TAM, MacFarlane Find Middle Ground In Struggle Over WinCup Property

A head-on collision has been averted in a struggle over control of the former WinCup property on Tamal Vista Boulevard.

The Transportation Authority of Marin dropped its opposition to the development of the longtime styrofoam packaging plant into a combined commercial/residential center. TAM had filed an appeal to the project, which was scheduled to be heard before the Corte Madera Town Council on Tuesday. That appeal's been taken off the agenda now.

TAM and MacFarlane Partners, which owns the property, both have plans for the land — and that's where the conflict arose. TAM's proposal for a fly-over on a stretch of southbound Highway 101 that connects to Wornum Drive would have sliced into the rear parking area in MacFarlane's design for a 180-apartment, 3,000-square foot development.

MacFarlane Partners agreed to move and redesign the parking lot, leaving the rest of the original design intact. TAM, meanwhile, altered its designs for a planned Wornum Drive off-ramp, clearing the path for both projects to go forward.

TAM had claimed in its appeal that there was an inadequate environmental review during the planning process and that the designs didn't take into account the Greenbrae/Twin Cities Corridor Improvement Project.

The fly-over project is intended to solve a hazardous stretch of the highway, northbound and southbound. A Interim Planning Report Summary prepared for TAM in May 2002 concludes "achieving congestion relief for US 101 and the Greenbrae interchange will entail removal or modification of other US 101 on- and off-ramps, possibly replacing them with a new interchange at Wornum Drive midway between the Sir Francis Drake Boulevard and Tamalpais Drive interchanges. These actions would affect local street circulation, traffic volumes, and property access provisions. Thus, concurrence and consensus of affected jurisdictions is important before further effort in engineering studies and development of an improvement plan."

The same 2002 report suggests "traffic conditions and design issues in the Greenbrae interchange vicinity yield a poor safety history; crash rates for US 101 are two to three times higher than average. Crash rates also are higher than average on most Sir Francis Drake interchange ramps."

"With this revision made to the proposed site design at 195-205 Tamal Vista Boulevard, this future property acquisition will not affect any building structures and will only require a property lot line adjustment and related compensation for the acquisition," TAM executive director Dianne Steinhauser wrote to Corte Madera Town Manager David Bracken and Planning Director Dan Bell on Friday.