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Amy is a long time Mill Valley resident. In 2021 she found out about the housing mandates and the new laws, and none if it made sense; she’s spent the last 4+ years full time researching all related subjects. Her first Next Door post  ("You Won't Recognize Mill Valley in a Few Years," ) was the beginning.  She has since kept up this site, regularly sends updates to her  growing list of concerned Californians, has been a contributing writer for Marin Post, and has had several Marin Voice pieces (and letters) published in the Marin Independent Journal, and  other publications including the San Jose Mercury News, 

Amy is a certified CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) and NRG (Neighborhood Response Group) volunteer, and a Firewise Leader. These agencies prepare her to assist neighbors and first responders in emergencies. Living on  Mt. Tamalpais, she is extremely aware of natural hazards and evacuation safety. 

She is currently chair of the Tam Design Review Board, one of three county appointed DR boards in Marin. 

Amy has been regularly attending Monday night Catalyst calls (catalystsca.org) and has prepared presentations on various topics. She has attended two Sacramento Catalyst Lobby Days, and Catalyst’s founder, Susan Kirsch, has been a mentor. 

Amy is launching  a 501 (c) 4, WAKE UP CALIFORNIA (wakeca.org), to move the focus statewide. The site in progress can be viewed at that URL. 

New legislation continues to roll out of Sacramento, and she is determined to inform people about and fight for common sense housing policy. 

In her words:

Mill Valley is densely built out, with obvious limitations. Our streets are narrow and windy because they were built for horses, in the era before cars. We are largely in a “wildland urban interface” area and we live with frequent “red flag warnings” for catastrophic fire.  

If an evacuation is necessary, we have only two ways out of town; both are two-lane choke points. Those of us living higher up Mount Tamalpais already face significant, life-threatening obstacles to evacuation because of density. The state  ignored this and other significant hazards when it mandated across the board increases to the whole state, though much of California is in a similar situation. Fire season is now “year round” and fires increasing in intensity. Eva Ustinov must be a consideration. 

We should expect to have local, democratically elected government that speaks for us, able to make long term, sustainable plans for the future of our communities. For us, not just for the benefit of investment developers. 

Responsible, managed growth does not mean jamming huge amounts of housing into high fire danger zones in the midst of a severe, ongoing drought. We certainly shouldn't be bullied by our own state government into cramming housing into hazard areas to fulfill numbers so ridiculously large they have failed audit and don’t comport with reality. 

It's time for balanced, integrated choices in growth in our new realities of climate change. I am dedicated to working with community partners and other state wide organizations to  change the YIMBY narrative that has dominated the legislature and the media.  

The following article appeared in the NYT Business section 6/5/22. 

It mischaracterizes much of Susan's work, but I am including it here:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/05/business/economy/california-housing-crisis-nimby.html

The article spurred thousands of comments, and got some conversations started, but the view of the author was to reduce everything down to NIMBY vs YIMBY antagonism which is a gross oversimplification of the actual challenges we are all facing.

This is my letter to the NYT regarding the article::

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By focusing on the YIMBY vs. NIMBY narrative, the article misses the point about why those condominiums are a bad idea. 

The parcel isn’t at a dead-end. It fronts onto the busiest street in Mill Valley, two clogged, narrow lanes adjacent to the intersection that leads to the freeway. It is one of only two evacuation exits in case of fire.   

Our small town of 14,000 is classified mostly FEMA flood zone, WUI (woodland-urban-interface) or high/severe fire danger. It starts at a marsh, has some flats, then continues up the side of Mt. Tamalpais. Our infrastructure was developed in the 1890s with extremely windy, narrow roads built for horses.   

In case of fire, as the 14,000 residents in the flats fill the exits, the additional 11,000 of us in the upper elevations need to squeeze out of our feeder streets into the narrow, two-lane road down the hill, would back-up in minutes. We’d have two choices of exits to head for: the “condo” intersection, or an even worse choice; to a Y junction, then over a narrow bridge to a freeway exit subject to extreme tidal flooding.  

So it is against this backdrop that the state cast aside our local zoning, and demands (under severe penalties) construction of our “fair share” housing for an additional 1800 residents. Our city, like others with similar hazards, filed legitimate appeals for reduced numbers. They were ALL summarily dismissed. Safety was not considered at all.   

What is like to live in a hazard zone like this, where wind-blown embers can spread fire for miles in any direction? We install ALERT apps on our phones. We practice evacuation drills and cut vegetation back from our homes. We keep go-bags, filled with essentials to grab on the way out. EVACUATED tags are ready to hang on the doorknob if we leave, so the fire department knows the house is empty and can move on. 

In September of 2020, the flurry of housing legislation continued while hundreds of lightening-strike fires from August burned across the state, that’s when Governor Newsom vetoed SB 182, legislation put forward to require prior action (improved evacuation access, vegetation management, etc.) before permitting for development would be allowed in high fire zones.   

The reason for the veto? It would slow down the housing. From his veto statement: “Wildfire resilience must become a more consistent part of land use and development decisions. However, it must be done while meeting our housing needs.”  

Housing is sorely needed, and there are areas that can absorb it without increasing risk. But if you live in one that can’t, the state is deaf to your concerns, and has nothing but penalties to offer until you come into compliance.   

Fire doesn’t care if you’re a NIMBY or a YIMBY. If your “backyard” is flammable, you shouldn’t be forced to cram more housing into it.  

--- Amy Kalish 

First, a big THANK YOU to Amy Kalish for picking up the pieces of Citizen Marin, which have been lying dormant since 2016. Amy is revitalizing Citizen Marin and restoring its force for citizen engagement and impact. I am deeply grateful and encourage anyone who was previously associated with Citizen Marin to check out the new website and get involved in Citizen Marin activities.  

