Los Ranchitos Housing Element Meeting February 16, 2022

Excellent public comments.  Check out Judy Schriebman at 42:00:00

Why Marin County is NOT asking your opinion on Housing Sites

 

Marin County Community Development Director, Leelee Thomas claims that "TOO MANY HOUSING SITES" for "The Balancing Act" tool. They ask for public commentary on a LIMITED NUMBER of potential housing sites. In Lucas Valley Marinwood over 75% of the housing sites are not listed on the tool. This appears to be complete B.S. and a cause for worry.

Have you every heard of a modern database that can only handle 550 records but 2300 records would crash the servers?

I think it is obvious that the Marin County Community Development department do not want to alert the public about the massive changes about to take place in their neighborhoods. This video clip was taken from the Marin City presentation on February 16, 2022 https://youtu.be/2GHdSFf26QE The 2022 RHNA proposal for Unincorporated Marin is absurd.

In another attempt to sound logical, Marin County Community Development Director indicates that low income housing will be concentrate in wealthy suburbs presumed to be racist and exclusionary. They are called "high opportunity areas".

Marin County Community Development Director promotes the lie that George Lucas could not get development because of neighborhood resistance. In fact, the project proposed moving a creek and had other environmental hazards that were hidden from regulators in an attempt to get the project approved. The developers were caught and, the development proposal died to avoid inevitable legal trouble. The Community Development Director implies that it was "white people in Lucas Valley" that stopped the development. The is emphatically not true. In fact, many neighbors in Lucas Valley supported the project before the environmental problems were revealed. Most thought housing is better located near the highway on Silviera Ranch and St Vincents. Marin County has prohibited development on Silviera Ranch. We have much higher diversity here than most other districts in Marin including the one where the Community Development director lives.

Why Very Low Income Housing will be Located in Lucas Valley and Marinwood

 Why Very Low Income Housing will be Located in Lucas Valley and Marinwood

 

 In this clip from the Marin County Community Development workshop, Leelee Thomas, Director explains the reasons behind locating very low income housing in middle income areas like Lucas Valley and Marinwood.  Our neighborhood is designated to receive 80% of all very low income housing developments for unincorporated Marin.  Wealthy areas of Marin are deemed  "impractical" for this housing.  Lucas Valley currently has approximately 2700 and may receive 2300+ new tax subsidized apartments as the result of our current Regional Housing Needs Assessment.(RHNA). Of course the real reason is that we are without a local political leadership and it is easy to foist this upon us.    Real world concerns for water, infrastructure, schools, traffic are NOT ADDRESSED.  It is an absurd plan and much more public discussion needs to take place.  The full workshop video here https://youtu.be/2GHdSFf26QE

PJ ORouke on Cars and Suburbs

 

Marinwood Resident speaks about ridiculous Affordable Housing Proposal that will DOUBLE our population

Cataylst discussion on Housing Mandates 2/10/2022

Marin housing mandate opponents map resistance strategy

 

Marin housing mandate opponents map resistancestrategy

A crew works on a townhome development on Redwood Boulevard near Wood Hollow Drive in Novato on Wednesday, Aug. 11, 2021. (Alan Dep/Marin Independent Journal)

By RICHARD HALSTEAD | rhalstead@marinij.com | Marin Independent Journal

PUBLISHED: February 14, 2022 at 6:43 p.m. | UPDATED: February 14, 2022 at 7:15 p.m.

A core group of Marin’s staunchest density opponents is strategizing ways to challenge state housing mandates.

Catalysts for Local Control, founded by Mill Valley resident Susan Kirsch, held a teleconference meeting attended by about 36 people on Thursday. The statewide organization’s stated mission is to promote “affordable housing while preserving single-family zoning, the environment and reliable infrastructure.”

Featured speakers included Sharon Rushton of Mill Valley, chairperson of Sustainable TamAlmonte; Frank Egger, the seven–time mayor of Fairfax known for his battles with developers; and Stephen Nestel, a community activist from Marinwood.

Kirsch said that Marin City Community Services District chairman Damian Morgan was set to speak but was unable to attend.

The purpose of the meeting was to discuss ways of pushing back against an edict from the Association of Bay Area Governments requiring Marin County and its municipalities to create 14,405 new residences between 2023 and 2031.

