Dear Neighbors and Friends,
The City of Mill Valley has issued its Request for Qualifications (RFQ) to solicit developers for the Hauke Park parking lot site. The RFQ shows the City’s determination to speed ahead with a high-density housing project despite valid concerns from our neighborhood. The RFQ also confirms what we suspected: the City is soliciting interest for construction of 40 units "or more", and plans to grant waivers of virtually all key zoning requirements, including parking, building height and density.
While we support the construction of a smaller project at the site, the RFQ makes clear that the City plans to continue trivializing and ignoring our concerns. Accordingly, we have now determined that our best course of action to assure input into the scope, design and density of the project is to retain legal representation.
After several weeks of sourcing, interviewing and vetting numerous land use attorneys, Friends of Hauke Park have selected our top candidate: Patrick Soluri, from the Sacramento law firm of Soluri Meserve. Mr. Soluri specializes in representing neighborhood groups like ours, has deep expertise in CEQA, the Brown Act, planning and zoning, city administrative processes, etc., and a history of negotiating and litigating successful outcomes for similar projects. Below is an excerpt from his resume.
Mr. Soluri will be giving a Zoom presentation for the neighborhood this coming Thursday, August 5th, at 6pm so that you can learn more about him and his firm and the proposed representation.
We encourage you to attend and hear about Mr. Soluri’s expertise, preliminary assessment of our position, and the typical course of representation. In addition, since legal representation will require a significant fundraising effort, we want everyone to understand the scope and cost of representation. Fundraising will begin in the week following Mr. Soluri’s presentation but feel free to respond sooner with an indication of your willingness to contribute.
Please submit your questions for Mr. Soluri in advance to info@haukepark.org so he can fully address them during his presentation. You will have an opportunity to ask questions at the Zoom meeting through the chat feature but submitting them in advance of the meeting ensures a better response.
Please note that if we proceed with legal representation, it will be in addition to (and not in lieu of) our neighborhood efforts. More to come on neighborhood working groups.
Sincerely,
Friends of Hauke Park (an unincorporated association)
