What Changes? What Stays Protected?
Frequently Asked Questions
Background
Sausalito’s waterfront rules are rooted in Ordinance 1022, adopted by voters in 1985 to manage development, traffic, and the character of the city’s commercial and industrial areas.
More than 40 years later, the waterfront has changed significantly, raising questions about whether those rules still provide the right balance between protecting Sausalito’s character and allowing businesses, artists, makers, and maritime uses to adapt and invest.
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AIM stands for the Arts, Industrial and Maritime Preservation & Improvement Initiative. It amends and modernizes Ordinance 1022, a 1985 voter-passed measure that has left Sausalito’s waterfront unable to adapt, grow, and thrive to meet the needs of today. It preserves and enhances the economic vitality of the waterfront’s arts, industrial, and maritime heritage so it can grow and thrive, generating increased revenue to fix its crumbling infrastructure without raising taxes on residents.
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To get AIM on the November ballot, we needed 800 registered Sausalito voters to sign the official petition by early June.
Over 1,000 voters signed the petition and the Measure is now on the November 3 ballot.
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In 1985, residents passed the Fair Traffic Initiative (Ordinance 1022) to reduce traffic from new development and preserve the maritime character of the commercial and industrial zones. Forty years later, those same rules now prevent waterfront businesses from growing, thriving, and adapting. Buildings are aging, infrastructure is crumbling, streets are flooding, and office buildings stand half vacant. Because 1022 was created by a citywide voter initiative, only a new citywide voter initiative can change it.
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No. AIM amends Ordinance 1022 to fix its ambiguities and support the arts, industrial, and maritime communities. Across most of Sausalito's commercial areas, much of 1022's framework stays intact — including the prohibition on new commercial office buildings. In the working Industrial and Waterfront zones, AIM updates development standards so businesses actually have room to operate.
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The AIM Initiative (Measure X), is sponsored by Sausalitans who are members of many local community groups and have thought deeply about how to create a genuinely Thriving Waterfront. They are local residents who are tired of watching our waterfront crumble while businesses struggle to adapt and survive.
Measure X is endorsed by a substantial number of Sausalito residents and business owners.
The Problem Today
Sausalito’s waterfront is constrained by outdated rules that make it difficult for businesses, artists, makers, and maritime operators to invest, expand, and adapt.
Current zoning limits the productive use of properties, restricts complementary commercial activities and direct-to-public sales, and makes it harder to modernize aging buildings or redevelop underused sites.
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Three things make the current rules unworkable:
Building is nearly impossible. The code caps floor area ratios (FAR) at 0.4 — meaning 1,000 sq ft of land allows only 400 sq ft of space. That's too small for a real workshop, let alone room to grow. Forty years of Ordinance 1022 produced almost no new artist studios, maritime uses, or industrial spaces.
Economic activity is explicitly discouraged. The Ordinance prohibits changing from one permissible use to another if the change "results in increased commercial usage" (Section (d) of 10.200.2).
Routine decisions require a citywide vote. Almost any meaningful change — a new use, a variance — requires a vote of registered Sausalito voters. The city can't say yes through normal government processes, creating a nearly impossible hurdle for even routine changes.
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For most waterfront businesses, no. Regular retail sales are not a permitted use. Businesses can create, make, and produce, but cannot regularly sell to the public on their own premises. Businesses like Heath Ceramics that sell today were grandfathered in when Ordinance 1022 passed in 1985.
What Measure X Changes
The initiative makes changes to development standards, permitted uses, and the process for making future land-use decisions.
Among the most significant changes are increased development capacity in the Industrial and Waterfront zones, additional opportunities for direct-to-public sales and complementary uses, and removal of the existing citywide voter-approval requirement for certain future commercial and industrial zoning changes outside the Downtown Historic District.
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Regular retail sales become possible if a business is making items onsite. No special permit, no citywide vote — just normal business. For example:
A baker can open a retail counter and sell bread directly to residents
Fishermen can open a regular fish market on shore to sell to the public
An artist can sell work directly from her studio
A furniture maker can sell pieces from his workspace
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AIM raises the FAR cap from 0.4 to 3.0, opening underutilized parcels to new and expanded workspaces for artists, makers, maritime enterprises, and light industrial uses — the first real incentive to build new arts, maritime, and industrial spaces in decades. Height is capped at 47 feet in the Industrial (I) zone (lower than the existing 65-foot ICB building) and 32 feet in the Waterfront (W) zone, with a practical exception for maritime necessities like walking cranes.
