Ivan Poutiatine is a 40-year volunteer, having served on citizen committees, the Mill Valley Planning Commission, City Council and 30 years on the Marin Theatre Company board writes:
I ATTENDED the joint meeting of the Mill Valley City Council and Planning Commission on July 30, which was a public hearing on the Miller Avenue Precise Plan.
I was shocked by the amount of negative comment and opinion. I was surprised because planning for the future of one of Mill Valley's main thoroughfares is a good and proper function of government.
Allowing piecemeal, hodge-podge development to define this public space would be to guarantee an amorphous, commercial strip. And then people will say, "Where was the City Council when this should have been planned?"
I was surprised because this is basically a good plan. It is not radical. It addresses the major concerns of good town planning. It allows for small, incremental change, which will take place slowly, over 20 to 40 years. It will not happen overnight, but as it evolves, it will take a form worthy of our wonderful town.
So, I wondered, "What's the problem?" Looking back on my thirty-some years of participating in and watching local government, several ideas occur to me.
First, it's difficult to divert people's attention to something like a master plan for a street. So, even though this planning process has been ongoing for about five years,and even though the city has published the relevant information, most people are just waking up to the fact that something might change.
Whenever people sense that their environment is about to be changed (even if it isn't), and they don't really understand the basis, the concept, the rationale, to say nothing of the details of the plan, the natural reaction is to oppose it.
I am well aware of the time, effort and patience that have gone into developing this plan, and of the many opportunities for public input. And I have to say that I have little patience with people who appear at the eleventh hour and complain that they have not been heard.
Second, I believe that most of our citizens are not aware of the pressure upon the city to provide a share of low-income housing opportunities. Although the target numbers originate with ABAG (Association of Bay Area Governments), the mandate to plan for a certain number of "affordable" housing units comes from the state. Ignoring this mandate could result in losing some of our zoning autonomy, as well as some of the state funds upon which we rely for some of our operations and improvements. The penalty for ignoring this is definitely to be avoided.
Furthermore, it is erroneous to interpret this plan as a push toward development. All it does is to identify the most likely locations where property owners are apt to develop their properties. It puts them on notice that when the time comes, they will have to include some "affordable" units. If anything, this will slow down development.
Third, I think the word "precise" is a problem. It suggests that every square inch of future Miller Avenue is pre-determined. It is a prescriptive term, and as such, conveys the wrong impression. This is a master plan. It provides a framework within which there is plenty of room for variation and evolution.
I take my hat off to the City Council, the Planning Commission, the staff and those citizens who have participated, for facing a tough challenge head-on rather than taking the easy road, rather than ignoring the problem. I hope they will listen to those opinions that seem to make sense, and not be intimidated by those opinions that seem to be self-serving, near-sighted or otherwise uninformed.
At the end of the day, you have to do what you think is right.
Ivan Poutiatine
This article first appeared in the Marin Independent Journal and was reprinted with permission Mr. Poutiatine
www.MarinRealEstateBlog.com Mark Danforth Lomas "Transparent Real Estate" 2007
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