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| Lagunitas against three home development |
Micah Maidenberg
2007-03-22 |
| | | Light photo by Micah Maidenberg | |
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At the foot of an old fire road close to the point where Arroyo Road and Alamo Way meet in Lagunitas, San Francisco attorney and real estate developer Tom Robertson has posted a sign for his neigh-bors to assure them they have access to a long-used trail on his property. Change is coming, however.
“We hope that you all understand that until the trail easement and trail that we have proposed to the Marin County Open Space District and State Park becomes a reality, we will continue to allow you to use this road,” the sign reads in block let-ters. Next to it is a map of the trail Robert-son is proposing to dedicate as part of a project to build three new single-family homes off of Arroyo Road in Lagunitas.
Up the trail are wooden mock-ups of the yet-to-be-built homes. The trail is about four feet wide, and on a recent day, muddy and slick. It leads to a meadow ridge and then narrows into a smaller path strewn with pine needles that ends at the top of Mount Barnabe.
Entirely on private property, hikers have no legal standing to use the trail other than the permission Robertson and other owners of the land have granted over the years.
Trail easement
Robertson says as part of building new homes he will enter into a conservation easement with the county to provide the public with legal trail access through the property. But area residents, judging by their comments at a Planning Commission hearing last Monday, are upset with the plans. They are loath to lose the trail in its current location, and complained about the size of the homes Robertson wants to build, saying they are out of character with the rest of the community.
The meeting was called to consider re-drawing property lines on the three parcels Robertson owns. No vote on the project was taken due to time restraints. The hear-ing will continue on March 26. If the commission approves the project, con-struction on the new homes could begin as soon as the summer.
Live in one, sell two
The three homes would be built on 12.3 acres of wooded, sloped land. Robertson, who has owned the parcels for three years, plans to live in the home at the top of the property, and said the only way he could afford to build a house for himself was by developing the other two properties.
“He has three legal lots,” said Carol Whitmeyer, a Woodacre resident Robert-son hired as his land use planner. “He is legally entitled to develop three homes on these properties.”
At the Planning Commission meeting, Robertson said his development team spent extensive time studying the properties. He has contracted an architect, an arborist, an archaeologist, an environmental surveyor and several engineers to work on the pro-ject. He told the commissioners the homes will blend into the area and the 39 trees cut down during construction will be used to build the three homes.
Robertson even held a meeting in Lagunitas last weekend, and seems to want to extend an olive branch to his critics.
“It was good that everybody got what they had off their chest,” he said of the hearing. “I wasn’t dismayed by it.”
All three homes would be built using forest green shingle roofing and naturally weathering wood shingle siding, with a dull green and “Country Redwood” trim, according to planning documents.
The first home, at 338 Arroyo Road, would have three stories and an attached garage and mechanical room spread over 2,894 square feet. 13 trees would be re-moved to build the home.
The home at 350 Arroyo would be 2,778 square feet and three stories high. It would include an 858 square foot detached garage and guesthouse. This home would require 18 trees to be removed.
The third home, at 360 Arroyo Road, would be Robertson's. It would cover 3,362 square feet over two stories and an attached garage. A 348 square foot guest-house would be built on the site as well. Eight trees would be removed to build the third home.
Paving the trail
Under Robertson’s proposal, the first leg of the existing trail would be paved as a driveway for the owners of the three new homes.
The Planning Commission hearing was held to consider redrawing the property lines on the parcels, which currently split the site into 3.56, 4.16 and 4.62-acre par-cels. Robertson wants to redraw the boundaries to increase the smallest of the current lots to 8.31 acres. The increase would allow him to build his home on this lot and reserve the rest of the acreage for the trail easement. Planning department staff support redrawing the lines.
The new trail Robertson is proposing zigzags across the northern part of 8.31-acre parcel. The trail remains an idea for now. It is not plan for construction, as noted in the planning report on Robert-son’s project. Any trail would have to go through environmental review, leading some at the meeting to question whether it will even be built.
“What if, after evaluation, it is deter-mined that it is not appropriate to put a trail there? Then where are we?” Commis-sioner Hank Barner asked at the meeting. He said it the trail offer cannot be a “pig in the poke.”
Planning department staff believe the trail would enhance public recreation by giving the public a legal right through the property. At Monday’s meeting, Robertson offered to pay for 50 percent of the cost of the trail where it runs through his property. Whitmeyer, his land use planner, guessed that could be as much as $20,000.
The debate
“He says he wants to build his dream home,” said Richard Haber, a doctor who lives close to the development site. “But this smacks of speculation.”
Residents of the Arroyo area of Laguni-tas argued against redrawing the lot lines and challenged the planning department’s staff recommendation that additional envi-ronmental review of the proposal is unwar-ranted. They said building the homes would harm steelhead and Coho salmon, lead to future tree cutting and endanger public safety because more than 70 percent of the three parcels is at a 30 percent slope or more. Many questioned the merit of the new trail. Some speakers wondered whether the development should be al-lowed at all.
“It violates pristine woodlands,” said Cynthia Featherstone, a Lagunitas resident who lives in the area. “The land has never been touched, and I don’t think it should be touched.”
Homes too big?
At the meeting, Lagunitas residents re-peatedly brought up the size of the homes Robertson wants to build, saying they are too big for the community. An analysis of the homes within a 600-foot radius of Robertson’s parcels found the average home to be 1,679 square feet. Robertson’s homes would average to 3,011 square feet. Only one existing homes – at 25 Alamo Way – has more square feet, at 2,803, than the smallest of proposed homes. Robertson said the community would benefit from a "diversity" of homes sizes.
“It’s hard to understand how we’re changing the community character,” Rob-ertson said after the hearing. “Some of the people who protested today have homes that are larger.”
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