Emily Hoeven’s recent piece in the San Francisco Chronicle highlights how far some California cities will go to prevent new housing. At the center of her investigation is Sausalito, a wealthy Marin County enclave that has made national headlines for its increasingly absurd tactics to block development.

From claiming underwater eelgrass beds as housing sites to now proposing a view-protection algorithm that doesn’t exist, Sausalito has emerged as a poster child for extreme NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) resistance. But the bigger question is why Marin County, where Governor Gavin Newsom now resides, gets special treatment under state law.

Sausalito’s latest battle revolves around 605-613 Bridgeway, a downtown parking lot officially designated as a housing opportunity site. When developer Linda Fotsch submitted a plan for 47 condos, including six low-income units, the city responded with a stunning reversal—proposing to downzone the site to just 28 units and burying her in bureaucratic red tape.

The city’s next move was even more brazen: they introduced draft rules that would require housing projects to be screened by a non-existent software program that measures how much a new building might obstruct views of “iconic sites” like the San Francisco skyline or the Pacific Ocean. Any project that reduces a water view by more than 10% would be automatically rejected.

Except, as Hoeven points out, the software doesn’t exist—meaning it’s just another delay tactic designed to make multifamily housing impossible.

Hoeven also raises a critical question: Why does Marin County get to play by different rules? Unlike other parts of the state, Marin enjoys a special carveout in state law that allows it to plan for less housing density. This preferential treatment benefits communities like Sausalito, which continue to resist new development while the rest of California faces an urgent housing crisis.

Meanwhile, Governor Gavin Newsom, who has made housing production a central issue of his administration, now lives in Marin County in a $9.1 million estate.

The California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) is currently reviewing Sausalito’s latest housing amendments and is expected to announce a decision by Late March. The agency has raised concerns that the city’s proposed rules could illegally inhibit development, but the real test will be whether the state acts or allows Sausalito to continue its obstruction.