Belvedere issues Mallard Pointe bulkhead permit, clearing way for demolition
Belvedere on Oct. 1 issued the last city permit the Mallard Pointe developer needed before tearing down the complex’s 22 apartments, though the lagoon association’s refusal to let a silt curtain into its water has blocked work on one stretch of shoreline.
The bulkhead permit covers replacing the bulkhead along the Belvedere Lagoon edge of the 1-22 Mallard Road site with vinyl sheet piling capped with wood. The demolition permit was issued July 15, but the city has said demolition could not begin until the bulkhead permit was also issued.
The permit names Midstate Construction of Petaluma as contractor, values the work at $500,001 and carries $14,531.38 in city fees. It must be finaled by April 1, 2028.
City staff, the city’s peer reviewers and Foth, the Petaluma firm Belvedere hired in September as project coordinator, will inspect the work, the city said.
Lagoon association denies silt curtain
The permit came the same day the city answered a Sept. 17 letter from the Belvedere Lagoon Property Owners Association, which owns the lagoon and had asked that seven recommendations be written into the permit as enforceable conditions.
The developer’s latest plans pulled the new bulkhead entirely onto Mallard Pointe’s own land. But the silt curtain required for one portion of that work — a floating barrier meant to keep churned-up mud from spreading — still has to sit in the association’s lagoon.
The association has denied permission to access or place materials on its property, the city said, and work on that portion of the bulkhead cannot begin until the developer either wins the association’s authorization or finds another way to control sediment that satisfies the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.
“This is an encroachment issue between two private property owners, and as such, the city cannot enforce this approval,” the city’s response states.
The city did not adopt the association’s request that demolition be tied, area by area, to finished sections of bulkhead, and its response does not address the association’s call to hold off demolition until April 15, 2027.
Work must finish by Oct. 15
Fish and Wildlife’s agreement for the project requires all of the covered work to be finished by Oct. 15, though the department can grant week-by-week extensions in dry weather.
A preliminary schedule from Ghilotti Bros. that the city posted Sept. 29 allots 25 working days to tearing out and replacing the bulkhead, starting the week the permit issues, with building demolition to follow in the fourth week. The schedule gives no calendar dates.
If the bulkhead cannot be finished in the window, the developer must keep its environmental protections in place until work resumes, and the existing bulkhead stays where it has not yet been replaced, the city said.
Debris will be trucked to Redwood Landfill in Novato along Beach Road or San Rafael Avenue.
In the meantime the Tiburon Fire Protection District and other local fire agencies will hold training exercises at the empty complex Oct. 2-12, without live fire.
The project will replace the 22 apartments with 40 homes, four of them affordable for 55 years.
This story is developing. The complete story will appear in the Oct. 7 print edition of The Ark.
Reach Executive Editor Kevin Hessel at 415-435-2652.