Context

regional

The City of San Rafael is one of many dense urban settlements in the North Bay, just forty minutes from San Francisco and less than 30 minutes to multiple open space parks and protected areas. Regionally, this site is part of the Golden Gate Biosphere (GGB), designated as a UNESCO Man and the Biosphere program in 1988. The GGB entails collaboration between land managers working toward large-scale climate change adaptation, conservation, and restoration. At this time, cities including San Rafael are not GGB core partners, leaving room for future conversations and actions toward regional ecological and social connectivity.

THE GOLDEN GATE BIOSPHERE

UNESCO Man & the Biosphere Program

Designated in 1988
Situated on both sides of the San Andreas Fault with very different geological and vegetative profiles
Consists of dense metropolitan areas as well as spaces of high biodiversity
Particularly vulnerable to climate change due to this complex heterogeneous landscape

MARIN COUNTY

cities, counties, and unincorporated areas

socio-cultural

San Rafael sits on the Indigenous land of several Coast Miwok villages. This land was taken by the Spanish in the late 1700s, who first settled in San Francisco. The fog of San Francisco contributed toward northward settlement of what is now Marin County as hospital patients were moved for the “fine weather” to Mission San Rafael Arcangel, intended to act as a satellite to San Francisco’s Mission Dolores. With this settlement came further development and expansion, including “mansion row” in the 1870s, with subsequent, denser urban development spread outward and upward. This also led to wetland and shoreline development we see today.

current setting & environmental vulnerabilities

San Rafael is of particular interest as it sits in a highly vulnerable position. This city is built up along the coast, in a low-lying area at the bottom of a set of nearby hills. The ground that the city sits on was originally marshland, and over time has been built primarily on landfill, covering channels and blocking the natural movement of water within the site. This also makes the city particularly vulnerable to sea level rise and subsidence. Remote sensing indicates this city is experiencing the highest rates of subsidence among other Bay Area shoreline cities. To combat this, two berms have been built along the shoreline, one right along the water’s edge, and another a few hundred feet inland. Even so, this land in closest proximity to the water is expected to subside an additional 2-4 ft. in the next 30-70 years.

Paired with this, this site contains multiple points of contamination. This includes LUST (Leaking Underground Storage Tank) sites from a combination of gas stations, auto services and car washes (for example Mobil, CalTrans, Sonnen Lexus, Marin Mazda, and Kerner Automotive Center), electric companies (Martinez Electric), PG & E, and plastering companies (Weber Plastering). These contaminants may include gasoline, harmful mineral spirits and solvents, and oil wastes and lubricants from automobiles (GeoTracker). There are some cleanup site programs focused on Total Petroleum Hydrocarbons (THPs), as well as diesel, motor oil, hydraulic, and other associated wastes. However, many existing contaminated sites remain, and dot the shoreline as well as upland neighborhoods. This poses a threat in both directions, as upland stormwater runoff may bring these contaminants down into the wetlands and the Bay, and groundwater may rise with sea level rise activating contaminants as well.

context map: past, present, and future

previous studies & reports

As a result of its vulnerabilities, the city has been studied under the rubric of various Bay Area conservation projects. Some of these efforts include projects by Save The Bay focused on sea level rise and climate change, as well as the Baylands Ecosystem Habitat Goals produced by the San Francisco Estuary Institute. Of particular interest is the Bay Area Resilient by Design Challenge program funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. In this speculative project a community involvement and strategy-building report entitled “Elevate San Rafael” was developed. This too was focused on sea level rise and flooding adaptation specifically along the coast of San Rafael. With these existing projects in mind, it is clear that there is widespread concern in the region about the challenges of climate adaptation and action at both a larger regional scale as well as within cities like San Rafael.

Save The Bay

Save the Bay combines advocacy, restoration work and education. The organization offers a San Francisco Bay Sea Level Rise and Flood Strategy which focuses on prioritizing nature-based solutions, centering community voices, and places emphasis on directly addressing risks. Restoration projects are particularly focused on tidal marsh and estuaries in the Bay Area. Save The Bay works with local native plant nursery facilities to support their restoration projects. Lastly, their programs include online learning and shoreline education programs. Our proposals builds off of Save The Bay's ideas in suggesting nature-based solutions to directly address risks. We also take note of native vegetation and locally sourced materials, as well as potential for education and enhancing community connectivity.

Baylands Ecosystem Habitat Goals

Baylands Ecosystem Habitat Goals, working at a watershed scale, advocate action in a timely manner to save existing wetlands, and managing streams and sediment so that marshes are nourished. Our work aims to continue this larger-scale thinking, taking into account upland contaminants, human activities, and environmental processes. Along with this, our design recommendations are in direct response to current hard infrastructure, using nature-based solutions.

Elevate San Rafael

Elevate San Rafael, a proposal from the Bionic Team, was part of a speculative design competition, involving a collaborative effort between professionals in the fields of architecture, landscape architecture, engineering, planning, and more. The main strategy of Elevate San Rafael proposed to lift infrastructure, in order to allow ecological function and persistence. Particular emphasis is placed on high flood risk and the threat of sea level rise. The proposal suggests equitable changes in a phased approach, to gradually shift resources away from the current pump and levee system. Our rewilding approach highlights mutual benefit for wildlife and people, in that our nature-based approaches filter and buffer the shoreline, allowing for protection against flood and sea level rise, while also creating more greenspace for human enjoyment.

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