Mill Valley retail-housing project making headway

PaulB22 wrote:

It's a little large and a little too close to the street for my preference, says Stephanie Moulton-Peters, HA .
For the whopping sum of $4500 per month for a 1600 sq. ft apartment down on lower Miller Ave. where nobody ever built any residential housing before for good reason, I would say the rent is a little large ! Lets all hope the recruitment of Michael Moore, the former city manager of Petaluma, doesn't try to make the flats of Mill Valley look like what happened to Petaluma.
I have a strong feeling that this project will not be well received in Mill Valley, who in their right mind want to pay $4500 per month to live on a busy 4 lane street near the High School ? I hope this project goes clunk just like all the apartments they built in downtown Petaluma, the Millworks in Novato and the Fireside in Tam Valley.

Book Em Danno wrote:

<quoted text>Don't you think it's a bit premature to declare the Millworks a failure? They just got done building it. There are always going to be people against progress. POPs we should call them. Because they're always going to pop off when we try to build. I suppose they would prefer that crappy old mill that formally occupied that site. And the crappy old bowling alley out at Hamilton. Now if we can just get a Wal-Mart Megastore on North Redwood...

Kay wrote:

The most important thing of all is who the five "low income" units get rented to.
The article does not state who decides who gets the units, what the criteria are to decide among many that want them and what behavior would allow for eviction.
Bring in some fifth generation welfare barnacles from Marin City and you have just sighed the death warrant for the entire project.
Hispanic drifters that just showed up in Marin and you'll have MS 13 and XVIII St. grafitti and shootings down the line.
There are plenty of older working Marinites that are living in their cars, who have paid taxes here for decades and would love to live there.
Put some decent working people that have contributed to the community in there and it will be an addition.

MJF wrote:

I miss the MV small town charm. Its turned into a developers paradise. I miss the mom and pops and the community feel. Remember when Whole Foods on Miller was Jerry's Deli? Those were the days.:)

TBone wrote:

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We don't need any more business or housing, pal. We don't want nor need it here.

MJF wrote:

I miss the MV small town charm. Its turned into a developers paradise. I miss the mom and pops and the community feel. Remember when Whole Foods on Miller was Jerry's Deli? Those were the days.:)

Believe it wrote:

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Those were the days when a middle income family could afford to live in Mill Valley. What with the prices of homes now the community culture has changed. With the growth of chain and big box stores that pull people out of the community the ability of the local business to succeed has gone the same way as the small-town Mill Valley community.
If you really miss the "old days" (that probably didn't actually exist except in retrospect) and want to see it again, move to a small town where the housing is affordable and the population is regular folks with regular jobs.

PaulB22 wrote:

<quoted text>Wrong answer. You sound like someone who doesn't know anything about Mill Valley and doesn't know any of the people who have lived here for many years.
I will hip you all to a secret, there are many little pockets of M.V. nestled way up in the hills and out in the canyons that you will never see in your entire lifetime. Mill Valley is a beautiful small town (pop 13,500) that has seen a decline in pop from 2000 to 2007 of 350 people. There are still many regular folks that work hard to live here. We have a network of people that appreciate all the beauty of the redwood trees, the privacy and quiet that are hard to find in these newly growing cities like Novato and Petaluma. What you read from outsiders is bunk because they don't have a clue as to the reality of M.V. The good old days are still here for us in the know.
True that M.V. has seen an influx of wealthy people from all over the country, but that doesn't mean that they are all bad. I have made friends with some of them and some are very nice people. Plus the bonus is they have the money to hire me at a high rate to do electrical work for them.
All the complaints that I have seen about M.V. are about yupsters with cridders clogging up downtown, but actually if a persons goes downtown nowadays, they will not see many locals, only newcomers with their spandex advertising suits, SUV's and all that crap. Sad but true that I hardly ever go through downtown anymore, and we don't hang out at the Greyhound bus depot in Lytton Square to catch up on gossip and find out where the big parties are. Things have changed, but not that much for us. What we fear the most is the Sonomafication of the Old Mill Town that we all love. No, we are not going to move out , we will hold the fort and blend with the friends.

Believe it wrote:

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It's so beautiful here... we don't hang out downtown with the poseurs... blah blah blah... you prove my point with your insipid, between the lines oh we're so superior 'cause we have lived here and are in the know as opposed to those newcomers (although some of my best friends are newcomers...). Drive your SUV back to your secret enclaves in the woods, smoke some more, complain about change and eventually, if we're all lucky, you will turn to fossilize like all the other dinosaurs.