Sausalito voters will decide in the Nov. 3 election whether to ease 40-year-old development restrictions along the central shoreline and former World War II shipyard.<\/p>\n
Measure X, the \u201cArts, Industrial and Maritime Preservation and Improvement Initiative,\u201d or AIM, would rezone commercial parcels from Spinnaker Point north, including two-thirds of the Marinship area, the 210-acre former shipyard. It does not create housing sites or affect the historic downtown.<\/p>\n
The ballot initiative was written by the community group Sausalitans for a Thriving Waterfront. Co-author Adrian Brinton is running for City Council.<\/p>\n
Mayor Steven Woodside said the possible effects of Measure X include \u201ctwo very important things.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe idea that there can be new levels of activity in the Marinship on land that\u2019s currently completely vacant,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd that will help generate additional tax revenues that can be used to solve some of the significant problems in the Marinship: flooding, subsidence, blight, if you will, the underlying infrastructure.\u201d<\/p>\n
A 28-page analysis by city staff describes how AIM rezones two of the Marinship\u2019s seven zones: 85 acres of waterfront lots and 59 acres of industrial parcels.<\/p>\n
Measure X allows a greater floor area ratio, the percentage of a parcel that can be built upon. It allows building heights up to 47 feet, compared to the current 32-foot limit. Many new business types would be allowed, the staff report said, including art galleries, harbor and marine facilities, mooring facilities, community centers, libraries, museums, retail shops and temporary offices.<\/p>\n
The changes would take effect immediately if the measure is approved. Shoreline rezoning would shift from ballot measures to the City Council.<\/p>\n
City staff, the Planning Commission and City Council would retain project review authority, unlike large-scale housing projects that state density bonus law exempts from local control.<\/p>\n
Measure X advocates say it will remove dated laws that block economic revitalization.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor the first time in 40 years, Sausalito voters have a choice about whether the rules governing this part of our waterfront still make sense,\u201d said Ray Withy, a two-time former mayor.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a cost to doing nothing,\u201d he said. \u201cWe risk losing our arts, industrial and maritime businesses. We have more than $100 million in infrastructure needs that continue to grow.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople can see what\u2019s going on in the Marinship for themselves,\u201d said Shelby Van Meter, founder of Sausalito Beautiful, a community group. \u201cLook at the RV storage area along Marinship Way, the deteriorating buildings and underused properties. Walk Gate 5 Road at high tide and see the flooding. This is the reality.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMaritime trades don\u2019t operate in isolation,\u201d said Curtis Havel, a founding member of the Sausalito Sustainable Waterfront Association and harbormaster of Clipper Yacht Harbor. \u201cClipper hosts an ecosystem of maritime trades and other tenants. They support each other.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen more people have reasons to come to the waterfront, boatyard work goes up. More teak gets varnished, rigging replaced and engines serviced,\u201d he said. \u201cThose are jobs for local maritime tradespeople.\u201d<\/p>\n
Measure X opponents say it is excessive deregulation that will mar the city\u2019s character.<\/p>\n
Sophia Collier, a co-founder of Save Our Sausalito, said Measure X \u201cis the opposite of planning.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a massive \u2018one-size-fits-all\u2019 upzoning of the most vulnerable property without any overall environmental review or development plan, while also repealing access and view protections,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cMeasure X takes away zoning authority from Sausalito voters \u2014 handing that power to any three council members to make deals with developers without voter approval,\u201d Collier said. \u201cVoter control protects Sausalito by acting as a circuit breaker to make sure council decisions are good and have community support.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sandra Bushmaker, a former City Council member, said the proposal is \u201cone of the most irresponsible initiative measures I have ever seen.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt authorizes up to 10 million square feet of building on our waterfront and in the commercial zones in Sausalito,\u201d she said. \u201cThis is not the time to be tearing down our waterfront, impacting views, increasing traffic and congestion in Sausalito. We must have a better plan.\u201d<\/p>\n
Emmet Yeazell, an activist opposing the measure, said the rezoning \u201cwould remove the feeling\u201d of being close to the bay.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe waterfront, the view corridor, from a pedestrian\u2019s standpoint or just driving, you can see and feel the waterfront as you go down Bridgeway,\u201d he said. \u201cMeasure X would remove that feeling. You would see buildings instead of the water. You would have much denser coverage of lots.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEssentially, the industrial feel of Sausalito, left over from Marinship during World War II, would disappear,\u201d Yeazell said. \u201cThat\u2019s not entirely bad. But what it would be replaced with would be a San Jose high-rise environment and people in Sausalito would look at it and say, what the hell happened?\u201d<\/p>\n
Last November, voters rezoned more than a dozen parcels concentrated in the city\u2019s north end to meet the state housing quota.<\/p>\n
At one Marinship site across from Mollie Stone\u2019s Market, a San Francisco developer is seeking to build nearly 300 apartments.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to prioritize this impact mitigation first before a major new commercial expansion,\u201d Collier said.<\/p>\n
Measure X requires a simple majority to pass.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sausalito voters will decide in the Nov. 3 election whether to ease 40-year-old development restrictions along the central…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":458856,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[1400,387,7,204,989,181,23,992,89001,100,180,993,266,13,39272,101,1914,103,102,3624,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-458855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-2026-elections","tag-business","tag-california","tag-election","tag-elections","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-marin-county","tag-marinship","tag-news","tag-newsletter","tag-north-bay","tag-northern-california","tag-politics","tag-richardson-bay","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-bay","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sausalito","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=458855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458855\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/458856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=458855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=458855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=458855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}