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Click for Solutions to Overdevelopment
The County and Cities must bend over
backwards to bring companies like George Lucas' ILM to Marin.
We must go out and bring in
Hi-Tech or Hi-Paying companies. Companies that will meet the need
of the highly trained and experienced residents of Marin. These companies
should be selected based on a certain x% of
employees earning more than a certain $y per
year. (Say, 70% earning over $60,000).
These companies must be offered many incentives to move here (including
fast development approval, property tax relief and other financial
incentives). They must be offered special treatment, unlike that offered
to any other kind of business.
In addition, to meet the current Service-Business employment needs we must
capitalize on the hundreds of thousands of
affordable housing already existing a mere 7 miles away in Richmond.
Find out more....
Marin has a real attractiveness for software
"Marin has a nucleus of software companies,'' Coppin said.
"Software companies are going to look real hard at Marin, despite its
costs, because of its intellectual capital. http://www.keegancoppin.com/press/2000_02-16.htm
Only a fraction of the remaining land is still
available for businesses to grow.
Development in Marin County is focused within a narrow corridor along
Highway 101. Roughly 85 percent of Marin County cannot be developed under
current zoning rules.
Almost half of the daily 39,000
commuters into Marin County come from Sonoma County,
according to a 1998 study by the MTC |
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George Lucas's frustration with the county's resistance.
is marked by the departure of the San Rafael divisions from Marin. "We've
been looking to build this digital center for many years," said Radley.
"Unfortunately, the challenges of doing any kind of
development in Marin are such that we couldn't do it there."
Radley can be excused if he sounds bitter. Lucasfilm's latest Marin project, a
five-building, 185,000-square-foot complex first proposed
in 1996, was approved by the county in 2000 only
after the company agreed to donate 3,000 acres for public open space.
1999 A Bay Guardian investigation shows that George Lucas, who has won the
rights to develop a huge office complex on 15 acres of land at the Presidio, will save more than $60 million in property taxes and
development fees over the next 12 years for moving his
headquarters from Marin County to the park.
The Presidio divisions will employ up to 2,500
San Rafael's Mistake?
http://www.marinij.com/news/stories/news1002079.shtml
San Rafael City Manager said the city offered the filmmaker 20 acres behind Home
Depot looking out to the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, "but George Lucas had
a vision, and the Presidio is a unique site in all of the United States."
"It was his visionary decision, rather than a business or financial
decision," to relocate to the national park, the City Manager said.
"Their move, in my opinion, wouldn't have a negative affect on our market today, or
in 2004,". "I think that it's such a special property, in a special
location, that there's tremendous demand by various companies of all sorts to be
in that area." the City Manager agreed . He said San Rafael wouldn't
be significantly affected, and commercial real estate brokers said the vacated
space would be snatched up quickly.
Two years later, as the economy spirals downward after the tech bust and
terrorist attacks, some are not so sure.
There is concern about the commercial real estate
market, which currently has a vacancy rate of 21 percent with
more than 1.6 million square feet of open office space, according to a report
from Orion Partners Ltd. in San Rafael.
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