Environmental benefits

 Our history of environmental protection is Marin County’s defining pride. As sprawl crushed open space throughout the Bay Area, we stood firm over the last half-century and worked to protect our open space. Now, our concern for the planet requires us to embrace moderately dense affordable housing. As the destructive threat of climate change starts to flood the planet and sprawl continues throughout California, affordable housing is the easy environmental choice.

For a green county, we have one massive carbon footprint: Per capita, we’ve been clocked emitting 40% more greenhouse gasses in a year than San Francisco!

Our sprawl is to blame: While green open space is abundant throughout Marin, our sprawling, low-density design prevents modern units that are much more efficient than older or single-family homes, and, most importantly, the sprawl increases vehicle miles traveled and prevents walkability. Vehicle emissions create 50% of Marin’s greenhouse emissions. We cannot seriously tackle emissions without addressing our car dependency.

Sprawl massively increases car usage: Almost 2/3 of Marin’s workforce commutes from outside the county, and our number of “super-commuters” (those who drive over 1.5 hours for work) has increased by 71% between 2009 and 2017.

 

Our lack of affordable housing has caused sprawl throughout the Bay: Due to areas like Marin County limiting affordable and moderate-density homes for so long, our workforce has been forced to move elsewhere in the region. While we may be “protecting open space” in Marin, the direct result is that we are eating up more of the earth by creating sprawl further out in Sonoma and the East Bay. Since 1950, outer metro locations like Santa Rosa have increased in physical size by over 300% as they have accommodated growing populations through low-density development. We can build affordable housing while protecting our open space: The good news is that we have plenty of room to build the housing we need without touching the open space. And the more density we build now, the more land we’ll save in the long run.