San Rafael nears approval of apartment tower

San Rafael appears to have removed the last major roadblock to what will become the city’s tallest building, a 17-story apartment tower at 700 Irwin St.

“The city has determined that the revised project would be consistent with the applicable planning standards if the Planning Commission approves the requested waivers and concessions,” planner Christina Ratcliffe wrote in a Dec. 19 letter to the developer.

The commission is scheduled to hold a hearing on the waivers and concessions on Jan. 13.

The developer, 700 Irwin Street Partners, is seeking permission for a building with 200 apartments. The project would include 30 affordable residences — 15 for very-low-income residents and 15 for moderate-income residents — and 170 apartments priced at market rate.

The developer is taking advantage of state density bonus law to build twice the number of apartments that would otherwise be allowed at the site, and to gain access to waivers and concessions to avoid other city requirements. The waivers and concessions can only be denied if it can be shown they would result in serious health and safety effects.

“The Planning Commission must comply with the requirements specified in the state density bonus law,” said John Stefanski, assistant city manager.

In November, the San Rafael Planning Commission approved a 13-story building at 1230 Fifth Ave. and an eight-story building at 900 A St. The taller building will contain 188 apartments and the smaller one 131.

City planners approved the 700 Irwin St. project after the developer’s attorneys threatened legal action if the city continued to delay the application processing.

“Our firm has been retained by 700 Irwin Street Partners to take remedial action to address the city of San Rafael’s ongoing violations of the Housing Accountability Act and other applicable laws,” Ellis Raskin, a lawyer for the developer, wrote in a Nov. 11 letter to Ratcliffe.

“We reserve all rights to seek equitable and legal remedies in the Superior Court to enforce the city’s failure to comply with its duty to process and approve the project’s AB 2011 application,” Raskin wrote in a followup letter on Dec. 8.

The developer has maintained that the project is eligible for processing under Assembly Bill 2011. The law, which took effect in 2023, created a ministerial, streamlined approval process for 100% affordable housing projects in commercial zones and for mixed-income housing projects along commercial corridors. San Rafael, however, maintains the project is ineligible for ministerial approval under AB 2011.

San Rafael said the project fails to meet an AB 2011 requirement to abut a commercial corridor because a street next to the site is too narrow and because San Rafael Creek, commonly known as the Canal, doesn’t qualify as an urban use.

Even under AB 2011, however, the project is required to comply with the city’s objective standards. In a Sept. 12 letter, the city notified 700 Irwin Street Partners that its project was inconsistent with these standards in numerous ways.

For example, the city said, the proposed project exceeded a 50-foot height limit; it failed to disperse its affordable apartments throughout the building and make their size comparable to the market-rate units; it failed to provide required setbacks; and it failed to meet requirements for providing motor vehicle and bike parking spaces. The developer is seeking waivers and concessions to remedy all of these inconsistencies.

Other inconsistencies the city cited have been resolved by planners compromising with the developer. For example, the city initially determined that the project was inconsistent with requirements governing residential construction in Federal Emergency Management Agency-designated flood hazard areas.

In her Dec. 19 letter, however, Ratcliffe wrote that the building could be built in the floodplain “on the condition that the building is mixed-use and follows the appropriate floodproofing guidelines.”

The city wrote initially that the project plans contained no commercial space, but Ratcliffe wrote that more recently the developer stated that a “4,000-square-foot community room will be a commercial use.”

Also, the city had previously told the developer that it would have to prepare a transportation impact analysis of the project, but it recently stated otherwise.