Editorial: Marin has opportunities for solutions in 2026

Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Ellen Goodman wrote: “We spend January 1st walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. May this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through rooms of our lives … not looking for flaws, but for potential.”

Sage advice.

We can’t help but to have that potential shaped by our past decisions and deeds.

Many of the issues facing us at the starting line of 2026, however, aren’t much different from those we dealt with in 2025. As we look ahead from this early point in 2026, we are hoping to focus on potential.

For instance, Marin’s continued search for answers to our local homeless challenges.

The new year offers the potential for making further progress on Marin’s “Housing First” strategy that seeks to provide a helping hand and a lift out of homelessness for those who find themselves on the perilous spiral of trying to survive living in tents, lean-tos or under overpasses.

One example is San Rafael and the county’s plans for the Merrydale “tiny cabins” emergency housing plan. There’s no question that the housing is needed and should provide safer, more secure, healthier and more promising refuge for those living in encampments, such as those along Mahon Creek or even Novato’s Binford Road.

Neighboring residents were caught off guard by the city and county’s “behind closed doors” approach to acquire and plan for the site. That controversy, while avoidable, offered little debate that such a project is needed.

That consensus provides a framework for the city, the county, the neighborhood and homeless residents to work closely together to help make sure that the Merrydale plan works for everyone. That goal has to include a strong commitment for forthright openness and consensus-building on the part of the city and county.

Regular public progress reports, including the formation of a community advisory committee, could prove instrumental toward achieving that goal.

Another goal for 2026 should be raising in Sacramento a greater awareness that lawmakers’ erosion of local land-use control is opening the door to out-of-scale development that is allowed to sidestep traditional public review en route to state-mandated municipal approvals.

California’s housing crisis is a reality, but the state’s strategy for a solution is giving a bright green light to developers whose proposals pay little respect to those for whom high-rise buildings will be a jarringly outsized addition. Marin’s lawmakers have several good examples they can point to in seeking reforms, needed revisions that can promote housing construction, but sized and designed in a way that it fits the community.

Marin has needed to do more to provide its fair share of the Bay Area’s need for affordable housing, especially for our local workforce and for seniors. Prevailing “no growth” politics – stiff neighborhood opposition, prolonged and uncertain public processes and costly municipal fees and requirements – pushed development to surrounding counties, stretching commutes, causing traffic jams and making it harder for local employers to recruit and retain workers.

Forcing an intended strategy of high speed growth for building housing by eliminating local constraints over height, parking requirements and local character is a myopic short-term approach.

Perhaps Sacramento lawmakers will see the potential for reforms that can foster the building of housing, without throwing local control over design and complementary densities out the window.

The new year will also be one filled with elections on local, statewide and national stages.

There will be a great deal of focus on the mid-term legislative elections, many seeking to counter the tone, tenor and tumult that the second Trump administration has generated.

Locally, there also will be three seats on the Board of Supervisors on the ballot, and council and board seats, officeholders who have a much more direct effect on our lives and communities.

Most contests will be an open, respectful and civil discussion of issues and candidates’ qualifications. The potential is there.

There are many more local issues facing our county that can use a “balance” of patches and potential. These are just a few.