Three MEHC board members speak out against baseless Marinwood lawsuit

In early January 2025, a lawsuit was filed by a NIMBY group in Marinwood in an attempt to slow the process for an 100% affordable housing project, Marinwood Plaza. Three MEHC board members published Letters to the Editor in the Marin IJ to speak in opposition to this lawsuit. Read them below.

Marinwood housing lawsuit should be tossed, by Steven Saxe

As a member of the Marin Environmental Housing Collaborative board, I think the recent litigation brought by a so-called Marinwood Coalition Against Segregation (“Marinwood lawsuit alleges ‘segregation’ in affordable housing plan,” Jan. 12) is nothing more than a stain on Marinwood.

The U.S. Census Bureau in 2023 shows the vast majority of Marin County residents to be White, with 3% Black and 7% Asian. Under ethnicities, Marin is listed as 20% Latino. We all know that many of Marin’s people of color are squeezed into a few pockets of Marin, leaving communities like Marinwood far more White and non-Latino than our county as a whole.

I think claiming that a fully affordable housing project in a mostly White community would further segregation simply defies logic. The MEHC believes that a group making such a claim in a community whose median household income in 2022, according to Data USA, was almost $217,000, simply wants to keep its neighborhood just as White and economically segregated as it always has been, despite its claim that it “recognizes the urgency of California’s and Marin’s ongoing housing crisis and the public need to encourage construction of new housing, including inexpensive accessible housing.”

The history and context of the county’s 20% inclusionary housing requirement is obviously meant to set forth a minimum, not a maximum affordability threshold. We hope that the court quickly sees through this suit, tossing it where it belongs — in the dustheap.

Marinwood lawsuit is a big disappointment, by Paul Jensen

Speaking as a longtime Marinwood resident and as a retired city planner, I am embarrassed by the recent lawsuit filed regarding Marin County’s action to approve the nearby affordable housing project (“Marinwood lawsuit alleges ‘segregation’ in affordable housing plan,” Jan. 12).

To claim that this 100% affordable housing project promotes segregation in a community that I consider to be an example of segregation already is outright insulting and lacks common sense. To the contrary, the project helps to diffuse the segregation that is already prevalent.

The lawsuit claims the project violates the county’s long-standing inclusionary housing requirement, which mandates that a developer set aside 20% of the total units within the project for qualifying affordable households. This requirement applies (and has always applied) to market-rate housing development projects, not 100% affordable housing projects.

To challenge the rare opportunity to build a housing project that provides all of its units for qualifying affordable households; is proposed on a flat, developed site; and is near public transit and Highway 101 is laughable. If not here, then where?

During my years as a city planner, I have seen numerous lawsuits by “concerned neighbors.” They usually attack issues such as inadequate environmental review. Some had merit, but many were intended to delay or kill a project.

In this case, I think attorney Riley Hurd is spot-on by stating that the rationale for the suit is a “red herring.” This project should be embraced and applauded for bringing affordable housing to an unaffordable neighborhood. Hopefully, the judge will see right through this senseless lawsuit.

Marinwood group’s lawsuit appears to be shameless, by Gail Napell

I am writing in response to the article published Jan. 12 with the headline, “Marinwood lawsuit alleges ‘segregation’ in affordable housing plan,” Jan. 12).

As a board member for the Marin Environmental Housing Collaborative, I would like to ask if any of the members of the Marinwood Coalition Against Segregation group that filed the suit live in affordable housing themselves.

I suspect that none of them do. If that’s true, then shame on them for pretending to speak for a group whose interests they neither appear to understand nor appear to genuinely support. In my opinion, it is more likely that many of them vigorously oppose the incorporation of affordable housing into their neighborhoods in any manner, let alone the integrated way they purport to advocate for.

The irony is that many people who qualify for affordable housing are the same people these plaintiffs see and rely on every day — teachers, firefighters and retail employees, as well as day-care and health-care providers.