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Sausalito's upcoming hearing to adopt and certify its General Plan Update and Final EIR
Since June of 2020, Community Venture Partners, Inc. (CVP) and its consultants have been submitting comments on the Sausalito General Plan 2040 Update and the Environmental Impact Report, on behalf of a group of Sausalito residents who are concerned their programs and policies will have negative impacts on the maritime, industrial, and artisan business community in the Marinship.
The submission of comments and analysis by our experts continued up until the final submission date on December 11, 2020. Links to these letters and analysis can be found in the list below.
The inadequacies found in the City’s Draft General Plan and Draft EIR were numerous. Foremost among them were the failure to address a combination of significant, existential, environmental hazards (sea level rise, dramatic land subsidence, toxins in the soils, and failing infrastructure, many of which are unique to the Marinship), and the failure to adequately incorporate the intentions of the 1988 Marinship Specific Plan to preserve the viability and encourage the expansion of the existing maritime, industrial, and artisan uses, and to discourage the expansion of office uses and the development of multi-family housing in the Marinship.
On January 8, 2021, the City of Sausalito published its Final Draft General Plan Update (GP Update) and the Final Environmental Impact Report (FEIR). Under state law, a City is required to respond in writing to any comments submitted about the FEIR, before the comment period cutoff date.
In response to the comments we submitted and those by community members, the City put the following statements into the legal record, regarding future consideration of changes in land use in the Marinship.
Responding to attorney Mark Wolfe's comments about the 10/13/20 staff report identifying housing sites in the Marinship, they clarified that,
“The preliminary housing sites identified in the October 13, 2020, Staff Report are not being contemplated in this General Plan Update, including any preliminary housing sites identified in the Marinship. Should any future housing be proposed in the Marinship, a General Plan Amendment would be required.” Final EIR, p. 2-92.
Responding to CVP’s comments on the same topic, the City specified that,
“The General Plan does not seek to “rezone Marinship parcels for high-density, multi-family housing,” nor propose any changes to the existing City of Sausalito Land Use Map nor any changes to the existing City of Sausalito Zoning Map (see also page 1-1).
“Exhibit 2-4 depicts the location of vacant and underutilized residential and non-residential parcels where growth associated with buildout could occur, including the marine environment and near the waterfront. However, the General Plan does not propose to introduce new land uses to the Marinship.” Final EIR, p. 2-132
And regarding the need for CEQA review for future project-specific approvals, they included,
"This Revised Draft EIR is intended to provide the information and environmental analysis necessary to assist public agency decision-makers in considering approval of the General Plan, but not to the level of detail to consider approval of subsequent development projects that may occur after adoption of the General Plan.” Final EIR, p. 2-28.
A request for confirmation has gone unanswered
Our interpretation of these additions and clarifications is that they are intended to strengthen the community’s ability to challenge changes in use, in the Marinship, in the future. In anticipation of the Sausalito Planning Commission’s hearing to review and comment on the Final GP and FEIR, on January 20, 2021, CVP submitted a letter that included the passages noted above and requesting confirmation of our interpretation as follows:
"I am writing to request that the City staff please confirm that our understandings are accurate, either in a written response or orally, on the record, during the hearing before the Planning Commission."
Our request was not addressed by staff or the Commission at that meeting. To follow up, we sent Community Development Director Lilly Whalen an email asking her to please confirm that our interpretation of these policies was correct,
“In my letter to the Planning Commission and Planning Staff, sent to you on 1/20/21 (attached), entitled "Comment, request for clarification, and confirmation on the Sausalito Final General Plan Update and Final EIR policies," I presented several examples of wording in the FEIR. However, my request was not acknowledged, discussed, or addressed at the hearing. I am writing to you now to repeat my request for the confirmation sought in my letter.”
To date, and after follow-up reminders, Ms. Whalen has failed to respond to our request.
The Planning Commission’s hearing on the GP Update and FEIR
The Planning Commission hearing held on January 20, 2021, was an eye-opener. The purpose of the hearing was to review the entirety of the voluminous final GP Update and FEIR (a combined total of 600 pages, plus hundreds of pages of attachments) but it quickly became focused on two major issues: assurances that office uses will continue to be governed by regulations that honor the spirit and intent of the existing Marinship Specific Plan, and arguing against the proposal to consider a “housing overlay” in the Marinship.
On those issues, the Commission voted unanimously in favor of making sure the office use designation was corrected and that the housing overlay proposal was discouraged. This correlated with positions they had already taken by unanimous vote in the past. It soon became clear that the Commission’s past votes and comments have continued to be ignored by the city’s consultant, the M-Group, and the City Attorney.
At the meeting, Geoff Bradley, a principal at the M-Group, began a long-winded presentation, "explaining" that the 1995 General Plan and its policies regarding conforming and non-conforming office uses took precedent over anything that happens in the Marinship, even today, regardless of what the Marinship Specific Plan said.
Based on this, he and the City Attorney admonished the Planning Commission, saying that office uses in the Marinship have been “conforming uses” since the adoption of the 1995 General Plan, as defined in the City’s Codes, because that’s what the 1995 General Plan called them, and therefore the Planning Commission must agree that they will have that designation after the new GP Update is adopted. Mr. Bradley went on to claim that the Commission had only two choices. They could either vote that all existing office uses were “conforming uses” or that they are “non-conforming” uses because that was all that was allowable under the City’s codes.
