County of Marin Housing Element Update 2023-2030

Housing is a balance of people and place that requires careful planning and community participation to ensure appropriate development that does not harm our environment, does not displace residents, and retains unincorporated villages' rural values. For decades, residents in unincorporated Marin County have worked to develop community plans that balance these needs.

WHAT’S HAPPENING

The County of Marin is currently identifying locations for developers to construct 3,569 new housing units over the next 8-years. This process will inform updates to portions of the Countywide Plan for Housing and Safety. The County has completed a programmatic Environmental Impact Report that has been approved by the Marin County Board of Supervisors along with updates to the development code, and zoning. Once rezoning is complete and the Housing Element is approved by the State of California, developers may submit applications to build new housing units in these locations.

WHAT WE STAND FOR

• Protecting Sensitive Habitats: The County needs to remove any potential locations near sensitive habitat and species. The impacts on critical habitat areas, listed and special status species, water quality, and wastewater development within 100 feet of sensitive habitat areas would be significant and unavoidable.

• Supporting Smart Growth Aligned with Plan Bay Area 2050 and Marin’s Countywide Plan: The County should be planning for high-density infill, redevelopment, and rezoning of commercial areas near job centers and transit corridors. Rollbacks to A-60 zoning, (one house per 60 acres of agricultural land), must be avoided to prevent urban sprawl and increased greenhouse gas emissions in order to meet local, regional, and state climate goals.

• Upholding the Integrity of Community Planning: Local communities were excluded from the initial site selection process, and local community plans were not honored to identify appropriate areas for potential development. Housing is a balance of people and place that requires careful planning and community participation to ensure appropriate development that does not harm our environment or displace residents. For decades, residents in unincorporated Marin County have worked to develop community plans that balance these needs.

• Supporting the Integrity of Adaptive Planning: This Housing Plan creates significant and unavoidable impacts that are not in alignment with the County’s Climate Action Plan. Pushing through a Housing Plan that fails to plan for climate change hazards like drought, wildfire, rising sea levels, and groundwater intrusion is inappropriate and will have long-term negative impacts.

• Supporting Residential Housing: We support policies to ensure housing remains within the residential community and is not converted to second homes or short-term rentals that continue to deplete the availability of residential and workforce housing. This includes our support for the short-term rental ban, the creation of a vacancy tax, and support for community land trusts to ensure dedicated long-term affordable housing and solutions to these complex problems.

• Supporting Proactive and Long-Term Planning for the 2030 Housing Element Update: The County is making dramatic and precedent-setting changes to the Countywide Plan to meet the RHNA. Changing the planning corridors and rezoning A-60 parcels is significant. We are concerned the County may be placing too many sites in this update that will become by-right development projects that bypass local planning review, undermining the last 50 years of proactive community planning!

WHY WE NEED YOUR HELP

The locations identified in this housing cycle update will be subject to streamlined permitting in the future. This means, if the sites are not developed as planned, those locations will be subject to ministerial actions that bypass local discretionary controls. This includes removing Planning Commission oversight and review for additional environmental impacts. This is a major change from our local community development controls of the last 50-years.

WHY WE CARE

For more than 50 years, local community members have engaged in the public process to ensure collaborative planning with local communities to integrate forward-thinking development policies and creative zoning limitations. This collaborative effort is why unincorporated Marin County looks and feels the way it does today. Once you leave the City-Center Corridor (along the 101 Freeway and the cities and towns) and enter the Inland-Rural and Coastal Corridors you find a mosaic of open space preserves, agricultural lands, conservation easements, state and federal parks, marine protected areas, and the coastal villages of West Marin.

Marin’s Open Space and Protected Lands Did Not Just Happen. Just look around at other Bay Area counties, what we have in Marin County is the result of the diligent and tireless efforts of community members. Community members, like you, who worked to ensure there would be a long-range vision not one based on development and short-term economic gains to subdivide and destroy the places we love in Marin. Environmentally sustainable planning would prevent urban sprawl and protect public health and the economic, agricultural, and environmental vitality of the County.

Today, this housing allocation plan threatens collaborative planning. The County hired a consultant who referred to Community Plans as “impediments.”

The locations identified in this planning process go against the last 50 years of Marin’s planning and development culture to develop sustainably without destroying the landscape, habitats, and freshwater resources in the process.

Locations identified early in this process happened with little to no community collaboration. This has resulted in a long list of problematic locations, including:

• active local businesses, like the Bolinas Hardware Store;

• public parks and properties owned by Land Trusts, including the Bolinas Community Park and Trust for Public Land property in San Geronimo Valley;

• locations within 100 feet of creeks, wetlands, estuaries, and shorelines;

• locations in hazardous areas (wildfire and areas that will be impacted by sea level rise);

• fails to account for the lack of water in water vulnerable communties including Inverness, Bolinas, Stinson Beach, Point Reyes, and Tomales;

• and includes locations zoned as A-60 (one house per 60 acres) outside the urban growth boundaries (inside the Inland-Rural Corridor and identified as Priority Conservation Areas).

HOW YOU CAN ENGAGE

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS:

1. Why is the County doing this?

2. Can the number of housing units be reduced?

No, the total housing allocation may not be reduced. The State of California and ABAG have delegated the total number of housing to each city and county with penalties if there is not compliance. In short, local control is extremely limited and the number of housing units can’t be reduced. The County has already appealed, asking for a reduction of 1,288 homes based on lack of resources (drinking water), infrastructure (roads and wastewater), expansions outside the urban growth boundaries, and hazards (wildfire). Their appeal was denied in October 2021 (see pages 12-42).

3. How can I find the final list of potential sites?

The County of Marin Housing & Safety Element webpages are updated when new materials are available. Early in this process the County released a series of online maps and tools for community members to explore and submit feedback. The online tools were confusing and users experienced technical issues. We recommend viewing the online google map of Draft Inventory Map to view potential locations in unincorporated Marin County.

4. When will the final sites be selected?

As we understand the process from the public workshops: In March and April 2022, the County is hearing feedback from the public, Planning Commission, and Board of Supervisors on the current selection of locations, suggestions of alternative locations, and concerns. During the March and April Workshops, the Board of Supervisors are providing guidance and direction to the County Planning Department on location selection, removal of locations, downgrading development totals, and other factors. Following the April meetings the County will work on the programmatic Environmental Impact Report (EIR) and present a Draft EIR in the summer months for public comment and review. The final selection of the sites will occur in November and December 2022 after the final EIR is completed.

Helpful Resources:

• California Department of Housing and Community Development, Regional Housing Needs Allocation

• Association of Bay Area Governments, RHNA Housing Consultation Submission Letter

• San Francisco Bay Area, Final Regional Housing Needs Allocation Report 2023-2030

• County of Marin Appeal to ABAG and transcript of the Appeal from October 2021

• County of Marin Housing & Safety Element Webpages

• Plan Bay Area 2050 (Sustainable Communties Strategy)

• County of Marin, Countywide Plan

• County of Marin, Community Plans

• RHNA Building Blocks Resources (Guide for updating a General Plan’s Housing Element)

• 2017 Housing Legislation Packages

• Saving the Marin-Sonoma Coast, Book by Martin L. Griffin (free resources to download about Marin’s Land and Water Use Planning).