The proposal for a roughly 9,000-square-foot development in Inverness Park that sparked ire in West Marin has been withdrawn, to give the applicant—Tim Westergren, a co-founder of Pandora Radio—more time to revise the design and provide additional information about impacts to trees and neighboring wells.
The application, which includes a home, second unit, art studio, pool house and two garages at 135 Balboa Avenue, was deemed complete in November. According to state law, the county had to act on the project within 30 days. But many in the community denounced the proposal on multiple fronts: its square footage, significantly larger than the average size of neighboring homes; the 14 bathrooms; potential water use; and the proximity of a proposed second unit to an art studio that some alleged created a roughly 2,000-square-foot unit when the county limit is 750. Opponents launched a website, protectwestmarin.org, with a petition against the project that has garnered 419 signatures.
The applicant requested extensions amounting to 120 days to address some concerns with more analyses. “It was extra information they wanted to submit to enhance their application,” said Heidi Scoble, the planner in charge of the project.
But by early April, they still didn’t have the additional documents ready, and no more extensions were possible.
In a letter to the county’s Community Development Agency, project architect Chris Stanton included a “revised design submittal with ‘clustered’ development plan,” a report from a geohydrologist assessing the potential impact to neighboring wells and another assessment of the impact of cutting down trees to build the project. The letter says they hope to resubmit their application “later this spring.”