Why Live Local

Marin is a place like no other. Stunning beaches. Organic farms. Family-friendly towns with good schools. Unique main streets with locally-owned stores. Marin is also home to the most environmentally conscious and civically minded people in the nation.

But Marin is changing. Traffic is bad and getting worse, and it has become prohibitively expensive for our grown children, aging parents, and vital community members to live here.

We’re not living our green values when too many people are driving an hour to work here each day, clogging our freeways and taking an unnecessary toll on the planet. We miss grandkids’ cherished milestones because our grown children have settled in distant, but affordable, cities. And when Mom wants to downsize to a condo in her retirement, she has no place to go in Marin.

That’s why the best way to protect what we love about Marin and live our local values is to make is easier for people with strong roots in this community to make a home here.

How We Work

Live Local Marin collaborates with community leaders and organizations to shape local policy to increase Marin’s supply of affordable homes. In addition, Live Local Marin engages the public in the various issues around affordable housing through tours, forums, workshops, tabling at events and with our publications.

Public Engagement

Live Local Marin seeks to elevate the discussion of affordable housing and responsible growth through educational forums, workshops and tours. Live Local has hosted public forums on transit oriented development (TOD), design and density, and housing element law. We also organize tours so that members of the public can see first-hand what affordable housing looks like and who lives in it. Live Local has led half-day bus tours of affordable housing complexes in various Marin cities, as well as walking tours of mixed-use properties in downtown San Rafael. A self-guided tour is available to anyone by clicking here.

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Live Local Marin also engages a broad spectrum of Marin residents in the issues related to affordable homes by tabling at local farmers markets, festivals and fairs. In the summer, you can find us every Thursday night at San Rafael’s downtown farmers’ market of 4th Street.

Finally, Live Local is Marin’s leading organization for affordable housing related research, producing publications examining Marin’s commute patterns, job growth, housing needs, and earning power of affordable housing residents.

Advocacy

Live Local Marin recognizes that to make a dent in addressing Marin’s current housing needs, we need strong policies to enable housing for the full spectrum of residents.

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One of the best ways, jurisdictions can enable people of all incomes to live locally is through smart zoning and policies that encourage infill housing. This is done through each city and town’s General Plan, specifically a part of the General Plan called the Housing Element. The Housing Element requires a city to identify sites for future housing for people of all incomes. Additionally, a housing element can encourage smarter growth with policies to reduce parking requirements, or levy fees on new retail and commercial development that go into affordable housing trust funds. For this reason, Live Local Marin has been actively working with our cities and towns to craft strong policies, and identify ideal sites for affordable housing. It is important to note that the purpose of the housing element is to require each jurisdiction in California to do its fair share in accommodating potential housing demand. No jurisdiction is ever required to actually build new housing.

Marin has a unique and timely opportunity to create vibrant, walkable neighborhoods around our future SMART stations. The City of San Rafael has begun this process by engaging residents, businesses, and advocates to develop a vision for its two future SMART stations. Live Local Marin is actively engaged in the plan around the Civic Center SMART station, where there is an opportunity to carefully plan future development to enhance the existing neighborhoods.