Marin Citizens fight Developer and Supervisors and WIN!

Strawberry medical office plan dead on arrival

One and Two Belvedere Place sits on a hill in Strawberry. Neighbors fought a plan to use some of these office spaces as medical offices. Frankie Frost – Marin Independent Journal

By Richard Halstead, Marin Independent Journal

POSTED: 12/14/16, 5:32 PM PST | UPDATED: 37 MINS AGO

69 COMMENTS

A plan to allow doctors’ offices in a Strawberry office complex has died on the vine.

San Francisco-based Bentley Holdings Inc. decided to sell the property at 1 and 2 Belvedere Place in mid-November despite winning county approval for its plan to lease space to Marin General Hospital for medical offices. Approvals followed a lengthy county review process.

Neighbors opposed the plan, fearing it would add to traffic congestion in the area; a group filed suit to block the scheme after county supervisors gave the plan the green light in April. See article HERE

Editor"s Note: Strawberry Residents asked for REALISTIC traffic data of this crowded area and the Supervisors, Developer and the Marin IJ called them NIMBYs.  If you read the comments on the Marin IJ following the article you will find the full story.  The lesson for Marinwood Lucas Valley is community involvement is the ONLY way to shape the community. Developers win while we sleep.

Kate Sears "The Strawberry PDA doesn't change anything"

Rescind the Insidious Seminary Affordable Housing Combining District in Strawberry

 From MarinPost.org

Mill Valley Patch

• MARIN COUNTY
 | 
• PLANNING & DEVELOPMENT
 | 
• GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS
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• HOUSING

Rescind the Insidious Seminary Affordable Housing Combining District in Strawberry

Posted by: Bruce Corcoran - July 20, 2015 - 2:22pm

This blog is a reprint of my letter to the Board of Supervisors. It details the historical reasons for rescinding the Seminary Affordable Housing Combining District (AH) in Strawberry, and it warns about the broader implications of the potential imposition of the insidious AH on other residential areas throughout the County.


Re: Board of Supervisors Hearing: Affordable Housing Combining District,July 21, 2015

Summary:

The Affordable Housing Combining District (AH) must be removed from the Seminary property in Strawberry because the Seminary AH does not comply with draft Ordinance, Section 1, Finding IX. (Please see Staff Report, draft Ordinance, p. 8.)

Development of the Seminary is codified in Ordinance 2819, which the Board of Supervisors (BOS) approved in 1984. Unlike the St. Vincent/Silveira AH and the Marin City AH, the Seminary has a fully vested Master Plan which is partially completed. The remaining housing entitlements allow the development of 93 units of student and faculty housing for religious educational use only. Prior to approval of Ordinance 2819, County Counsel supported Planning Staff’s recommendation that student and faculty housing units were deemed to be “specialized units” which would not be counted as “adding to or satisfying the inclusionary housing requirement.” As a result, these “specialized units” of student and faculty housing are not interchangeable with units of affordable housing. All stakeholders, including low income housing advocates, citizens of Strawberry, County planners, Planning Commissioners, and Supervisors accepted Counsel’s determination, and BOS approved and adopted it in Ordinance 2819.

By 1997, the inclusionary housing requirement had risen from 10 % to 15%, and low income housing advocates wanted the new rate to apply to development of the Seminary property, but County Counsel opined that only new projects should be subjected to current Marin County Code. Counsel specifically advised that the Seminary property was an already existing project, not a new project, so new development code requirements would not apply to the Seminary. Once again, all stakeholders accepted this determination, and the Planning Commission approved and adopted it in the Precise Development Plan Amendment dated March 1997.

County Counsel’s determinations were not merely abstract pronouncements to be ignored at will because the record shows that County planners enforced them and developers were required to incorporate them into their projects. Subsequently, by the end of 1997,