THE MARINSHIP INDUSTRIAL DISTRICT in Sausalito has been home to a maritime and creative community since the early 20th century. Now it is the subject of a controversial citizen initiative on the city’s November ballot that could either improve the flood-prone district or backfire and gentrify it.
With its low cost and high ceilings, industrial architecture is perfect for artists and artisans. Open floor plans can be cut into unique spaces for the design, fabrication, storage, display and distribution of everything from shipbuilding to pottery to custom canvas awnings.
For decades, the city has protected the Marinship district through strict zoning and land use rules. Measure X would revise Sausalito’s 1985 Ordinance 1022, which was originally designed to limit overdevelopment and preserve the character of the waterfront district, where Liberty Ships were manufactured during World War II.
According to the ordinance, currently changes to the district’s code can only be decided through a citywide election. If Measure X passes, Ordinance 1022 would be revised to allow the City Council to make changes to land use standards and zoning in compliance with state and local law without further voter approval. Land use and zoning changes affecting the downtown historic district would still require voter approval.
Measure X, also called the Arts, Industrial & Maritime Preservation and Improvement Initiative or AIM initiative, would increase allowable size of a building’s footprint. The maximum lot coverage would rise to 70% from 30% on waterfront property and from 50% on industrial property. The measure would also increase height limits in those zones to 47 feet from 32 feet and reduce required setbacks in certain zones to 15 feet.
According to an analysis on the Marin County elections website, no new uses would be allowed to displace existing uses at two cultural hubs — the Industrial Center Building, which houses dozens of artist spaces, and the Arques Shipyard, a boat-building school which was once the historic epicenter of Sausalito’s post-war houseboat community.
Growth and infrastructure repairs
“I support modernizing the outdated 1985 rules governing the Marinship so that our artists, makers and maritime businesses can adapt and thrive,” said Sausalito City
Councilmember Joan Cox, who is running for reelection. “But I do not believe the AIM initiative, as drafted, is the right way to get there.”
Cox said the measure dramatically increases allowable development density without the master planning, community engagement and environmental review that a change of that magnitude demands.
Two of her challengers for the two City Council seats up for election agree, including incumbent Jill James Hoffman and Planning Commissioner Nastassya Saad. Challenger Adrian Brinton, a retired technology executive who said he helped draft the measure, said the AIM initiative was the city’s first shot in 40 years to create jobs and fund infrastructure improvements without raising taxes.
Arguments in favor of the measure say a boost in development could fix dilapidated empty buildings and infrastructure and provide capital for adaptation to sea-level rise, which has increased the frequency of flooding.
“Yes on Measure X allows our Marinship businesses to innovate and grow, creating the economic vitality to help pay for infrastructure repairs, without raising taxes,” said former Sausalito mayor Ray Withy and others in the group sausalitothrive.org.
The measure will also allow some new land uses in Marinship, including but not limited to some manufacturing and industrial uses, public utility and safety facilities, bakeries, fitness centers, financial uses and medical clinics. Certain accessory commercial uses, including offices and retail, would be allowed in both industrial and waterfront zones.
Opponents warn of upzoning
City regulations on number of liveaboard slips in marinas would be repealed, and instead governed by state law and permits through the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission, a state agency.
Opponents of the measure call it a massive one-size-fits-all waterfront upzoning.
“Measure X requires neither artist space nor affordable rents,” said Sophia Collier, president of the community group Save Our Sausalito. “It repeals arts, maritime, and industrial protections, opening the Marinship to higher-paying tenants.”
