Before Wednesday's Council vote, the climate forum rehearsed one line: you can keep your gas stove

The single substantive meeting of the week was the Climate Action Forum's Wednesday session, chaired by Vice Mayor Stephanie Andre in place of Council Member Sarah Margles, and it functioned largely as a dress rehearsal. On the table: how staff should frame Larkspur's new CalGreen reach code when the City Council takes it up for a second reading on August 20. At the first reading, the Council concurrently adopted the 2022 CalGreen Tier One standards with prior exemptions stripped out, plus the 2025 CalGreen Tier One standards, declining the "flex path" approach some neighboring cities have taken.

The forum's central argument is that the ordinance's reach is narrower than the fight over it. The standards apply only to new construction and to remodels that increase floor area by more than 50 percent; nobody's existing appliances are touched. Member David Muller said that fact undercuts the "don't take away my gas stove" complaint outright, and Andre put it in plain English: if you're not remodeling more than half your house, the stove stays — though residents will still want a clear, high-level overview of what Tier One means for them.

Margles pressed staff to condense the ask — new construction or existing homes, and at what cost. Staff member Shannon O'Hare said no simple cheat sheet for the codes exists, but promised vetted government and industry white papers and background specific to single-family homes in the staff report. When Lena Pikovski asked for historical remodel data to quantify cost impacts, O'Hare warned that swinging battery prices, tariffs and material costs would produce "junk data." Muller offered a blunter frame: several recent Larkspur projects have turned modest 1,500-square-foot homes into 4,000-square-foot homes, and for owners spending millions the all-electric premium is trivial — the real worry belongs to fixed-income residents who aren't doing that kind of work. JJ Aubrey pointed to a New York State nonpartisan study finding retrofit payback under 10 years and household savings above $5,000 over 30 years with 17 percent less energy use, and argued the bigger lever is Larkspur's housing element commitment to roughly 850 new units: cheaper to build electric than retrofit later.

Staff will recommend the Council waive the second reading and adopt the ordinance as presented, since at this stage the choice is essentially all-or-nothing. Wednesday's Council meeting is where the argument gets its real test.

Two modest additions — 90 square feet on William Avenue, 87 on Riviera Circle — get hearings Monday

With the Planning Commission dark, the week's only property-specific business is a special Zoning Administrator meeting Monday, Aug. 18, noticed with two design review public hearings and no posted staff recommendation on either.

At 106 William Avenue, architect Geoff Butler, on behalf of owner the John A. Glass Family Trust, seeks Design Review and a Floor Area Exception to remove a trellis and its framing on the east side of the house and build a 90-square-foot flat-roof addition at the first floor, pushing the den about six feet east to line up with the existing garage wall. On a 6,430-square-foot lot, the house already runs 2,892 square feet — 45 percent floor area ratio — and the addition would take it to 2,984 square feet, or 46.4 percent. That's the whole reason an exception is required: a 90-square-foot bump-out on a lot that has no room left under the standard.

At 426 Riviera Circle, applicant Steven Bugge asks for Design Review for an 87-square-foot first- and second-story addition tied to a significant remodel, plus new landscaping. The 18,900-square-foot lot leaves plenty of headroom — 3,285 square feet existing to 3,372 proposed, moving FAR from 0.17 to 0.18. The Zoning Administrator will also take up the May 14, 2025 minutes.

Marin's reps voted no; the Deep Green premium rises anyway on Oct. 1

The MCE board has voted to raise the Deep Green premium from 1¢ to 1.4¢ per kilowatt-hour effective October 1, 2025 — over the objections of most of Marin's own representatives, the forum was told Wednesday.

“Basically almost all the representatives of Marin voted against the premium increase, but the resolution passed anyway.”— Vice Mayor Stephanie Andre, reporting on the MCE board vote

Staff also outlined a new MCE pilot that would let municipalities buy a genuinely "24/7" renewable product, as opposed to Deep Green's annually-averaged supply, at a proposed premium of 5.4¢ per kWh for the first 400 municipal accounts. Nothing has been decided for Larkspur; the program remains in early planning.

David Muller noted that among county climate activists it's well understood Deep Green isn't a 24/7 product — which complicates the advice to charge EVs overnight, when off-peak power can be dirtier. Shannon O'Hare said Larkspur's municipal energy use is light enough that joining a 24/7 pilot could cost the city less than it would agencies running water systems or large EV fleets.