The County Planning Commission will be holding hearings in the next few weeks to adopt a new countywide plan that proposes up to 270 new units of housing in Kentfield, at the site of Marin General Hospital and College of Marin.
The goal of the plan is to increase low income housing in Marin- something desperately needed. Unfortunately, the current proposal has some serious drawbacks that need to be addressed.
The plan would cause increased traffic throughout the County, particularly along Highway 101, Sir Francis Drake Boulevard and Magnolia Ave. These areas already suffer from significant traffic issues that would be dramatically increased by adoption of the current proposal.
In addition to increasing traffic throughout the County, this plan would add students to the Kentfield School District. The district is already at capacity and the plan does not provide any funding or plans to enlarge the schools to accommodate new students. Bob Caine, the Superintendent of the Kentfield School District, has already written to the County to object strenuously to this plan. You can read his letter here.
We absolutely need affordable housing in Marin. This is not a case of sounds great- just not in my neighborhood. We need affordable housing- but also need to find a place for it in area that has room for growth. Placing the affordable housing in a high density area without a plan to handle that growth is ridiculous. If 270 units of housing are brought into any community, there needs to be consideration into how to deal with the additional traffic and the burden on existing services.
Let’s focus on getting the cars off the road and creating a solid public transportation system before adding in more units that we can’t accommodate.