‘Insulting’: Marin commissioners rebuke planners over housing control

Marin planning commissioners are pushing back against county staff on housing policy, accusing them of kowtowing to state officials and manipulating local oversight.

The conflict flared up during a hearing on Monday, when the commission had to decide whether to approve changes to the Marin Countywide Plan. The changes followed a court order in March to remove “precedence clauses” from the document that directed the “subordination of community plans to the Countywide Plan.” The court order, by Judge Sheila Shah Lichtblau in Marin County Superior Court, stemmed from a lawsuit by Strawberry resident Bruce Corcoran.

Planning staff sought to add new language to the Marin Countywide Plan in addition to removing the precedence clauses, but the commission rejected that approach in a 5-2 vote. Instead, the commission recommended that county supervisors simply remove the precedence clauses as the court ordered.

“I think generally this new proposed language is an overreach,” said commissioner Rebecca Lind. “It is overly broad and unnecessary.”

Commissioner Don Dickenson said, “Some of it went too far in terms of advocacy.”

Commissioner Margaret Curran said, “Some of it is objectionable and clearly of concern to folks out there.”

Jillian Zeiger, a county planner, said the additions to the Marin Countywide Plan are necessary because some of the community plans do not allow for dense enough multifamily housing.

“We need to make sure that we have language around affirmatively furthering fair housing,” Zeiger said.

Zeiger said that if the county were to simply remove the precedence clauses without adding the new language, it would not be recertified by the California Department of Housing and Community Development, or HCD.

Curran said the state found the housing element in the Marin Countywide Plan in compliance last year, so she didn’t understand how it could decertify it now for complying with a legal edict.

Many of the comments by commissioners hewed closely to remarks made by Corcoran, who spoke during the public comment portion of the meeting.

Corcoran said he filed his lawsuit to preserve the authority and integrity of all 24 of the county’s community and area plans and to maintain as much local control of development as possible, consistent with state law.

“The court order did not say that the county must add new policies to the countywide plan and housing element that compensate for the loss of the unlawful precedence clauses that restrict the authority of community plans,” Corcoran said. “But that’s what planning staff is proposing to do by inserting new language about affirmatively furthering fair housing.”

“We depend on the Planning Commission to represent and defend our interests because the planning department does not,” he said. “The planning department is in lockstep with HCD.”

Speaking immediately after Corcoran, commissioner Christina Desser took up where he left off.

“I think that the state would like to do away with planning commissions, because we basically have no discretion anymore,” Desser said, “but I also feel like we are either being manipulated or ignored by the county.”

Desser and other commissioners expressed chagrin about the fact that the planning staff consulted with and received approval for the proposed changes from the state housing department before bringing them to the Planning Commission, just six weeks before the deadline for their approval by county supervisors.

“Why didn’t you bring it to the Planning Commission at an earlier stage, since we have authority over changes to the plan?” Lind said.

“We wanted to hear from HCD and bring that to you,” Zeiger said.

Desser said, “But that’s backward.”

Desser noted that county planners suggested that commissioners not make any comments at a hearing on a major new development in the Strawberry area earlier this month, and instead submit their comments in writing.

“I feel like the county planning department assumes ill will on the part of the people in Marin County or at least in West Marin,” Desser said. “We hear about how bad we are or how this is all about fair housing, and the people in the communities are not interested in fair housing. It’s very insulting.”

“I feel that the way that you are handling the process deprives people of their voices,” she said, “and deprives us of any real role in decision making.”

Corcoran recalled Monday that he decided to file his lawsuit after discovering that former planning commissioner Andrea Montalbano had warned the planning department prior to the approval of the county’s new housing element that the use of precedence clauses to override community plan policies was very likely unlawful.

Montalbano sought reappointment to the commission when her term ended in June 2023, but county supervisors chose not to even include her among the group of candidates who were interviewed.

The two newest appointees to the commission, Greg Stepanicich and Claudia Muralles, cast the dissenting votes on Monday, supporting the planning department’s recommended amendments.

Stepanicich, who joined the commission in May 2023, said, “It seems as if HCD had seen language in the community plans as being potential obstacles to furthering fair housing. It seems to me there probably is a need to address that.”

Muralles said the community plans “might be putting up barriers for us to accomplish what we want as a county.”