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Mill Valley Patch
Supervisors Mistakenly May Have Applied Affordable Housing Combining District to Seminary
SUMMARY:
This is a copy of my letter to the Board of Supervisors following the July 21, 2015 hearing about Affordable Housing Combining District (AH) default density. It is a sequel to my previous July 20, 2015 blog entitled "Rescind the Insidious Affordable Housing Combining District in Strawberry." I continue to maintain that AH never should have been imposed on the Seminary property in the first place and it should be rescinded now.
Dear Supervisors,
I applaud your July 21, 2015 decision to reduce the Affordable Housing Combining District (AH) default density from 30 units to 20 units per acre to reflect the suburban reality of Marin County and to respect the collective wisdom of the broad base of supporters of AB 1537, including affordable housing advocates who have recognized that 30 units per acre projects incur strong resistance that is an impediment to gaining approval for development. Thank you.
However, I continue to maintain that you cannot apply the AH Combining District Ordinance, Section 1, Finding IX to the Seminary property.
Given the historical record of administrative laws pertaining to development of the Seminary, which I presented to each of you in detail in my letter dated July 20, 2015 and in summary in my comments at the hearing, I cannot see how you possibly can claim that “the capacity allowed by the Affordable Housing (AH) Combining District, as applied to limited acreage for each site, does not exceed the total number of units currently allowed by the applicable Countywide Plan land use designation, a community plan, zoning ordinance or development entitlements (such as a Master Plan) for each site.”
This finding may apply to the St. Vincents/Silveira and Marin City properties because there has been no development on these sites, but it most certainly does not apply to the Seminary property which has a fully vested Master Plan and other vested entitlements.
While I appreciate CDA Director Brian Crawford’s recognition of my concern at the hearing, I was disappointed and dismayed that you, as the Board of Supervisors, did not even discuss my concern and then issue a ruling about it. You simply chose to ignore it.
I disagree with Mr. Crawford’s rationalization of my concern for three reasons.
First, he tries to make a distinction between ‘inclusionary housing’ and ‘affordable housing in an AH’ but his rationalization is a distinction without a difference in this case because AH did not even exist in 1984 when the Board of Supervisors approved the Seminary Master Plan. Nor did AH exist in 1997, when all of the inclusionary housing requirements for the entire project were satisfied by market rate development and codified in a Final Map.
We called ‘affordable’ housing either ‘inclusionary’ housing or ‘subsidized’ housing back then. It was one and the same thing. AH was not adopted until 2013, but County Counsel advised in 1997 that new Marin County Code requirements should not apply to previously approve projects, and specifically, to the Seminary.
Second, Mr. Crawford argues that it is acceptable to overlay an AH on a previously approved project because it is an “optional” tool, but the question is, “Optional for whom?” The owner/developer certainly has an option, but the other stakeholders have none.
The citizens of Strawberry do not have the option of saying either “Yes, or No” to AH, even though they previously negotiated in good faith in 1997 for the inclusionary housing requirements for the entire Seminary project, including everything already built and everything remaining to be built, and all of the other stakeholders—low income housing advocates, County planners, Planning Commissioners, and Supervisors--accepted the compromise agreement, and the Board of Supervisors approved it.
Third, he stretches beyond all reason to claim that AH would not amount to “double dipping” for the Seminary property, when any clear thinking person will immediately see that any additional units of ‘inclusionary’ or ‘affordable’ housing would exceed the remaining entitlements under the current Seminary Master Plan and would constitute a double-taking by an unknown developer in the future, who, ironically, was not even involved in the initial negotiations about inclusionary housing, but who will be granted an unwarranted “option” to use the new AH.
I am writing to you because I believe that you are attaching your signatures to a County Ordinance that will be factually incorrect, and perhaps legally unjustifiable, with regard to the Seminary. We all want to have clarity and accuracy so that we can avoid any related problems in the future.
Respectfully submitted,
Bruce Corcoran