Supervisors greenlight Strawberry seminary redevelopment after years of conflict
- Tyler Callister
- Jun 9
- 2 min read
Updated: Jun 16
The former Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary campus in Strawberry will be redeveloped into hundreds of homes, a senior-care facility and a graduate school, capping more than a decade of debate over the future of one of Southern Marin’s last large redevelopment sites.
The Marin County Board of Supervisors approved the project unanimously at its June 9 meeting after several hours of staff presentations. Public comment drew 26 speakers, most of whom criticized the proposal.
The board adopted the staff recommendation in full, certifying the project’s environmental review and approving its master plan, design and permits on a motion by Supervisor Stephanie Moulton-Peters, whose District 3 covers Southern Marin. It denied a related amendment to the Strawberry Community Plan, which staff said would not reduce the housing because developer North Coast Land Holdings can rely on state density-bonus law instead.
The approval clears North Coast to move forward with its building-permit application. The dispute had pitted Strawberry neighbors against the developer, with the county in the middle.
Before the Planning Commission’s March 2 hearing, North Coast reached an agreement with the Seminary Neighborhood Association, which had long opposed the development. On March 30 the commission recommended approval, but some residents said they felt left out.
In her presentation to the board, Principal Planner Michelle Levenson called the proposal “another chapter” in the history of the Strawberry seminary. She said the process had drawn substantial input from the public and stakeholders, including more than 50 meetings as part of the Seminary Tomorrow process.
Staff said the project is shaped by California housing laws that sharply limit the county’s ability to deny or shrink the proposal. The environmental impact report found three significant and unavoidable effects: greenhouse-gas emissions, temporary construction noise and transportation effects tied to vehicle miles traveled. Most other impacts could be mitigated.
The agreement between the developer and the neighborhood association added conditions limiting academic use to graduate, postgraduate and research fields, capping commuting students at 325 unless additional students live on site, and restricting the daycare and fitness center primarily to residents and on-site users. County staff and an attorney for North Coast said the agreement is enforceable as a condition of approval, not a private deal.
North Coast describes the plan as “multigenerational.” The project calls for 336 homes on the hilltop campus, which overlooks San Francisco Bay. It would add 184 new units, replace 139 existing ones and retain 13, with 859 bedrooms in all. Seventy of the homes would be below market rate.
Counting the senior-care facility, which state housing law treats as a single unit, the county puts the total at 337 residential units, up from 152 on the site today.
That 267,354-square-foot residential-care facility includes 150 units: 100 independent and assisted-living units and 50 memory-care units. A separate 20,000-square-foot building would house a fitness center and a daycare for 60 children.
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