Following North Coast’s purchase of the former Baptist Seminary property, an initial plan focused on helping a local secondary school secure a more viable campus.  The Strawberry community opposed elements of the initial plan.  The primary concern was traffic; other concerns included maintaining the community character, preserving open space, responding to demographic changes in the region and ensuring durability.

Marin County officials identified a growing need for diversity in housing types, stating that, “the insistence on continued single-family development is a thing of the past”, and reinforced a desire to reimagine the site without “the constraints of trying to force it into the continuation of the [historic] Seminary use” or a decades-old master plan.  This ultimately led to the secondary school’s withdrawal from the project and the expiration of the 1984 Master Plan, reverting the Seminary site to its base residential zoning with a conditional use permit overlay allowing a college/university campus for approximately 1,000 students.

North Coast, untethered from the constraints of the 1984 Master Plan, began to examine other possibilities for the site.  The Marin County Planning Commission encouraged this re-examination through a fresh lens without the restrictions of the 1984 Master Plan.  Commissioner John Eller stated, “I believe that this will frame the approval process for this development more appropriately, i.e. that the developer, community, and the process should recognize the eventual changes to this property are rooted in the [1953] Use Permit for both an academic institution and a residential component.”

In response to the preceding series of events, Marin County Supervisor Kathrin Sears charged both North Coast and the Strawberry community to “get real…to come out of their corners, stop trying to throw up roadblocks or maximize their perceived entitlements, be open to learning what a clarified, defined proposal means in terms of real, on the ground impacts, and be open to changing their minds.”

North Coast and a group of Strawberry community representatives (the “Community Caucus”) formed a working group and entered into professionally facilitated discussions, collectively calling themselves “Seminary Tomorrow.”

The stated goal of Seminary Tomorrow was to collaborate on alterations to the redevelopment plan and reach consensus or qualified consensus on a new, reimagined development plan.  The original scope included 10 meetings taking place over several months.  Since the formation of Seminary Tomorrow, a significant effort was made by all parties that included:

• Over 18 months of dialogue;
• Over 50 meetings;
• Hundreds of hours of communications;
• Thousands of pages of materials prepared; and
• Extensive analysis and response.

The Caucus analyzed a wide range of details, from overall land use and associated impacts to focused elements such as sidewalk design and architectural detail.  The new plan was conceived and analyzed by the Seminary Tomorrow group in segmented detail including:

• Housing that addresses current regional shortages and unaffordability;
• Density issues;
• Housing for a local work force;
• A housing alternative for a growing senior population in Marin;
• Traffic impacts of the selected land uses;
• The maintenance of open space;
• Preservation of the few remaining ridgelines;
• Preservation of long-established amenities such as the playing field and day care; and
• Extensive discussion regarding various academic uses.

The nature of the site allowed for the development of these elements to be completely inclusionary and synergistic, creating a new kind of live/work/learn community that could become as a whole, greater than the sum of its parts.