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St Vincent’s is a rare opportunity

Marin Independent Journal

Marin Voice June 20, 2001

 JOE WALSH

CONGRATJLATIONS to the Independent Journal for the wonderful series on the housing crisis in Marin. Residents here need all the information you provided to understand that the lack of housing for our workforce is the principle reason for the present traffic mess and will be the cause of a huge loss of quality of life and diminishing property values in the near future.

Some of the subsequent letters to the editor from the usual “not-in-my-backyard” contingent provided an interesting contrast to your well-researched and factual reporting.

First came Don Dickenson, decrying that the proposed development of the St.Vincent’s/Silviera property will include only 20 percent affordable work- force housing.

In fact, the plan about to be presented by Shapell Industries, the development company selected by St.Vincent’s/CYO, will propose about 30 percent workforce housing with the possibility that this percentage could rise through attractive, well-planned, high-density housing developed in a partnership with a nonprofit organization.

Mr. Dickenson also complains about the inclusion of commercial and office space to be included in the community. Without these inclusions, residents would have to leave the property to shop, work etc., negating the very idea of a pedestrian friendly, self-contained village.

The inclusion of a minimum amount of commercial space offers some on- site jobs, in addition to the school, and helps finance the restoration of the historic buildings and preservation of open areas. The pedestrian-oriented neighborhood being planned will include van service and easy biking to the jobs in the immediate area, including the Civic Center, Kaiser hospital, Terra Linda High and adjacent office and retail.

Finally, Mr. Dickenson, who attended many of the St.Vincent’s/Silveira Task Force sessions, falsely states that the task force planned “filling East Marin baylands with traffic-generating urban development.”

He knows that less than 15 percent of the land will be developed and that the task force meticulously avoided all wetlands and environmentally sensitive areas, and also carefully planned for the maintenance of the environmental and historical assets of the property.

About a week later came a letter from Gil Deane of San Anselmo, alluding to the San Rafael City Council voting to “ruin this fabulous agricultural land He ends by saying: “There are some ways that the shortage of housing can be alleviated.” But typically, he gives no suggestions as to how and where.

The shortage of affordable workforce housing is enormous. Marin’s state quota for the coming five years is 3,585 units. Every well-conceived and well-designed project needs to be fast- tracked through the system. It is important for Mr. Deane and others to remember that these properties were zoned for development since the 1973 county plan set aside West Marin for protection and planned the majority of housing and jobs along 101. A legal attack on the agricultural zoning in the Central Mann corridor was turned back only because of this trade-off.

St. Vincent’s is near 10,000 jobs. Agriculture ha been problematic on a site this size and close to development. Highway 101, the cost of water, very high taxes and other realities have made it anything but “fabulous agricultural land.”

The only way to ensure that your favorite teacher, nurse, doctor, chef, policeman, gardener, salesperson, firefighter, paramedic, etc. continue to be close enough to help you in your coming time of need is to allow them some quality of life too, which allows them to live where they work and not have to commute long periods of time. The good ones don’t have to — they can get a job anywhere and enjoy a nice community life where they live and work.

When they are gone, our vaunted quality of life will be seriously diminished, as will our property values. If you think this is an exaggeration, consider this: 50 percent of the teachers in Marin schools will retire in the next five years. Their replacements, whose salaries will be in the $30,000 to $40,000 range, will be faced with median home prices of $700,000 or $2,000 or more per month rents.

All that we are talking about is allowing people who work here during the day be able to continue being apart of the community overnight.

Joe Walsh of Lagunitas is a former co-publisher of the Classified Gazette and was a member of the St. Vincent’s /Silveira Task Force.

 

Oh, God, have mercy on our failures

This is unedited version published in Marin IJ  January 18, 2000

Heavenly pictures and angel added by forlorn altar boy author.

MARIN VOICE

Oh, God, have mercy on our failures

Slipping into cushy slippers on a billowy cloud, he called out, “Gabriel, update me on my blue, green gem.”

“Sir, globalization is beefing up the bigs, strengthening some middies, while your poor continue arduously climbing their hill of needs.”