“This is more than the current number of homes in Mill Valley and Sausalito combined,” Rushton said.

During the previous cycle from 2015 to 2023, Marin jurisdictions were assigned a 2,298 residences.

Every eight years, the state Department of Housing and Community Development projects how much new housing will be needed in the Bay Area to accommodate expected population and job growth.

The Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) then decides how many of those homes to assign to each county and municipality in the region. Local jurisdictions are required to adjust zoning laws to make the creation of that amount of housing possible.

Under SB 35, which was signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown in 2017, any municipality or county that fails to build the amount of housing assigned to it by the Association of Bay Area Governments is subject to a streamlined approval process for new housing projects, which removes virtually all local control.

Another new state law, Senate Bill 9, gives property owners the right to build duplexes, and in some cases four homes, in most single-family-home neighborhoods.

New state housing laws are already playing out in Marin. A five-story, 74-apartment complex in Marin City was approved under a streamlined process in 2020. At last count, the developer of the project, AMG & Associates LLC of Encino, was working on eight projects that qualify for SB 35 protections.

“California housing policy has been supporting Wall Street investor wealth but not mainstream wage earners,” Kirsch said. “It is harming our neighborhoods and communities and the American Dream.”

Kirsch cited a study by the Palo Alto-based Embarcadero Institute as evidence that the ABAG housing assignments are inflated. The study contends that this cycle’s estimated need for new housing, calculated using a new approach mandated by yet another new state law, Senate Bill 828, mistakenly double counted the actual need.

Groups such as California YIMBY and YIMBY Law dispute this argument, asserting that the Embarcadero Institute’s problem with the numbers is a political one, not a technical one.

Regardless, Kirsch said one of the actions that members of the public should take if they believe the housing assignments are unreasonable is to contact Assemblyman Marc Levine, D-Greenbrae, or state Sen. Mike McGuire, D-Healdsburg, and demand an audit of the housing need estimate.

Rushton said, “These unrealistic housing allocations are setting jurisdictions up to fail. Marin’s crisis in housing is not in quantity but in affordability.”

Ruston asked meeting attendees for their help in gathering signatures to get the Our Neighborhood Voices Initiative on the ballot. The proposed ballot measure would neutralize state housing laws such as SB 9 by mandating that city and county land-use and zoning laws override all conflicting state laws, except in certain special circumstances.

The Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG), which is the equivalent of ABAG in Southern California, voted 32 to 12 to endorse the measure. SCAG’s jurisdiction spans six counties — Imperial, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura — and 191 cities.

Rushton said she is also putting together a local petition to urge local government representatives to actively resist the housing mandates.

For example, she wants them to oppose the Marin Community Development Agency’s decision to identify 15% to 30% more housing sites than the 3,569 it has been assigned for the unincorporated area, as a buffer in case other sites don’t pan out.

Egger emphasized the risk inherent in building in many areas of Marin due to the risk of wildland fires and sea-level rise.

“Everyone wants to blame Pacific Gas and Electric for all the fires, but local agencies are approving development in ‘wildland urban interface’ areas,” Egger said. “If they are forcing these units to be built in WUI zones, what is going to happen when they burn up and when we burn up? We need to put the elected officials and agencies on notice for the liability.”

Nestle, however, said, “The time for persuasion of the decision makers is pretty much over. We citizens need to seize the day and force our local and state officials to reconsider what they’re doing. I hate to say it. I’m the passionate one. I would be like the truckers in Canada.”

Save Marinwood Note:  Despite the breathless headline that implies that we are all against housing, it is not true.  We are for RESPONSIBLE community planning.  It is very apparent that Marin County has not considered the full impact on infrastructure, water, schools, government services and taxes with their massive growth plans.  Unlike previous Housing Elements, if we fail to have housing built, developers will get their projects approved WITHOUT ANY LOCAL PLANNING.  It is absurd.  

D

Housing Element Workshop 2/10/22 for Marinwood/Lucas Valley

You should be aware that there were many chat comments/questions which do not appear in the video.  It is not an accident.  People are concerned with schools, traffic, concentration of housing, water, government services, taxes and more.  Marinwood/Lucas Valley is being assigned 80% of all very low income housing units for Unincorporated Marin County. The Housing Element plan is absurd.