Election 2026: Measure Z would extend Paradise Cay dredging tax 10 years
Voters in Paradise Cay will decide Nov. 3 whether to continue a special parcel tax that pays to dredge the waterfront community’s canals and its two entry channels to San Francisco Bay.
Measure Z would set the tax at $2,200 per lot a year in County Service Area No. 29 beginning July 1, 2027. The rate would then rise automatically by 3% each year beginning July 1, 2028, and the tax would expire June 30, 2037.
The service area estimates the measure would raise an average of about $272,800 a year for maintenance dredging in Paradise Cay’s principal waterways and the north and south entry channels. It needs approval from two-thirds of the votes cast to pass.
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The Marin Board of Supervisors called the election May 19 on a 4-0 vote, with Supervisor Stephanie Moulton-Peters absent. Measure Z would continue an existing special tax scheduled to expire June 30, 2027.
The tax falls on lots inside Service Area No. 29, the county-run district that takes in the Paradise Cay parcels with canal access rather than the whole neighborhood. Keeping those canals and the entrances to the bay navigable requires periodic removal of the sediment that washes into them. Resident Eric Lyons described them as the community’s riparian, or dock-bearing, homeowners. The county has not published how many of the 130 lots pay, though at $2,200 apiece, the revenue estimate works out to about 124.
Lyons has lived in Paradise Cay for more than 30 years and chairs the district’s six-member advisory board. He said the community faces no immediate dredging emergency because its waterways were last dredged in 2020 and 2024. But residents have to keep collecting money for the next project, which the board is planning for 2028 or 2029, he said.
Paradise Cay typically needs dredging about every four or five years, although the precise schedule depends on how quickly sediment accumulates.
“The fill-in depends on many factors, including winter rains, ferry wakes and winter weather in general,” Lyons said. “We’ve never really needed to dredge more frequently than four years, but keeping the north and south cay entry channels clear and wide enough for navigation is always a challenge.”
Dredging Paradise Cay involves more than removing sediment. Projects also carry costs for engineering, planning, sediment testing and regulatory permits. The work needs approval from the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board.
Those upfront expenses make it impractical to dredge the north and south entrances separately from the community’s interior waterways, Lyons said.
“Because of the high soft costs, it has never been practical to dredge them independently,” he said. “Also, the interior channels have varying rates of fill, so it’s important to do those even if the overall fill-in is small.”
The 2024 dredging cost more than $1 million once amortized soft costs were counted, Lyons said, about 30% more than the 2020 project. He called that increase somewhat exceptional and said he hopes the next job does not repeat it.
Lyons said the bidding market is part of the problem.
“Our problem is that there are very few dredgers that bid on projects as small and complicated — lots of boat-moving, narrow channels — as Paradise Cay, and the bidders know where to find our numbers, so they sort of have us,” Lyons said. “But the soft costs, including a lot of county/state costs, keeps going up a lot as well.”
The county publishes the district’s budget estimates in the advisory board’s meeting notes, Lyons said.
Lyons said the board’s forecast should cover the measure’s 10-year term but that costs have been climbing.
“Our forecast shows that should be sufficient for 4-5 year dredging episodes over the next 10 years, but the cost of dredging and associated ‘soft’ costs (permits, planning and testing) has been rising rapidly, so we can only hope,” he said.
If voters reject Measure Z, the existing parcel tax would expire June 30, 2027, and with it the community’s dedicated source of dredging money.
“It would not be good, to say the least,” Lyons said. “We rely on these funds to keep the canals clear for boating and recreation.”
He pointed to Bahia, a waterfront neighborhood in Novato, as an example of what can happen when a community lacks sufficient dredging funds. That lagoon has not been dredged since 1987, and the tidal marsh that grew back inside it later became protected habitat — one reason a court in 2006 vacated an order to dredge it again.
“But we are encouraged by the support of our neighbors, and have been successful in the past,” Lyons said.
Paradise Cay voters have approved previous dredging taxes by wide margins.
In 2016, Measure O passed with 87.2% of the vote, setting a $1,500 annual parcel tax for 10 years. At the time, voters were told the tax could rise by as much as 3% a year, to a maximum of $1,950 by 2026. The tax was projected to raise $2.34 million over the decade and to pay for dredging in 2019 and 2024, The Ark reported at the time. The first of those projects came a year later than planned.
That measure replaced a $1,200 annual parcel tax that 93.8% of voters approved in 2007.
Measure Z’s starting rate would be $250 above the maximum authorized under Measure O. With its annual increases, the Measure Z tax would rise to about $2,870 a lot in its final year.
Paradise Cay’s neighborhood leaders once passed the hat, collecting contributions from residents to pay for the work. About 30 years ago they handed the county primary responsibility for administering the program, arranging the engineering and running the tax elections.
The parcel-tax revenue may be used only for the purposes stated in Measure Z, including maintenance dredging in Paradise Cay’s principal waterways and the two entry channels.
No argument for or against Measure Z was filed with the Marin County Elections Department.
Reach Tyler Callister at 415-944-4627.