Larkspur Names Residents To Guide Community Facility Project

The Larkspur City Council is gathering together the people who will help create the vision of the city's community facility, as bulldozers are preparing the site for the project.

The City drew a positive response when it asked for applicants for the Community Facility Parcel Ad-Hoc Committee. The City Council on Sept. 19 approved 15 residents to be voting members of the committee, as well as some ex-officio representatives.

"Despite our compressed timeline, I think we did rather well in terms of the applicant pool. I think we had close to 50 applicants," according to Larkspur City Manager Dan Schwarz. "The breadth of the applicants reflected well the interest in the community of this project."

The 15 voting members include: Adrienne Brown, Mary Clyde, Melissa Dawson, Patti Doherty, Dan Dunn, Michael Folk, Frank Gold, Katherine Green, Doug Mowbray, Joan Lundstrom, Ronald Pelusio, Elise Semonian, Matt Smyth, David Sternberg and Todd Ziesing.

"We went through the additional effort to try to make sure all the neighborhoods were represented and the whole city has a role," Larkspur City Councilman Brad Marsh said. "We want this to be a very inclusive process with as much public input as possible."

The ex-officio members already approved are Council members Marsh and Ann Morrison, Planning Commission member Dick Young, Library Board trustee Don Graff, Heritage Preservation Board member Marilyn Rivers and Tamalpais Unified High School District representative Susan Schmidt.

The City Council is scheduled to discuss remaining ex-officio members from other agencies during Wednesday's meeting at 6:30 p.m. Those members will come from the Larkspur Parks and Recreation Commission, Larkspur-Corte Madera School District, Kentfield School District and San Rafael City Schools.

The Rose Garden Project will be the site of 85 residential units being developed by the New Home Company on the 16.8-acre former Niven Nursery site. The Rose Garden development will also include "a 2.43-acre community facility site, multi-use paths, landscaped areas, open space areas and creek setback and buffer areas," according to the City of Larkspur website.

The City Council decided in June that the community facility should also include a library, opening the way for the City to accept a matching donation offer of nearly $5 million.

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