Lucas Valley housing developer accuses county of unlawful delays

A developer who wants to build 36 homes in Lucas Valley has appealed the county’s requirement for additional environmental analysis.

“The county has proceeded in a course of conduct undertaken for an improper purpose — to harass, to cause unnecessary delay, and add excessive and unnecessary cost to the project — in a manner that violates state housing law,” Travis Brooks, the developer’s attorney, wrote in a letter to the county on Nov. 24.

“The county has processed the project application at a glacial pace, for more than two years, with no apparent end in sight,” Brooks wrote.

The Marin County Planning Commission will hear the appeal on Monday.

The developer, 330 Land Co. and Lucas Valley Road LLC, wants to subdivide a 61-acre property at 1501 Lucas Valley Road. The developer qualifies for a 35% density bonus by pricing five of the homes to be affordable for households at or below 80% of the area median income.

Assembly Bill 1893, which took effect in January, expanded the definition of what constitutes “effective disapproval” of a development application to include unnecessary delays or needless increases in the project cost.

“Refusing to make a decision can and will kill a project,” said Jack Farrell, a research attorney with Yimby Law, “and the law allows the developer to ask the city to actually cite its legal reasoning or approve the project as legally required.”

The developer asserts that a programmatic environmental impact report that reviewed the effects of the county’s updated housing element in 2023 should suffice.

“The project’s proposed use and density was already studied in detail with respect to the project site in the comprehensive environmental impact report prepared for the housing element update,” Brooks wrote.

That report covered 148 sites in the county that could accommodate nearly 5,200 new residences to meet state housing mandates. Critics of the housing element, including county planning commissioners, questioned whether the programmatic environmental impact report was detailed enough, but county planners said additional environmental analysis would be done later for specific projects.

When the developer came before the Planning Commission on May 29 seeking permission to subdivide the property, planning staff initially recommended a denial. The staff cited concerns such as the grading in the steep area and the overly narrow streets.

More than a dozen Lucas Valley residents spoke during the meeting, all in opposition to the project. The chief concerns included the effect on neighborhood fire evacuations; the removal of 128,900 cubic yards of soil to create flat lots; the construction of retaining walls up to 15 feet high; and the specifications for narrower private roads and fewer sidewalks.

After the developer threatened to sue, however, county staff revised the recommendation to call for further environmental analysis. The county and 330 Land Co. signed a tolling agreement in July that extends the developer’s right to sue the county until 90 days after a final decision is rendered on the subdivision approval.

At the May hearing, Brooks said he supported the action. In its appeal, however, the developer contests the county’s selection of Sicular Environmental Consultants to do the environmental analysis. The developer states that Sicular’s proposals “include work far exceeding that authorized.”

“These include an estimated total of 8-12 months of review time and a cost of $355,760 to $427,792 to complete,” the appeal states.

The developer asserts that such costs and timelines are more typically associated with full environmental impact reports for larger and more complex projects.

In his Nov. 24 letter, Brooks also asserted that the county has unlawfully refused to process the project in line with Senate Bill 131, which Gov. Gavin Newsom signed in June. The law streamlines environmental review of housing projects that nearly qualify for an exemption under the California Environmental Quality Act.

In its response, the Marin County Community Development Agency stated that despite the programmatic environmental impact report, the project must be reviewed to ensure “that it would not result in any new or more severe environmental effects than those previously analyzed.”

As for the applicability of SB 131, county planners state that the project would be ineligible for an outright exemption by more than one issue area and as result would not be covered by the law.

In its appeal, the developer also objected to the county denying it waivers to reduce street widths and sidewalk standards. The appeal says the loss of the waivers would “physically preclude construction of the project at its proposed density and as designed.”

In their response, planners stated that the developer was proposing to reduce the width of several roads while eliminating sidewalks on one side of two streets. The planners said such a street configuration and circulation system “would create hazardous conditions and compromise pedestrian safety.” The staff report recommends that the planning commissioners deny the appeal.

“I think the appeal is a feeble attempt to circumvent the CEQA statutes that clearly require environmental review for poorly designed projects like this that will have an adverse impact on the environment,” Neil Sorensen, a Lucas Valley resident, wrote in an email. “This is a project that will carve away an entire hillside and require as many as 13,000 truck trips up and down Lucas Valley Road just to haul the dirt away. The project would have sub-standard streets, drainage issues, and potentially life threatening issues if there is ever a fire.”

Another Lucas Valley resident, Irving Schwartz, said, “My concern is the fact that there’s really insufficient off-street parking and extremely narrow road widths that’s going to end up being a public safety problem if there’s ever a fire in the area.”

Lucas Valley resident Kelby Jones said that early on the developer expressed a desire to work with the community.

“All of that seems to have gone out the window,” Jones said, “and now it’s nothing but threats of litigation, which is just an absurd way to build.”