Tuesday, July 9, 2019

Marinwood Maintenance Facility- Truck Turn around will destroy Meadow

Here is an approximation of the area needed to turn around our Ford F250 in the Meadow several hundred feet east of the proposed maintenance facility.  You can view the crushed plant life in this meadow where the Marinwood Maintenance workers use it to turn around today.  It is visible in the high grass but it is difficult to show in a photo.   

Marinwood CSD's Ford F250 truck has a turning radius of 51.9 feet.  It is 22 feet long and often carries a heavy dump trailer that is approximately 20 feet in length.   The proposed maintenance facility allows NO ROOM for turn around of these vehicles and so they will need to continue to this spot in Marinwood Park to turn around.

We think this is unacceptable.  Marinwood Park is valuable open space, a recreational path and a nature education trail.  The architect did not include this area in the Site Plan submission to Marin County Community Planning.  They did not consider the impact to the landscape or the architectural treasures known to exist from the Miwok settlement Cotomko'tca.

If the proposed Maintenance Facility is allowed to be built without modification, this area will become a heavily beaten road with muddy ruts in wet conditions.  

Unfortunately, the proposed "drive through facility" is THREE TIMES the size of McInnis Park's Maintenance facility completed in 2018 and covers more area.  It is grossly over sized for our tiny park and takes away valuable land for recreation and preservation.  

We urge Marinwood CSD to consider a simple narrow facility in scale with our park using Option #3

I urge you to visit the site and note the erosion from ephemeral steams and also the sinkhole in this same meadow.  This is NOT an area for heavy vehicles.

The proposed Marinwood Maintenance facility should be rejected in its current form or at least require a true site plan of impacted land and require adequate environmental study.
The sink hole is still not repaired since February 2019.  Management wants to hire an expert to inspect the hole before they fix it. They have already hired one expert for $1700 to render an opinion.  Filling it up for public safety immediately seems like a good idea. 
Maintenance Shed Option #3 designed by Irv Schwartz is the environmentally preferred option.

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