Dear Governor Newsom, Deputy Attorney General Pai, Senator Scott Wiener, Senator Mike McGuire, and the California Department of Housing and Community Development,
I am writing to bring to your attention to a significant and ongoing issue regarding the enforcement of housing laws in the City of Sausalito. Over the past three years, I have been diligently working to construct a 2196-square-foot home that meets my family’s needs. A modest urban square-footage for a family of 6 (myself, my wife, our children ages 7, 5, and 2, and new baby on the way). More about our journey can be found at www.renovate426pine.com, including the project timeline. Relevant here is that our home remodel includes an attached Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) that fully complies with state laws. However, the City of Sausalito unlawfully obstructed our ability to build a fully compliant 800-square-foot ADU by misinterpreting outdated municipal codes and ignoring California State laws, resulting in significant financial and emotional harm to our family. Now, the City of Sausalito is ignoring our good-faith efforts to rectify this injustice. Given that California is in the midst of a housing crisis, we are urgently asking the State of California to hold the individuals and the City of Sausalito accountable for their violations and related damages.
History and Context:
After two years and hundreds of hours of negotiations with neighbors, we submitted our plans to the City of Sausalito in January 2023. It took the planning department six months to schedule our first planning commission hearing in July 2023. Then, just days before the hearing, we received an unexpected email (see exhibit A) from the community development department that reversed its recommendation for approval of our project. They alleged that Sausalito Municipal Code Section 10.40.070(D)(1) applies to the extension of the attached ADU from our primary dwelling. According to their interpretation, the City mandates an additional setback of 1 foot for every 5 feet over 40 feet for both ADUs and primary dwellings. The City calculated the length of our primary dwelling together with the ADU before applying this burdensome setback rule, which for our 45-foot-wide urban lot, would have mandated an unreasonable 13 feet in total side-yard setbacks. Instead, the City demanded that we remove roughly 45% (or 363 square feet) from our proposed, state-allowed 800-square-foot ADU.
Whether an ADU is attached or detached, the state of California has declared the ADU an "accessory structure'. This means that ADUs should not be included in the total building length as defined by Municipal Code Section 10.40.070(D)(1). This particular code was enacted decades ago, long before our current housing crisis and newly enacted state laws. In the diagram below, the yellow highlighted section indicates the portion of the ADU that the City of Sausalito forced us to remove. The purple section is the ADU that was approved, and the red shaded section is the footprint of the primary dwelling that was finally approved earlier this year. See the full site plan here, (exhibit B).
For argument’s sake, let’s assume that the ADU and the primary dwelling could be counted together as part of the total building length. One would then ask whether the state of California has enacted any laws preventing municipalities from enforcing such a code, designed to maintain open space between urban lots. A simple web search reveals that AB 670 specifically voids and prohibits local restrictions used to maintain open space when those restrictions would constrain ADU development. AB 670 explicitly states that any covenants, conditions, or restrictions that effectively prohibit or unreasonably restrict the construction or use of an ADU or JADU on a lot zoned for single-family residential use are void and unenforceable (Civ. Code, § 4751). State ADU Law also requires that factors like lot coverage, floor area ratio, open space, or minimum lot size must not preclude the construction of a statewide exemption ADU.
If we continue along this line of reasoning and for argument’s sake assume that AB 670 does not apply to our project, one would next look at whether the state has enacted any laws that prevent cities from unduly constraining the creation of ADUs. Here, the situation becomes even more egregious. The City of Sausalito’s legal counsel, Sergio Rudin, has proposed that we build our ADU in two phases (see his email as Exhibit C). I had to email the city every week for nine weeks just to get this response. A two-phase approach to building an 800-square-foot ADU would require us to complete our primary dwelling project first, and then begin the second phase to expand ADU afterward. The financial and environmental impact of this recommendation is staggering.
Building the ADU in two phases means:
1. We would have to pay the ADU application fee twice.
2. We would need to rip out and re-pour concrete for the entire sidewalk in front of our house—twice.
3. We would have to rip off the front of our house after completing it in order to build the additional 363 square feet of the ADU.
4. The most costly consequence: we would need to install additional structural shear walls in the primary dwelling to make it a standalone project, an engineering requirement that would not exist if we were allowed to build the ADU concurrently.
The extra cost of this two-phase approach is estimated to be well over $100,000. This is financially devastating and, under any standard, completely unreasonable. The City's action is a clear violation of multiple state housing laws, all of which were enacted to prevent this very type of municipal obstruction. We informed Sergio Rudin, the city attorney, Brandon Phipps, the Community Development Director, Kristin Teiche, Principal Planner in Sausalito, and even presented the violation to the City Council during our appeal hearing. Before drafting and sending this email I made numerous attempts to connect with Sergio Rudin, the city attorney, Brandon Phipps, the Community Development Director, Kristin Teiche, Principal Planner. Our good faith attempts were completely ignored. See exhibit D, our most recent email to complete 'Step 1' of the ADU application for the City of Sausalito was sent one month ago and still has no response.
Broader Implications:
Beyond the specific legal violations, it is important to recognize that this is not an isolated issue in Sausalito. The City is already far behind on its obligation to add 724 housing units by 2031 under the state’s Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA). At the current rate, it is impossible for the city to meet this goal. Another family, just a few blocks away from us, spent seven years battling similar issues while trying to build their home, culminating in the publication of a book, 'I Am Applicant'. These are symptoms of a systemic problem: the City of Sausalito is making it prohibitively difficult for families to develop housing that complies with state law.
Our own experience highlights this issue. When our project was appealed from the Planning Commission to the City Council, instead of approving or denying the project, Vice Mayor Joan Cox instructed us to continue negotiating with our neighbors—despite the fact our project was fully code-compliant and had already been approved by the Planning Commission. This decision invited further harassment from one neighbor, causing significant emotional distress for our children. This forced us to seek a restraining order against that neighbor, see exhibit D. Luckily, this resulted in a stayaway order. This is not how a family should be treated when attempting to build a modest, energy-efficient home, that complies with all local and state laws.
Another example of systemic abuse obstructing housing development in Sausalito is the blatant conflict of interest involving Vice Mayor Joan Cox and the City’s legal counsel, Sergio Rudin. Both Cox and Rudin were partners at Burke, Williams & Sorensen LLP, the same law firm that for many years represented the City of Sausalito. While Cox served as a Planning Commissioner and later as Vice Mayor, Rudin was hired as legal counsel for Sausalito. This relationship created a situation where Cox created unlawful and unnecessary delays to directly increase the billable hours for Burke, Williams & Sorensen LLP at the expense of Sausalito residents and in doing so exacerbated the harm done to project applicants. One example involves a family’s seven-year battle to build a home in Sausalito, where Cox’s actions caused significant delays that increased legal fees for the city and directly benefited her law firm. The partnership between Cox and Rudin and their conflict of interest raises serious ethical concerns and warrants a formal investigation. I believe Joan Cox should be impeached from her current position as Vice Mayor to restore fairness and transparency to the city’s governance.
My plea is straightforward: how can we hold these individuals and the City of Sausalito accountable for their unlawful actions? How do we ensure that Sausalito complies with state housing laws? How do we ensure that what happened to our family never happens again in Sausalito or elsewhere in California? I would request immediate state intervention to ensure the City of Sausalito follows state law and allows us to build the ADU as we originally designed. We also request that the state begin enforcing its housing laws to protect families from arbitrary and unlawful decisions by local municipalities.
Thank you for your attention to this urgent matter. We look forward to your prompt response.
Sincerely,
Jake and Georgia Beyer
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