“Are my beefies being generous and creative in their good times?” he asks, as he sprinkles light into a black hole.

“Bill Gates and  Ted Turner have….”

“No, no, Gabe.  I don’t need to know of their endowments, or Ted and Jane trading aerobic sessions.  Give me an analysis of community actions addressing values extrinsic to mankind.”

“Extrinsic values, sir?

“Gabriel, you mastery of earthling jargon slips.  For planet Earth that means clean and ample water, air, food, shelter and peoples’ actions that help children’s eyes and dreams gleam from birth and far into their sunset years.  You remember, Gabe, it takes a village to raise a child?”

“Yes, sir, and extrapolations of that to raise a region and a world.  Shall I focus the window of your upgraded Deep Universal Problem Evaluating (DUPE) computer on your Golden State, sir?”

“Yes.  Zoom into my Garden of Eden County where they have set aside 301,314 of my 388,352 acres into open space, agriculture and park lands.”

“Zoomed, sir,” the archangel replies, as the 4-D panaview of Marin reels up over one of God’s universes.  “Goodness, look at the brake lights on their ‘freeway’.”

“Hmmh, looks like Chicago Bulls parking lot in the Airness days I dished them… Gabriel, where are those wonderful, friendly trains we watched years ago from this  view?  They zoomed north into surrounding counties, west into small towns and red wooded mountains.”

“Sir, big oil and auto companies derailed those trains 4 or 5 decades back.”

“Tssk, tssk,” God said, shaking His head, “Right.  My bigs sometimes think ‘Might makes right.’ But other parts of my Golden State are returning efficient, community enhancing trains.  What is My Golden Gated County doing?”

“Sir, four times in the last 40 years some have tried to revive them but…

“Who opposed them?” God interjected.

“Groups referred to as ‘environmentalists’ in your blessed county.”

“Gabriel, are you forgetting your earthling vocabulary again?”

“No, sir.”

“Environmentalists oppose trains that move more people while putting less pollution in my skies?  Trains that encourage friendly mingling and wondrous viewing of my open spaces?” God rhetorically asks.

“It is a little confusing, sir.  You might blaze read the DUPE computer folder “St. Vincent’s Silveira Stakeholders Task Force.”

God blinks His version of Evelyn Wood’s speed reading through 8,769 pages of county documents, “It says the environmental groups want no building on the ‘view corridor, flood plain or near 101 and some environmentalists want 37 units allowed on 1240 acres.  Where’s my colorful train that used to whisk people through this land and into Sonoma, Sacramento and Lake Tahoe?”

“Sir in the file titled, ‘Memo of Understanding’ the environmental stakeholders and politicians removed the train and station.”

“These ‘stakeholders’ are offering no alternatives for those stuck in traffic trying to get home to their loved ones?”

“Should we send them wings, sir?”

Hmmh, Gabriel, your jokes are far from divine… Wasn’t part of this stakeholders’ site owned by a Boys Town place?”

“Yes, sir.  Now St. Vincent’s wants to use development there to endow their future work with troubled children.”

“But without being more creative, thoughtful and logical how will these ‘tempholders’ of my land get the highest and best land uses to endow that hallowed work?  Provide enough housing for my middie and hard working strugglers?  If they continue being self-centered and deplete the region’s air and people’s quality time with myopic land uses, they will rob my not so well off children elsewhere.”

“What would you like done, Lord?”

“They must consider the bigger picture.”

“Shall I put some of them in space, for a bigger view, sir?”

“Perhaps it would be easier to put some of them in my struggling African villages, where the experience would adjust their priorities.”

“That would greatly alter their comfortable lifestyles…Should I zap them there now, Lord?” as Gabriel reaches for God’s staff leaning against a comet.

“For now, let’s just plant this with that IJ staff and see if they get people thinking more about values extrinsic to mankind.”

 

 

While listening to the St Vincent’s Silveira Task force meeting of January 6th discuss  “extrinsic values,” one-time forlorn altar boy Dwayne Hunn received this winged transcript from above.

