Housing is Not a Numbers Game!

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

The County of Marin hosted a public meeting on February 16th about the plans to identify parcels to construct 3,500 new housing units in unincorporated Marin County.

If you missed the meeting, we encourage you to watch back the online video (here) and read through the slides (here) to catch up and learn about the scale, scope, and challenges ahead.

Why It's Important to Engage

Community engagement at this stage is critical. The County is in an early scoping stage asking for public feedback on where new development could take place. In EAC's opinion, this is the wrong starting question. Starting with the focus on where housing should be developed and not how housing can be developed is far removed from community collaboration.

The how is more important than the where at this scoping stage.

How is a collaborative process that takes into account community feedback, community plans, and creative solutions that incorporate community values, resource constraints, infrastructure, and goals.
It’s far easier to create a map of where development could happen, but that concept exists outside of decades of community participation, planning, and discussion.
Without the how, it’s just a numbers game not grounded in reality and could have several unintended consequences including environmental degradation, increase pollution (wastewater runoff and increases in greenhouse gas emissions), and create additional displacement issues that only further the housing crisis we have in unincorporated Marin County.

EAC's Concerns and Focus

The need for additional housing (and affordable housing) is an important issue that needs a thoughtful and engaging community process that ensures housing development is taking place in appropriate areas and is not harmful to our natural resources. The locations identified by community members, housing advocates, and environmental organizations in the past were not identified in the proposed site inventories. Why not?
Our community plans are great resources to understand the long-term visions and goals that assist in balancing out community values while also addressing the need for housing. These plans do not seem to have been consulted and we are left with the impression from the February 16th meeting that they are being dismissed as they are inadequate to meet the new state requirements regarding housing development. So when will the County engage the community to update our long-term plans?
When planning for development, we need to consider infrastructure, access to water, impacts of wastewater (septic systems) transportation access, greenhouse gas emissions, access to employment, and environmental hazards (wildfire, drought, sea level rise, groundwater intrusion) before signing off on potential sites for development. A housing development of 100 units (as proposed in some locations) create intense impacts that need to be thoughtfully considered.
It is concerning the County is requesting comments through their Balancing Act mapping tool. This is an incomplete inventory of potential development sites (it does not include all the sites listed on the draft inventory sites map) and is inequitable (limits engagement to individuals with internet access and skillsets to use and understand the complex nexus of maps).
Agricultural A-60 zoning should not be rezoned to expand urban sprawl beyond community growth boundaries.
New housing stock must be for residential community members, we should not be adding 3,500 new homes that run the risk of being converted to short-term (vacation/weekend) rentals. In the last Housing Element cycle, unincorporated Marin failed to meet the affordable housing need and constructed 110 above market housing units (when they only needed 61). We can't allow that to happen again.

How to Comment

Comments are due Monday, February 28th.
Submit comments to County staff at housingelement@marincounty.org or by call (415) 473-7309.
We encourage you to read your Community Plan and portions of the Marin County Countywide Plan.

Suggestions on Organizing Your Comments

What are your communities long-term community planning goals as identified in your community plan? Does this Housing Element meet those? Why or why not?
What are your primary concerns with housing development? What steps could the County take to overcome those concerns?
Are sites proposed on the draft housing inventory map that are inappropriate for development? If so, why?
What creative solutions can you think of for developing new housing without creating urban sprawl, degrading our natural environment, rezoning our agricultural lands, and avoiding creating additional displacement of residential communities?

Next Steps

Tuesday, March 1st at 5pm, the Board of Supervisors and Planning Commission will hold a joint session to receive an update from County staff about public feedback around the candidate Housing Element sites. At this meeting, site recommendations will be presented and new sites will be considered for inclusion in the Housing Element programmatic environmental review. This will be the first of two meetings with the second scheduled for March 15th. The board packet will be posted to the County Housing and Safety Element webpage in the coming days.

Join the meeting by accessing the Board of Supervisors webpage.