Development fight in Santa Venetia

Marin IJ June 11, 2001

WHILE IT LASTS: Harriot Manley and her dog, Dingo, take a jaunt on San Pedro Mountain. Manley, as head of Friends of San Pedro Ridge, is trying to put the brakes on a 28-home development on the mountain.
Photo: Marian Little Utley

By John Nickerson

Opponents are gearing up to stop a 28-home development in Santa Venetia's Oxford Valley - before a permit application has been filed.

Harriot Manley, who lives next to Oxford Valley, has organized a 60-member group called Friends of San Pedro Mountain that is opposed to the proposed development called Canyon Heights.

"We are demanding that the powers that be not look at the Oxford Valley homes as one development, but look at all the developments as a whole and say enough is enough," she said.

Manley appears to have some support in the community. On Wednesday and Thursday, a petition drive organized by Manley gained 262 signatures from area residents who say they are all for halting the development.

"As someone who has grown up in Marin, we have too many 'I remember whens,' " Manley said of the myriad developments that she says have forever changed the county landscape.

Canyon Heights is slated for a 30-acre parcel of Oxford Valley that backs up against San Pedro Ridge. In 1920, Isadore Schwartz bought the property from Mabry McMahon, who gave the Santa Venetia neighborhood its name. Now, Schwartz's nephew, Irving Schwartz, is the civil engineer on the development project.

Schwartz said the property is owned by his cousins, Sidney Schwartz of San Rafael and Ruth Susnow of Santa Rosa.

Principally, opponents to the development cite traffic, environmental and flooding concerns.

Schwartz believes those concerns are unwarranted and that the project developer, James Leland of Mission Valley Properties in Pleasanton, has been honest with area residents about his plans.

"The reason the neighbors know about it is because Leland has gone to them and said, 'Here's what we are doing,' " Schwartz said. "He is attempting to work with members of the community to get all of their input and hear what their concerns are."

Traffic won't be negatively impacted, Schwartz said, because the development is not expected to create more than one peak-hour trip per residence.

"Traffic is an issue, but I don't think it will be that big of an issue," Schwartz said.

As far as Canyon Heights creating more runoff for the Marin County Flood Control and Water Conservation District to deal with, Schwartz said, "We are volunteering to annex the homes into the flood control zone as part of the development, and we will construct this project in such a way as to not aggravate the flooding problem."

Concerning the environmental issues, Leland said that the proposed homes - ranging in size from 2,200 square feet to about 3,000 square feet - will be clustered in one area of the 30-acre parcel.

"We are trying to be very sensitive to the environment," Leland said.

In a somewhat heated meeting with Supervisor John Kress early Thursday evening, 25 residents and community leaders quizzed him on his feelings toward the development.

"I have no particular enthusiasm to see more development," Kress said. "But people are entitled to submit an application."

Kress held firm to giving the landowner and developer a chance in the planning process even though he was pressed by some to bring the project to a swift end. "My pledge is to ensure everything is done to the maximum benefit of the residents," Kress said.

After Kress' departure, the group began talking strategy for the fight ahead.

Sitting in the chair occupied by his boss just a few minutes earlier, Kress' assistant, Rick Fraites, offered advice to the group. He served on the steering committee for the Citizens to Save Bahia, the group that last month successfully blocked expansion of the Bahia subdivision project in Novato.

"Anything you can conjure up to get the developer to look at and spend money, throw it out there," Fraites said. "That's my advice, having just gone through this with Bahia."

"That's one of the reasons housing is so expensive in Marin County," Schwartz said about Fraites' comment. "If frivolous studies are asked for by the community and included in the environmental impact report, the cost of those studies get reflected in the cost of each home."

Of Fraites' comment, Leland added, "That's probably good advice if your objective is to stop it. The classic paradigm in Marin County is an antagonistic one and we are going to do our best to make it a collaborative one, to work with the residents there."