Frank Nelson offers Wise Counsel in 2008 Marinwood Village meeting

Frank Nelson, retired District Attorney and long time Marinwood Resident offers the community wise counsel on the Marinwood Village proposal of 2008.  Originally the proposal was for 20% affordable housing,  then 50% affordable housing and miraculously it is now being offered at 100%
affordable housing in 2013.

I received this comment about the video from a long time resident:

"I have seen this video a few times before and I would like to point out one really good commentor, Mr. Frank Nelson. Click on the "Questions and Coments Part 2" and go to 5:52 minute mark and it goes to 10:18 min. mark. Frank is one of the original Task Force members of the Marinwood Village project team. The Task Force was the group convened before 2006, before the Collaborative group was formed. He was also chosen to be a part of the Collaborative group but he eventually declined to participate after the rules for the group were very restrictive as far as what the Collaborative members to talk to the community about. You can find record of this in the minutes of the first Collaborative meeting. 

Frank says several key things in his presentation that I think are relevant, even today. This meeting was in 2008. John Hammond speaks at the first part of the video urging everyone to "use the comment time wisely" and urges everyone to give the developer the green light to go foward with that current 2008 plan - otherwise, as he states, we will be doing this in another 2 years (again, this was 2008).

Frank takes the opposite approach. He urges everyone to NOT accept what they see in cement and to "challenge the 90-100 units of housing" which was not the original plan on the table. He says that there is no other project in the County that has been successful at financially building 50% affordable housing in a project. Frank asked that there be an "alternative plan" - stating that the original plan in 2006 called for a horizontal design of retail and housing with 70 units and 20% affordable but it has grown to be 90-100 units with 50% affordable with horizontal retail and 4-story vertical housing design.

Can you believe that now the project is 100 units and 100% affordable? HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?!"

For the complete presentation see: http://marin.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?publish_id=459

Food for thought.