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Complementary businesses that fit the waterfront's character and are currently banned or hard to permit. For example:
Coffee shops and cafés so workers and residents have somewhere to go
Marine retail stores for gear, supplies, and equipment
Fish markets and wholesale seafood sales
Distilleries, galleries, and open studios with retail
Harbor, marina, and floating facilities
Marinas deserve special mention: you cannot have a strong maritime industry while prohibiting the infrastructure that supports it. Today, marina expansion is essentially banned, starving boatbuilders and marine trades of the market they need to survive. AIM lets marinas expand responsibly under BCDC and state oversight.
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Routine land-use decisions return to normal city government processes — with public hearings, environmental review, and community input. No ballot required for everyday decisions.
This doesn't bypass planning; it makes planning viable. In 2010, residents invested thousands of hours in the Waterfront & Marinship Plan, which was never implemented because changes to Ordinance 1022 require a citywide vote. AIM removes that barrier so future planning efforts can actually result in action.
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The reason is the age of 1022 and California election law. The changes to Ordinance 1022 are only about 5 pages.
Over the years, 1022 has been incorporated into our General Plan and Municipal Code in confusing and surprising ways. We made specific changes to reverse these things, and election law requires that we show the entire section that was changed. This can be dozens of pages.
Since we are retiring the Marinship Specific Plan, the entire plan must be included, with an “X” over every page. This is 127 pages of the initiative.
The Questions Being
Asked
Measure X would make significant changes to Sausalito’s waterfront zoning and land-use rules. That raises understandable questions about development, rents, artists and makers, housing, liveaboards, and protections for the places that define Sausalito’s character.
This section addresses some of the most frequently asked questions about what the initiative would, and would not, change, including the protections written into the measure and the role of future public planning and review.
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Regular retail sales become possible if a business is making items onsite. No special permit, no citywide vote — just normal business. For example:
A baker can open a retail counter and sell bread directly to residents
Fishermen can open a regular fish market on shore to sell to the public
An artist can sell work directly from her studio
A furniture maker can sell pieces from his workspace
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AIM raises the FAR cap from 0.4 to 3.0, opening underutilized parcels to new and expanded workspaces for artists, makers, maritime enterprises, and light industrial uses — the first real incentive to build new arts, maritime, and industrial spaces in decades. Height is capped at 47 feet in the Industrial (I) zone (lower than the existing 65-foot ICB building) and 32 feet in the Waterfront (W) zone, with a practical exception for maritime necessities like walking cranes.
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Complementary businesses that fit the waterfront's character and are currently banned or hard to permit. For example:
Coffee shops and cafés so workers and residents have somewhere to go
Marine retail stores for gear, supplies, and equipment
Fish markets and wholesale seafood sales
Distilleries, galleries, and open studios with retail
Harbor, marina, and floating facilities
Marinas deserve special mention: you cannot have a strong maritime industry while prohibiting the infrastructure that supports it. Today, marina expansion is essentially banned, starving boatbuilders and marine trades of the market they need to survive. AIM lets marinas expand responsibly under BCDC and state oversight.
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Routine land-use decisions return to normal city government processes — with public hearings, environmental review, and community input. No ballot required for everyday decisions.
This doesn't bypass planning; it makes planning viable. In 2010, residents invested thousands of hours in the Waterfront & Marinship Plan, which was never implemented because changes to Ordinance 1022 require a citywide vote. AIM removes that barrier so future planning efforts can actually result in action.
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The reason is the age of 1022 and California election law. The changes to Ordinance 1022 are only about 5 pages.
Over the years, 1022 has been incorporated into our General Plan and Municipal Code in confusing and surprising ways. We made specific changes to reverse these things, and election law requires that we show the entire section that was changed. This can be dozens of pages.
Since we are retiring the Marinship Specific Plan, the entire plan must be included, with an “X” over every page. This is 127 pages of the initiative.
What Are The Benefits To Sausalito?
How will a change to outdated rules that make it difficult for businesses, artists, makers, and maritime operators to invest, expand, and adapt, benefit Sausalito?
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By enabling more compatible uses and economic activity, AIM generates new tax revenue and private investment without raising taxes on residents — which is how deteriorating storm drains, flooding streets, and failing piers actually get fixed. It also welcomes cafés, galleries, and small retail alongside existing studios and maritime businesses, plus water-based amenities like public kayak launches, water taxis, and floating facilities — giving residents real reasons to visit and linger.
AIM is sponsored by Sausalitians for a Thriving Waterfront, a group of local residents who decided to act rather than watch the waterfront crumble. To place the initiative on the November ballot, the group must collect 800 signatures from registered Sausalito voters by early June. Add your name to the list on the homepage to be notified when the petition is ready to sign.