tomales Bay.
"There was a distinct change in the Marin County political climate at that time," Arrigoni said.
The capper came in 1973 when Arrigoni and two fellow supervisors voted to adopt a Countywide Plan that divided the county into three corridors — coastal/recreational, inland/rural and city-centered — and limited development to just the city-centered corridor. Owners of agricultural land were allowed just one house for every 60 acres of property.
Former Supervisor Gary Giacomini, who also cast his vote for the plan, said the A-60 zoning may not have endured if not for the creation in 1980 of the Marin Agricultural Land Trust, which acquires agricultural conservation easements on farmland. MALT has so far permanently protected more than 41,800 acres of land on 66 family farms and ranches.
MALT was the first land trust in the nation to focus on farmland preservation. It was formed by ranchers and environmentalists.
In subsequent years, Giacomini worked with Congressman Philip Burton and others to purchase thousands of acres of Marin coastal land leading to the expansion of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area and the Point Reyes National Seashore.
The Countywide Plan also recommended the creation of an open space district to acquire 13 unblemished ridges totaling 21,774 acres. Today, the Marin County Open Space District manages about 18,500 acres of land.
When supervisors updated the Countywide Plan in 2007, they removed more land from the reach of developers by carving out 43,332 low-lying acres from the eastern edge of the city-centered corridor and creating a new bayland corridor.
"That was something that environmental groups had been calling for 15 or 20 years," said Nona Dennis, president of the Marin Conservation League.
At the same time, supervisors limited development on the St. Vincent's School for Boys and Silveira ranchlands north of San Rafael to 30 to 40 acres of the 1,100-acre site. Affordable housing advocates had sought a larger development.
Don Dickenson, a member of the Marin County Planning Commission and board member of the Marin Open Space Trust, sees a need for still more open space acquisitions and says the current economic downturn is creating new opportunities. Dickinson says some property owners who previously proposed development are showing interest in selling their land to organizations such as MOST, which can offer tax benefits.
"The real estate market is so tanked they can't find anyone interested in buying it for real estate development so they're looking at other options," Dickinson said.
Perhaps the biggest threat to the continued preservation of Marin's thousands of acres of undeveloped land is the embattled state of West Marin agriculture. Giacomini says that in the past courts upheld the A-60 zoning because agriculture was a viable industry, but future legal challenges could turn out differently.
"If all these ranches were to fail, you can't keep A-60 because it's a facade," Giacomini said. "It would be like reverse dominoes."
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