County eyes Tiburon land buy
Officials weigh acquisition of Martha Co. tract
Marin County is entering into preliminary talks with the Martha Co. to explore the possibility of acquiring the 110-acre Easton Point property at the southern tip of the Tiburon Peninsula.
County supervisors are scheduled to meet in closed session Tuesday with the county's chief property agent and representatives of the Martha Co. and the Trust for Public Lands.
“We can't disclose any details about it at this time,” Marin County Parks Director Max Korten said Monday. “But it's been on the county's wish list, and the community there has been interested in protecting that property for a long time.”
Jerry Riessen, president of the Tiburon Open Space Committee, said that Martha Co. and the
Trust for Public Lands have been engaged in a joint appraisal of the property that is nearing completion. The trust, which purchased the San Geronimo Golf Course in January 2018 for $8.85 million, previously stated its willingness to help purchase the Martha Co. property.
Eric Williams, a project manager who will be representing the trust in Tuesday's meeting with the supervisors, wrote in an email Monday, “We are in discussions with the owners of the Martha property in Tiburon, and at the owners' request, all parties signed a nondisclosure agreement. At this time, we are not able to comment further.”
The Martha Co. put the property on the market for $110 million in 2018. The company reduced the price to $95 million in 2019, and it is currently listed with Sotheby's International Realty with an asking price of $63 million.
The listing notes that the property has “incomparable views of the San Francisco skyline, Golden Gate and Bay Bridges, Richardson Bay and beyond.”
It adds that while the property was originally approved for a 43-lot subdivision, “the ideal buyer would purchase Easton Point for a single private residence, avoiding the historically proposed development.“
On Thursday, the 1st District Court of Appeal in San Francisco rejected a legal challenge to the Martha Co.'s proposed 43-home development on the property.
The plaintiff in the case, the Tiburon Open Space Committee, was seeking to block the development by asserting that Marin County had unlawfully relinquished its responsibility to conduct a full environmental review of the project due to an order by a federal judge to approve construction of 43 homes at the site.
In November 2007, after decades of legal haggling, Martha Co. secured its second stipulated judgment requiring Marin County to approve 43 home sites on the 110-acre property.
The Tiburon Open Space Committee's legal action, initially filed in Marin County Superior Court, asserted that the environmental impact report prepared by the county failed to adequately identify significant impacts arising from the project and imposed mitigation measures that were infeasible, speculative and unenforceable.
Riessen said fire risk — the property is in a wildland urban interface zone — and traffic impacts were not adequately covered. The appeals court disagreed.
“We conclude that the county did not abdicate its authority or otherwise undertake not to comply with California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA),” Presiding Justice James Richman wrote in his decision.
Richman noted that the Martha Co. has been seeking approval from Marin County to develop its property for decades. Approval for Martha Co. finally came in October 2017 — when the county certified an environmental impact report and conditionally approved Martha's master plan to construct 43 homes.
“CEQA was meant to serve noble purposes, but it can be manipulated to be a formidable tool of obstruction, particularly against proposed projects that will increase housing density,” Richman wrote.
Paul Smith, the Martha Co.'s lawyer and spokesman, wrote in an email, “Martha's position, in simply trying to obtain the rights afforded all private property owners, has been vindicated yet again. In a stunning and long overdue acknowledgement of a seemingly never-ending private/public conspiracy to deny Martha its lawful property rights, this Court couldn't help but comment on the `animus' reflected by the record.”
Smith noted that while the county certified the environmental impact report and conditionally approved the master plan for the Martha Co. project, it denied its request for approval of a precise plan. As a result, many details about what the project will look like — lot sizes, residential unit heights, house size — remain undetermined.
The Martha Co. has sued, without success so far, to get the precise plan it wants approved.
Riessen reacted to the latest court ruling in Martha Co.'s favor by saying, “We're certainly disappointed by the decision.” He said the Tiburon Open Space Committee is reviewing its options.
Another legal challenge mounted by Tiburon/Belvedere Residents United to Support the Trails, or TRUST, was rejected by the 1st District Court of Appeal in 2020. The group claimed the public's use of trails on the property for decades constituted an implicit dedication to public use.