Citizen Marin emerged in early 2011 after Marin Independent Journal columnist Dick Spotswood published an article entitled, "Housing foes need Marin, statewide strategy." (11/7/2010).  Spotswood wrote, "Novato's Citizens for Balanced Housing and Friends of Mill Valley serve as models for neighborhood activists throughout the Golden State."   

That was just the prompt Novato resident Leslie Peterson Schwarze and I needed to meet for coffee and sketch out on the back of a napkin the beginnings of Citizen Marin. Over the next five years, Citizen Marin emerged as a think tank to educate residents about the jargon of housing--ABAG, MTC, RHNA, HCD, EIR, CEQA, and TODs, among others--and how the sausage is made in Sacramento.    

Besides educating, Citizen Marin promoted actions. We staged protests about WinCup, wrote letters, hosted our own Town Halls, and organized marches and protests. On July 18, 2013, we organized a busload of elected officials and community leaders to travel to the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) headquarters in Oakland to oppose the adoption of Plan Bay Area: Strategy for A Sustainable Region."   

Citizen Marin encouraged informed citizenship, running for office, starting new groups, special projects, participating in local or county-wide issues, and supporting each others' efforts to protect and preserve the safety and well-being of our communities.  The threats loom over us today with even greater menace.  

That's why the re-emergence of Citizen Marin is so important.  I'll continue my support for Citizen Marin. I'll also continue my work at the state level with Catalysts for Local Control (www.catalystsca.org). Together we'll amplify the voices of the community, the regular citizens who want a safe place to call home, a parking space, ease to get out of the driveway and gain access to the freeway, and confidence the infrastructure provides fire and flood protection, adequate water and energy, and truth and transparency in the decision-making process.   

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Marin Voice: Following audit, changes must be made to state housing needs allocation

By SUSAN KIRSCH | April 29, 2022 at 12:04 p.m.

https://www.marinij.com/2022/04/29/marin-voice-following-audit-changes-must-be-made-to-state-housing-needs-allocation/

California’s most respected watchdog, the state auditing department, recently examined the Department of Housing and Community Development because of questions raised about how the Regional Housing Needs Assessment numbers were calculated.  In the March report, auditors said “HCD does not ensure that its needs assessments are accurate and adequately supported.” That’s a big deal.  In other words, the housing department’s top-down mandates for the next eight-year housing element cycle are unreliable, likely invalid and should therefore be unenforceable. The foundation of the RHNA methodology is as unstable as building housing on sand.  Left unchallenged, the shoddy work at the housing department foreshadows shoddy housing practices that reflect the state’s embarrassing failure to meet the need for housing that is affordable for very low and low-income residents, while density drives up home and rent prices and homelessness grows.

The housing department’s questionable methods were noted in 2020 when the Embarcadero Institute’s lead researcher, Gab Layton, sounded the alarm about “double counting” of unit needs, which created inflated, unrealistic and unreachable numbers.  Some local officials say the state is holding a gun to their heads with inflated RHNA numbers. They need to demonstrate a good-faith effort to meet the state’s unfounded demands. If they don’t, their jurisdictions risk hefty fines, lost funding, litigation or state takeover.  But the public and non-governmental agencies can and must boldly challenge the legislative mandates that don’t pass the auditor’s sniff test. It’s not the time to lament that there’s nothing we can do. We must demand our legislators support the auditor’s recommendations.  What are the recommendations? The auditor’s report gives the housing department a timeline between June 2022 and February 2023 to review their data, establish formal review procedures, review the comparison regions and conduct an analysis of healthy vacancy rates. The Department of Finance must review its population projections based on 2020 census data and review its assumptions about household formation rates.  Jurisdictions across the state are lining up to explore legal options, including challenges to State Bill 9 and the audit. There is power in numbers. Encourage your city attorney to contact Pam Lee at plee@awattorneys.com. In addition, email members of the Assembly and Senate housing committees and your local reps. Copy it to the Marin Board of Supervisors and your city council, as well as traditional and social media outlets.  

Remind legislators of the California Administrative Procedure Act. It allows the public to participate in the adoption of state regulations to ensure that the regulations are clear, necessary, and legally valid.  The basic message to legislators is to fix the RHNA problem. They must stop barreling ahead with new legislation based on allocations as if the audit is no big deal.  In 2022, there are dozens of new bills, building on the shifting sands of unreliable RHNA numbers. Additionally, legislators should make the following demands of the housing department:  • Show the work. Bring together representatives from all committees, departments, leagues, institutes and the public for a facilitated discussion.  • If a review discloses double-counting, then acknowledge overcounting and correct the mistakes.  Housing is often called “a crisis,” but the bigger crisis is not correcting mistakes.  • Secure a state commitment to fund and build 100% very low- and low-income subsidized housing. Let the market take care of market-rate demands.  • Create regulation to protect against speculating investors who make cash offers that consolidate single-family homes into Wall Street portfolios, reduce homeownership, increase corporate rentals and destabilize communities.  • Adjust the eighth RHNA cycle and collaborate with jurisdictions on new housing allocations.  The California Alliance of Elected Officials gets the credit for initiating the audit.  “Unless HCD and the Department of Finance complete this work and correct their mistakes, there is no justification for punishing cities for failing to meet erroneous RHNA goals,” said alliance founder and Pleasanton Councilmember Julie Testa. “The Legislature should suspend implementation of RHNA until the public is satisfied these problems have been resolved.”  Take a bold stand. It’s a big deal. Our future depends on it.  Susan Kirsch, of Mill Valley, is founder of Catalysts for Local Control. Online at CatalystsCA.org.