Affordable housing for Marin shouldn't mean building in wetlands

Some in Marin propose building affordable housing on the St. Vincent and Silveira properties, the largest remaining unprotected expanse of Bayland in the county.

The Sierra Club Marin Group believes that this is a bad idea: bad for this sensitive Bayland habitat and bad also for affordable housing.

A significant portion of these properties is already designated as part of the Bayfront Conservation Zone. The Club supports the proposal for a new Baylands Corridor, which would extend the same protection to a strip averaging 200 feet wider than the current Bayfront Conservation Zone with site-specific extensions to protect associated uplands habitat.

But, some ask, couldn't this 200-foot strip of land be used for affordable housing, as some have suggested?

To do so just wouldn't make any sense. As the Bay Area struggles to restore wetlands all around the Bay, Marin residents have repeatedly shown their will to protect and restore our remaining Baylands. We need to complete the job, not sacrifice any more pieces. These lands are essential as habitat for endangered species, and also for protecting the water quality of the Bay.

Is this then a battle of affordable housing versus environment?

No, because the lands in the new Baylands Corridor are completely inappropriate for affordable housing. Since most of this area is below sea level and much is adjacent to creeks, it is subject to flooding. Its Bay muds provide no structural support for foundations and are at risk for seismic liquefaction. There are technological fixes that can address these hazards, but then construction would be expensive - destroying the affordability of the housing.

Further, this strip of land along the edge of the Bay is isolated from public transit. People living here would be highly dependent on cars - an expensive proposition for those who most need affordable housing. This car dependence would add to the congestion we are already struggling to ease on Highway 101.

Development, of course, would not be isolated if it were allowed to sprawl east from 101 to the edge of the Bay and north from San Rafael all the way to Novato. This level of development would either create immense traffic jams on 101 or require several extra lanes. Welcome to LA-Marin!

The Sierra Club believes in better solutions for affordable housing. It weakens the community when affordable housing is segregated into one location. Affordable housing and its residents are not somehow different from the rest of Marin. Many of the working people who staff our police departments, firehouses, schools, county offices, and libraries would qualify for affordable housing. Affordable housing in Marin should not be ghettoized, cheaply constructed apartments, but rather tasteful green-built housing integrated into the fabric of our communities.

As Marin updates its Countywide Plan, affordable housing should be targeted to existing commercial sites. Under-used low-volume shopping centers, other commercial centers, and the space above their parking lots should be carefully considered as sites to add affordable housing. This would require the rezoning of retail and office parcels for residential mixed use. Heavily used commercial areas, however, are inappropriate for additional housing due to the added traffic impacts.

The current Countywide Plan proposes almost 10 million square feet of new commercial space, and the current draft of the revision proposes to add an equal square-footage of affordable housing to the same sites. This is too much development for these sites. Instead the county should halve the commercial square footage - but require construction of equal amounts of affordable housing whenever new commercial development is built.

Thus, the way to solve the affordable-housing crisis is not through the conversion of wetlands, Baylands, or other sensitive habitat to affordable housing but rather through the conversion of already planned commercial development to affordable housing.

What You Can Do

Write as soon as possible to:

Marin County Planning Commission
3501 Civic Center Drive
San Rafael, CA 94903

fax: (415) 499-7880.

Urge the county to solve the affordable housing crisis, not by building on sensitive lands or by doubling the density on new commercial development, but by shifting half the square footage currently proposed for new commercial development to affordable housing.

Gordon Bennett and Charles McGlashan

Gordon Bennett and Charles McGlashan are both on the Marin Group ExComm. Charles McGlashan is also running, with the Sierra Club's endorsement, for the Marin Board of Supervisors.