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Bruce Corcoran
Bently Holdings Wins Supervisors' Approval for Medical Offices and More Traffic
Over our strong opposition, the Board of Supervisors amended our Master Plan last Tuesday to grant Bently Holdings the right to lease 25,000 square feet of Belvedere Place to Marin General Hospital for medical offices, which were previously prohibited because they will generate an additional 627 vehicle trips per day on our already heavily congested roadways and intersections.
The approval of medical offices is a financial boon for Bently Holdings because it is a new land use that will increase rents and the value of its property. Likewise, Marin General Hospital scores a financial gain by creating a new way to expand its business operations in Strawberry. On the other hand, we bear the burden of additional traffic congestion and a degradation of our quality of life.
The corruption of the review process continued because the Supervisors based their decision in part on a last minute letter from the traffic consultant the night before the hearing that was not disseminated to the public. That letter was a rebuttal of Caltrans' criticism of the new traffic study. The Supervisors' decision to approve in the face of Caltrans' concerns is extraordinarily questionable.
In addition, after the close of public comments, Supervisor Sears consummated approval by making a personal deal with Bently Holdings without consulting us for an additional $280,000 of traffic mitigation fees in exchange for 627 additional vehicle trips per day.
That's how little Supervisor Sears thinks degrading our quality of life is worth.
Supervisor Sears has had 6 years to find funding to address our traffic congestion problems. Instead of fixing our roadways first without strings attached, her solution is to add even more traffic to obtain a meager amount of funding.
We need a new Supervisors
Please consider voting for Susan Kirsch, Kevin Haroff, and Al Dugan in the June elections for Supervisors in Districts 3, 2, and 4, respectively.
Bruce
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Here are my comments about the Bently Holdings application at the Board of Supervisors hearing on April 12, 2016:
Late yesterday afternoon, Caltrans issued a stern rebuke of the Traffic Operations Study conducted by Traffic Works LLC for the US Highway 101 and State Route 131 interchange.
Caltrans determined that the operations study was inadequate and inaccurate, and it requested a re-analysis and updating with proper parameters. It cited mistaken data and incorrect calculations and a lack of understanding of the multiple coordination plans currently in effect.
But most important and significant of all, the Caltrans letter punctuates our complaint that your Board has improperly continued hearings over the past 13 months without a valid traffic study.
The Corruption of the Review Process Continues
The corruption of the review process that you have allowed and we have endured must end today. We implore you once again to deny this ill-conceived traffic generating once and for all.
Given Caltrans’s dismantling of the traffic study, you have no justification for approving a categorical exemption under CEQA because too many questions remain unanswered. You have no factual foundation for clearing the high hurdle of amending our Master Plan because Traffic Works’ calculations and recommendations are in dispute.
Your Board and your Staff have failed to grasp the most basic tenant that there are only three ways in and out of Strawberry, and each one contributes traffic to a U.S. or state highway that is under the auspices of Caltrans.
Supervisors and Staff Show Little Respect for Caltrans
Caltrans engineers have repeatedly asked you to coordinate any traffic studies with them, but your Staff has been reluctant to provide Caltrans with key information and documents in a timely manner. One would have thought by now that your Staff would routinely obtain Caltrans’ signal timing sheets, which are critical for developing proper recommendations, but Caltrans cites Staff’s failure to do so.
That Staff would recommend approval of this project before obtaining Caltrans’ feedback is indicative of the dysfunction between your Board, your Staff, and Caltrans.
Caltrans owns and operates the traffic signals. Without obtaining Caltrans’ prior approval to change signal timing, the recommendations in the Traffic Works study are nothing more than an expensive theoretical exercise that will bring no relief to motorists and residents who must contend with traffic congestion in the real world along the Highway 101 corridor.
County Pays for Traffic Studies at Taxpayer Expense
County Department of Public Works (DPW) has paid $27,000 for two Traffic Works studies with taxpayer funding that Bently Holdings should have paid for. The taxpayers of Marin County should not be saddled with the bill. This payment amounts to a gift of public funds, which is prohibited by the Constitution of the State of California.
Between DPW and Marin General Hospital, which wasted $20,000 of public funds on a peer review of the previously discredited W-trans traffic study, taxpayers have paid $47,000 for traffic studies on behalf of Bently Holdings.
Multi-million dollar Bently Holdings dropped out of the review process last summer when it defied your requests and refused to pay for additional traffic studies. Bently Holdings wants to amend our Master Plan on the cheap, and you have let them get away with it. You don’t show this kind of favoritism to other applicants.
The Latest Traffic Study is Limited in Scope
Besides Caltrans' concerns, the Traffic Works study is limited in scope and is not sufficient for amending our Master Plan. The study takes place on only one day, during only one PM Peak, during a light traffic week following the New Year's holiday. It does not analyze AM and Mid-day Peaks, which may be more congested because of traffic from medical offices.
The Traffic Works study does not address traffic conditions at the intersection of SR- 131/East Strawberry Drive/Belvedere Drive, even though Caltrans specifically requested a traffic study of this intersection.
Nor does the Traffic Works study address traffic conditions at the intersection of Highway 101/Seminary Drive, which are becoming worse every day. It regularly takes 3 ½ minutes to travel 150 yards northbound on the Frontage Road from De Silva Drive to the intersection at 7-Eleven during PM Peak.
Meanwhile, northbound PM Peak traffic on Highway 101 is bumper-to-bumper all the way up the Waldo Grade in Sausalito. Your focus on the intersection of SR-131 and the Frontage Road has left you blind of problems at these other locations.
Supervisors Refuse to Consider Cumulative Impacts
The Traffic works study does not address the cumulative impacts of traffic from the North Coast Land Holdings application to re-develop the former Seminary property. That project will generate an additional 6,500 vehicle trips per weekday and 7,800 on Saturdays.
You have refused to analyze cumulative impacts even though the Caltrans Guidelines for Traffic Impact Studies requires it for the Bently Holdings application.
Supervisors Demonstrate Extraordinary Bias
You have said repeatedly that you will require a peer review of any additional traffic studies, and we hold you to that promise. (The Supervisors approved without a peer review.)
When we come to Board meetings we expect fair and balance treatment, but when each one of you expresses in advance your intent to approve medical offices, these hearings are biased and unfair. You have become advocates for Bently Holdings and Marin General and you have set up your Staff to be advocates as well.
So when we appear before you, everyone is against us. You have your lawyer and Bently Holdings and Marin General have their lawyers, but the people don’t have a lawyer. Win or lose your lawyers get paid, but we have to live with the consequences of you biased decisions.
Supervisors' Indefensible Decision
Your intention to approve more traffic in a location that you know is already operating at Level of Service F is utterly indefensible, especially when you also know that there is plenty of Class-A space available for medical offices in other locations along Highway 101 that do not have traffic congestion issues.
Residents of Strawberry should not have to accept more traffic in exchange for mitigation funds. We expect you to fix our traffic problems first. The meager amount of mitigation funding this project will require will not even come close to compensating us for the degradation of our quality of life.
Your decision to approve will negatively impact everyone who lives and travels on the Highway 101 corridor.
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Thank you for reading my comments.
Bruce