Plans to create new zoning restrictions in some West Marin villages as part of the update to the Local Coastal Program raised concerns last week among residents who received a letter about changes in the works for Point Reyes Station, Stinson Beach, Bolinas, Olema, the East Shore and Tomales.
A new “village commercial core” area proposed by the California Coastal Commission will restrict new ground-floor, road-facing residential units in what is meant to represent the tight nucleus of stores, restaurants and businesses in village centers, where current zoning is more inclusive of residential uses.
Although village core boundaries have not yet been finalized, the policy itself was approved last fall by county supervisors. It is not yet in effect, however, since the approval process for the coastal program is ongoing. County planner Kristin Drumm said the proposed core boundaries will undergo a public process—as long as the proposal is not eliminated by coastal commissioners when they once again vote on the L.C.P.
Supervisors are holding a hearing on revisions to many parts of the program next Tuesday, and are likely to approve those sections and pass them on to the commission. But establishing the actual boundaries of the core will not happen until the entire update process concludes, Ms. Drumm said. That could be many months away.
Under the current coastal program, approved in the early ‘80s, both residential and commercial uses are considered “principally permitted” in village centers. Permits for those kinds of projects may be appealed to the county, but not typically to the Coastal Commission. “Permitted” uses may be appealed to both.
In 2011, as part of the L.C.P. update, the Coastal Commission directed the county to approve new village zoning rules. The commission proposed that commercial and residential uses still be principally permitted, but it added restrictions on residential proposals “on the ground floor of a new or existing structure on the road-facing side of the property.” It specifically exempted existing residences, but the rule applied to the entire village center.
That policy went through another round of changes in 2014, when the Coastal Commission demoted all residential uses in the core from principally permitted to permitted and narrowed the restrictions on ground floor, road-facing residences to a new zoning overlay called the “village commercial core.”
A residential project affected by that restriction would require a use permit and need to be in line with the “established character of village commercial areas,” according to the policy language.
It’s this requirement that worries Marshall Livingston, an Inverness resident who both owns property downtown and sits on the board of the Community Land Trust Association of West Marin. “Adding the extra layer an expense of a use permit… will discourage residential use,” he said. [His properties would not be affected, he said.]
Mr. Livingston believes there should have been more urgent, and earlier, notice about the policy change. “The way I see it, it further restricts family housing in our small community, where we already have a housing crisis,” he said. “I think it’s a big change.”
He said the original zoning created “a nice mix” of residential, commercial and visitor-serving uses in Point Reyes Station. “I don’t mean to overreact,” he said, “but I feel like the community character is being chipped away at by regulations.”
In the draft proposal, the commercial core for Point Reyes Station includes properties along Highway 1 from Café Reyes to the Creamery Building, as well as some properties on Second, Third, Fourth and Fifth Streets .
Mr. Livingston made suggestions to the county for eliminating some parcels within the proposed boundaries of the core—parcels he says either do not face Main Street or which could be “good potential homes.” Some, but not all, of those parcels have since been eliminated, he said; he estimated that about seven to 10 remain.
Another critic, Randall Fleming, who chairs the Point Reyes Station Village Association’s design review board, said in a letter to the county that the association “believe[s the changes would] erode the historic character of the core area, deprive property owners of their current rights while burdening them with additional fees and processes.”
The letter went on, “We see no evidence that the proposed policy is necessary, nor that it will address needed visitor services or be economically viable as businesses in Point Reyes financially survive by serving residents as well as tourists.”
Residents in other villages are also concerned.
In his comments to the county, Bolinas resident and Bolinas Community Public Utility District board member Vic Amoroso wrote that the core “would exacerbate two of the most generally acknowledged problems facing the Bolinas community: housing and weekend/holiday parking.” He said about 15 properties would be affected, and that “the loss of any of these properties for residential use would only make a critical problem worse.”
Mr. Amoroso argued that new rules should really be the other way around: the county should be limiting the conversion of residences to commercial uses, like Airbnbs.
Yet the ruckus has befuddled at least one resident: county planning commissioner Wade Holland. “I’m not aware of a single objection to the policy [since it was first proposed],” he wrote in an email to the Light, adding that the Planning Commission approved it only at the insistence Coastal Commission staff.
He said that, ideally, the commercial core rules would be eliminated altogether, but that such a change seemed unlikely.