Pedestrian Pockets II

Mill Valley Herald  April 7–13, 1993
Dwayne Hunn

Last week’s interview with Architect Peter Calthorpe touched on some of the economic consequences of short-sighted land use policy. This column touches on some political and policy problems.

We have no technological problems with providing the answers. Architects and engineers can design cost efficient housing and transit solutions. Build it and they will comeapplies as well to the heavy on the brown mustard, hot dog eating baseball fan, as to the American desiring enjoyable and affordable housing and transportation. The snobbish estate dweller, however, doesn’t want one blade of grass touched in his Fields of Green to allow Joe Sixpack to live nearby.

Houseboat liver Calthorpe’s architectural work hinges on the belief that:

“We need to design communities and housing for a more diverse cross section. We need to think about affordability in terms of transportation as well as mortgage and rental costs. This all adds up to design that is more integrated– mixed-use, walkable communities where every trip doesn’t have to be in an automobile.”

This week’s column refers to the decade long 101 Corridor Study Plan which, wounded from its Transit Tax defeat in 1990, stumbles along. That plan concluded that Rail/Highway & Bus/Highway transit alternatives would yield the most effective transit solutions for Marin and Sonoma counties.

Rail and Pedestrian Pocket developments offer an invigorating symbiotic mix for what ails our nation today. The diversity and self-sufficiency offered in Pedestrian Pockets is given environmentally sound travel mobility when built adjacent to a rail line. Being able to move from one PP to another, or to a shopping center while viewing patches of open space in between, or to work in the big city–offers economy, free time and pleasure– three gifts lacking when strapped behind a freeway wheel.

 What hinders Pedestrian Pockets implementation?

Main hindrance is inertia. Inertia of: existing zoning regulations, existing vested land use designations, a financial community which feels safest repeating last year’s products, and developers who only want to deal with their isolated site rather. than regional concerns. And, quite honestly, the inertia of envinonnienta1ists who see their role in resisting any development rather than defining and advocating an ecological pattern of growth for an entire region.

The sum total of this inertia is what propels a pattern of growth which we know is bad for the environment, costly to communities, individually and socially stressful, and quite frankly, esthetically repugnant to most. But we do it anyway.

How do PPs fit with the 101 Corridor Committee’s two preferred alternatives Rail/Highway and Bus/Highway?

A difficult question. I believe ultimately a healthy pattern of growth for a region will require and sustain light rail. If the BART study’s 40% utilization can be generated by PPs, this demand could only be satisfied by light rail. But it is a bit of the chicken and egg problem — how do we get there from here? If PPs are built without light rail, they would generate too much auto traffic. Without PPs, light rail would have a very low ridership and need to be heavily subsidized.

It is the transition time that is tricky. One scenario would use the right-of-way for express buses and carpools while the PPs are developing. When they mature and the ridership is high, a light rail should be installed. The danger, of course, is that it would never be installed and the pressures to turn the bus way into an auto expressway would be great. Although less efficient in the short run, I favor the light rail as a way of committing our growth to this compact transit oriented future configuration.

If we look 20-30 years down the road, we know we have to make such an investment. Even though it seems expensive now, it will be just more expensive later. I recently read that the CEO of Exxon expected to be out of the oil business by 2010 because US oil reserves would be depleted by then. We must plan our communities with that perspective in mind.

 How much of Marin and Sonoma’s projected population do you believe could be housed in PPs?

Anywhere from 50-70% of the Association of Bay Area Governments’ projections could fit in viable sites for both counties. The numbers are much lower for Marin because we have only a few viable sites left. Sonoma, however, has a great capacity for this type of development. The Marin sites along the North West Pacific right-of-way are limited by their adjacency to wetlands. Sonoma really doesn’t have this limitation north of Petaluma.

So the concept is not to eliminate all of our single family subdivisions and office parks, but merely to create a land use pattern that offers an alternative to people in businesses seeking more convenient accessibility and more affordable options.

Does Marin still have time to do this?

