Posted on behalf of local residents: "You may have heard that the Inverness Association has appealed Marin County's approval of a Coastal Development Permit for the Moonrise Kingdom project at the top of Vision Road, adjacent to the National Seashore. The approved project totals 10,786 square feet of development, with 15,421 sf of impervious surfaces. Like the controversial Hidden Dragon project on Balboa, this would not be the owners' main residence, but a holiday home.
Our main concern is that this proposed development is way too big for Inverness. It rivals--and in many ways exceeds--the size of the now-withdrawn Hidden Dragon proposal. Marin County's Single-Family Residential Design Guidelines state that "the floor area of the proposed development should not substantially exceed the median home size in the surrounding neighborhood." Hidden Dragon was 4 times the size of the median home in the surrounding neighborhood. Moonrise Kingdom is proposed to be more than 5 times the median size.
The Staff Report ignores the Residential Design Guidelines and merely says "A residence of this size is not out of character with residences located in the surrounding Inverness community, nor is it out of character with the newer homes located throughout Marin County."
The Staff Report also repeatedly asserts, with no evidence, that the existing unpermitted buildings deserve to stay because they are of sentimental value to the community.
The Planning Commission will hear our appeal at 2 PM on Monday, June 12. The Inverness Association will be there to address the issue of size and other problems with the proposal. But without a clear message from the local community that West Marin is concerned about the negative impacts of the increasing number of properties bought as vacation homes, taken out of the rental market, and overdeveloped until no one but millionaires can afford to live here, they will tend to support the staff and the applicants.
Make no mistake, approval of this project without a serious reduction in size will set a precedent for a revived Hidden Dragon and will signal that Inverness is open to other super-sized development proposals.
The main thing is for letters to flood into the PC arguing that Moonrise Kingdom is too big for our community and the neighborhood. Send comments to:
Ana Hilda Mosher, for distribution to the Planning Commissioners (AMosher@marincounty.org), with copies to Marin County Planner Jocelyn Drake (jdrake@marincounty.org) and Supervisor Dennis Rodoni (drodoni@marincounty.org)
If you wish to receive a fact sheet on the size of Moonrise Kingdom and Hidden Dragon and a copy of the Staff Report, please email NancySteinart@gmail.com"