We kept a 153-unit tower off the hill above downtown
A 630-signature petition — and the site was removed as a "Opportunity Site".
Remove the Alta Mira site from the Housing Element's opportunity sites, and hold any development to the neighborhood's scale.
Updates
Latest from the campaign
Once the grande dame of Sausalito hotels.
High on Bulkley Avenue, reached by way of narrow Princess Street, the Alta Mira was the grande dame of Sausalito hotels — the place families brought Mom for Mother's Day brunch or enjoyed Ramos Gin Fizzes on a Sunday. It began in the 1880s as a luxury home with tennis courts, became a hotel, burned in 1926 and was rebuilt, and for generations was where Sausalito went to feel a little grand. It is still one of the town's landmarks.
“A well-known local landmark that is included in the city's Historic Resources Inventory.”
— VerPlanck Historic Preservation & Consulting
Then the property was slated for 153 units, on its fragile hillside.
California asks every city to map where new housing can go — the Housing Element — and Sausalito had to find room. Alta Mira's size made it look, on paper, like a place to put a lot of it: the site was flagged for up to 70 units an acre, or 153 units total after a "bonus density"— more than three times the 605 Bridgeway project, in a building that could have risen as high as nine floors, over a parking garage for some 350 cars. But the paper didn't match the ground. The hillside is fragile, the only way in is narrow Princess Street, and the traffic and construction made the site, at anything like that scale, unbuildable.
Residents showed up — and it worked, fast.
The response was quick. SOS organized a coalition of neighbors and gathered a 630-signature petition, asking the City either to take Alta Mira off the Housing Element or to roll its zoning back to Sausalito's 29-unit-an-acre base. The City first offered only a partial cut — to 49 units an acre, still far too much for the hill — so residents made the case in person. At the February 25, 2025 Council meeting, 19 people spoke and dozens more filled the room. The Council removed Alta Mira from the opportunity-sites list entirely.
The case
Why it mattered
The site was out of scale for the neighborhood.
More than three times the size of the 605 Bridgeway project, planned above the historic district.
630 neighbors signed.
A petition drive and 19 speakers brought the scale of the proposal into the open.
The site came off the Housing Element.
The City removed Alta Mira as a housing opportunity site.
Timeline: Three weeks in February 2025▸
The record
A fast campaign, start to finish
February 2025
Alta Mira surfaces in the Housing Element
The site is flagged as an opportunity for up to 70 units an acre — 153 homes, more than three times the 605 Bridgeway project.
February 2025
Residents petition the City
A fast-moving petition asks the Council to remove the site or roll it back to the 29-unit base zoning. The City offers a partial cut to 49 an acre — still too much for the hillside.
February 2025
The Council removes it — entirely
With 630 signatures and 19 residents speaking, the Council votes to take Alta Mira off the Housing Element's opportunity sites.
Take action