Fair public policy fights require knowledgeable advocates for both sides. For too long, disputes over Marin’s key issues including housing development and public employee pensions were a one-sided battle.
Now a series of savvy, self-funded groups often allied with long-time Marin residents have emerged as players. The recent court victory by Marin Community Alliance over county government’s updated housing element demonstrates that Marin is experiencing a level public policy playing field.
When approving either general plans or applications for development, city and county planners are always looking over their shoulder. They know that housing activists and allied law firms will file suit if the agencies don’t comply with demands for more higher-density development sites.
The concerns ramped up in 2002 when Corte Madera was successfully sued by activists at the nonprofit Marin Family Action. It challenged the Town Council’s refusal to update its housing element and to designate specific sites for multi-family housing.
The case was settled in Marin Family Action’s favor. The losing party in such cases invariably gets stuck paying substantial attorney fees. Legitimate concerns over paying those fees are one factor pushing settlement in housing proponents’ favor.
Turning the tables, Marin Community Alliance, an association of homeowner and renters, recently went to trial. They complained the county failed to prepare its most recent housing element update pursuant to CEQA, the California Environmental Quality Act. The alliance’s brief cites county government claim that its “inventory of 49 different (multi-unit) locations encompassing 2,537 dwelling units … will have no cumulative effect on the environment.”
While it didn’t win everything it asked for, the alliance won this part of its suit by demonstrating the legal need for the cumulative effects’ negative impacts to be documented and then mitigated.
CMA’s victory tells elected officials that successful legal challenges can emerge from both sides in Marin’s never-ending fight over real estate development.
Local agencies are rightly concerned with obeying state housing mandates without losing the ability to plan their own land use. Litigation such as the Marin Community Alliance’s suit helps define ground rules that jurisdictions can safely navigate.
A similar result materialized when the Marin-based Community Venture Partners supplied expertise and potential legal muscle leading opposition to creation of a supposedly “transit-centered” new downtown surrounding Larkspur’s Ferry Terminal. The regional alphabet agency-funded Larkspur Station Area Plan ground to a halt when community opposition flared.
Chaired by Mill Valley’s Bob Silvestri, Community Venture Partners supplied the intellectual heft to successfully challenge the half-baked SMART Station Area Plan. It exposed that SMART’s own low ridership projections made it obvious that most of the potential new residents’ mobility would be auto-dependent. Its argument persuaded Larkspur’s City Council to shelve the plan.
Community Venture Partners demonstrates the proper way forward by not just being naysayers. They go positive by simultaneously showcasing alternatives for truly affordable low-density green housing.
The debate over Marin’s underfunded public employee pensions is finally balanced. For years the only voice heard regarding public pensions came from public employee unions. Using their clout by funding political candidates, the unopposed unions achieved their pension wish list.
Elected officials not wanting to displease union allies nor upsetting tax-adverse homeowners, enhanced city, county and special-purpose district pensions without proper funding. In the long-term they did no favor to either their employees or their constituents who ended up stuck with the bill.
The conversation changed with emergence of Marin-based Citizens for Sustainable Pension Plans.
Composed of volunteer retired actuaries, investment professionals and attorneys, they earned widespread respect because they know what they are talking about. The bipartisan pension reformers now have real political and policy clout because the public trusts their advice on a complicated topic.
Columnist Dick Spotswood of Mill Valley writes about local politics on Wednesdays and Sundays in the IJ. Email him at spotswood@comcast.net.