This was an astonishing position to take for several reasons, first and foremost because all leasing and development proposals submitted by every office use property owner in the Marinship, since 1988, have been and are to this day, subject to the terms and conditions of the 1988 Marinship Specific Plan. That is how the City has been processing those proposals. And the Marinship Specific Plan does not recognize existing office uses as “conforming uses” or “non-conforming” uses, but rather designates them as “existing permitted uses,” a new designation, which has its own rules and regulations about processing applications for change.
The problem with all this is that if Mr. Bradley was correct, then the city has been operating, illegally under state law, with “vertical inconsistency” in their regulations (the Marinship Specific Plan and the 1995 General Plan) for more than 25 years. And that inconsistency has cost property owners significant financial damages due to the restrictions the Marinship Specific Plan has imposed on them. Conversely, if Mr. Bradley was incorrect, which he was, then he either has no understanding of state law or he and the City Attorney were intentionally trying to mislead the Planning Commission.
In a sense, the City was asking the Planning Commission to let them have it both ways: ensure the public that the intentions of the Marinship Specific Plan were being honored, while gaining the Commission’s endorsement of embedding “conforming use” language into the GP Update that would allow the City to ignore the Marinship Plan’s intentions, in the future.
When I challenged this, at the meeting, Mr. Bradley listened like a deer in the headlights, while the City Attorney suddenly vanished from the Zoom screen and went mute.
Needless to say, Bradley's comments and the supporting comments by the City Attorney confused the Planning Commission, at first. But to their great credit, they saw through this noise and stuck to their guns. They passed two resolutions unanimously. The first resolved that office uses in the Marinship should remain being designated as “existing permitted uses” (presumably, a new designation in the zoning code) and that a “housing overlay zone” should not be allowed in the Marinship because it violated the intentions and spirit of the Marinship Specific Plan.
The reason this is important is that if the offices in the Marinship were designated as “conforming uses," they would suddenly have new vested development rights, which are not presently allowed. And, if they are designated as "non-conforming uses," property owners would suddenly lose certain property rights, which is not what the Marinship Specific Plan intended.
The Planning Commission was astute and got it right. We’ll see if the City Council listens.
Final review, adoption, and certification
The City Council intends to meet on February 9, 2021, to complete its final review and adoption of the General Plan Update and its final review and certification of the FEIR. The GP Update is a 476-page document and the FEIR is a 214-page document, both of which have voluminous attachments, that they will have had only a few days to review. They will also need to review and decide on the two resolutions passed by the Sausalito Planning Commission, both of which challenge the recommendations of the M-Group on designations of office uses and the proposal for a housing overlay zone in the Marinship, neither of which the Council has seen, to date.
I have to say, this is the fastest final review and decision-making process for a comprehensive General Plan and FEIR adoption and certification that I’ve witnessed. Typically, this process provides the public more than just one final hearing on the final documents, to voice their last concerns and recommendations. But, so far, even with the Covid pandemic, the lockdowns, and the extreme limitations on public participation, the City seems hell-bent on forging ahead.
In response to the need for additional assurances that the spirit and intent of the Marinship Specific Plan will be honored to protect existing Marinship maritime, industrial, and artisan businesses (as stated in the GP Update's policies), several community members have suggested that a new policy be added to the General Plan Update, as follows:
Proposed New Policy E-6.2.2 (p. E-27 of 10/20 Revised General Plan):
“Before considering any proposed change in the General Plan’s or Zoning Code’s land use designations to allow for uses other than maritime, industrial, or arts in the Marinship, prepare and publicly circulate for review and comment a comprehensive economic impact study, to be submitted to the City Council for approval, that evaluates potential negative effects on local businesses, local employment, City revenues, and economic compatibility."
CVP endorses this very reasonable request and we would urge all interested parties to write letters, send emails, and voice any final concerns or comments you might have, before the City Council hearing on February 9th.
The comment letters and analysis sent to the City of Sausalito by Community Venture Partners, Inc. and its consultants can be found at the following links.
CVP Comments on Sausalito Final GP Update and RDEIR
M.R. Wolfe & Associates comments on Revised DEIR for City of Sausalito 2040 General Plan
The Future of the Marinship: PART I
The Future of the Marinship: Part II - Innovation
MR Wolfe & Associates file comment letter on the Sausalito 2040 General Plan Update and DEIR
Community Venture Partners files comment on Sausalito General Plan Update and DEIR
Watershed Sciences' analysis and comments on the Sausalito GP Update and DEIR
Sausalito 2040 General Plan Update: Focus on The Marinship
Sausalito 2040 General Plan Update – Part II - The Kosmont Economics Study
The Sausalito 2040 General Plan Update - Part III - Housing and the Marinship
Bob Silvestri is a Marin County resident and the founder and president of Community Venture Partners, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit community organization funded only by individuals in Marin and the San Francisco Bay Area. Please consider DONATING TO CVP to enable us to continue to work on behalf of Marin residents.