Unfortunately, in Marin these sites are dropping by the wayside as they develop oriented toward the freeway or lower density single use activities. The fabric of these developments should be diverse–townhouses, condos, elderly and young, in-law and rental units. We don’t need to build isolated, segregated apartment blocks. We should be integrating our needs for private ownership with the need for affordable rental, housing for elderly and college students by allowing in-law apartments in our communities.

Mixed-use zones, where you have jobs and retail, must be the center these developments. Our current land use policies segregate our land uses, we must get away from that. Diversity is the idea. Ground floor  retail. Second floor apartments.

Most popular office parks are now integrating retail and services. In the East Bay a lot of the areas that are being focused toward carpooling understand that if they want people to carpool they have to create a pedestrian environment for their mid-day and afternoon trips.

 

Rail/Highway alternative best with development “pockets’

News Pointer September 7-13, 1988

One point of view

DWAYNE  HUNN Community Contributor

The 101 Corridor Commit­tee has been meeting since 1986. It is now finalizing cost estimates for either rail/highway or bus/ highway construction that will take the 101 corridor into the 21st century. Their consultants’ esti­mates show rail/highway having higher capital but lower operat­ing costs. The bus/highway has lower capital but higher operating costs. The result is that both are estimated to cost about $1 billion dollars. That money could be obtained by ratifying a 1 cent sales tax in Marin and a 1/2 cent sales tax in Sonoma.

Chief consultant to the 101 Corridor Study, Bob Harrison, succinctly sums up years of research and discussion when he says, “The costs are about the same. What’s important is how you want the corridor to develop In the future.”

Three reasons make me hope the train/highway option is our choice.

1) By continuing to over-rely on the automobile, America dis­regards good logic that tells us to not rely on Middle East oil and to seriously begin dealing with our atmospheric degradation., Car­bon dioxide produced by the in­ternal combustion engine is one of the big villains in destroying our ozone level.

2)America should lead, not be led, in the high tech manufac­turing areas of the 21st century. The United States not just, Japan, France and Disneyland, ought to be noted for effective, efficient long-lasting trains..

3) Marin is one of America’s most beautiful counties. From almost anywhere in the county, one can ride his/her bike for five minutes and be in open space agricultural reserve or a national park. Only a little of the 19% of land that can be developed re­mains to be developed, and much of that land lies adjacent to the101 right-of-way and just hap­pens to butt up to the North West Pacific right-of-way. Already apartments, business centers, and residential units are planned along the eastern side of Marin’s portion of the 101 corridor that runs from San Rafael to points further north.

Many argue that we should stop all that development. In America that means buying the land at fair market value, which is not feasible. Many argue that we should downzone what is pro­posed — reducing tax revenues for the involved cities and forcing the prices of the allowable homes up even higher. This produces
more suburban sprawl and con­tinues our over-reliance on the automobile.
Hopefully, Marin will not be burdened with years of debates and delaying tactics over how the eastern portion of 101 should be developed, it only delays the needed tax revenues, allows pro­ject costs to escalate and continues the inefficiencies that long commutes promote.

What is planned by devel­opers of the eastern portion of 101 are a series of development “pockets.” Can this develop­ment movement be joined Into something that is positive for all concerned?

Yes, with some coordina­tion. These pockets could be developed in a Mariner that would fall within the efficient land use patterns that are propos­ed by Sausalito architect Peter’ Calthorpe in his “Pedestrian Pockets.” Such development could also serve as the start for pocket developments all the way up the existing railroad line.

Calthorpe’s “Pedestrian Pockets” call for dense, mixed use development within a 1/4 mile of the railroad right-of-way with, large open spaces surrounding the development. A series of such developments through Marin and Sonoma’ would allow increased opportunities for people to live and~ work at one of the mini-neighborhood pockets. This would increase the likelihood that they would hop a train to go to and from work, as well as to shop and socialize. The proposal Is so logical, efficient and sensible that it is bound to cause debates, ar­guments and lost opportunities.

Dwayne Hunn is a member of the Board of Directors of the Canal Community Alliance and’ is Assistant Executive Director of Novato Ecumenical Housing.