The City of San Rafael is proud to announce a major milestone in its efforts to create more accountable, transparent, and community-centered governance with the preview of the Collective Plans in Action report at Monday’s City Council meeting.
For many years, the City and numerous local government agencies have conducted extensive community engagement to better understand neighborhood needs and priorities. This landmark project responds to community feedback that traditional engagement approaches—though well-intentioned—have left many residents feeling burned out, as they’re repeatedly asked for input without seeing meaningful change. This is the same challenge that many agencies and jurisdictions are currently facing around the region as they seek to understand and act on evolving community priorities.
In 2024, Mayor Kate Colin was selected as one of seven mayors across the country to participate in the prestigious Mayor’s Institute on City Design Just City Fellowship, a collaboration between the National Endowment for the Arts, the U.S. Conference of Mayors, and the Harvard Graduate School of Design’s Just City Lab. The fellowship emphasized the risks of traditional, top-down urban planning and highlighted the importance of resident-led engagement practices.
The learnings from this fellowship, combined with direct community feedback about engagement experiences, have been instrumental in shaping San Rafael’s new approach to engaging with the community.
“We are focused on increasing transparency and accountability by reporting back on what we’ve accomplished, the challenges we’ve faced, and why some community priorities have yet to be addressed…Our ultimate goal is simple but powerful, to be the most responsive we can be,” said Cristine Alilovich, City Manager, at Monday’s meeting.
“This is more than just a status update,” said Mayor Kate Colin, “it’s part of a larger shift in how we approach community-driven planning. The City of San Rafael believes it is important for community members to know what has been done with their feedback so they know their input is valued and that the City is following up with action.”
In Fall 2024, the City engaged James Lima Planning & Development, a leading urban planning consultancy, to conduct a detailed analysis of past community plans in close collaboration with the Canal Alliance. The analysis catalogued 715 initiatives from 20 different plans, to answer the questions: What did the East San Rafael and Canal community ask for? What did the City and partner agencies commit to? And what has happened?
The City collaborated with agency partners to determine the status of their plans —completed, in progress, or not yet started—and to aggregate key community priorities across all plans.
The preview provided to City Council on Monday showed the results of this quantitative analysis of 715 initiatives across the topic areas Housing, Development, and Anti-Displacement; Economic Mobility & Development; Transportation and Mobility; Climate Resilience and Environmental Justice; Parks and Public Spaces; and Health and Public Safety.
The next steps are to work with agency partners to draft a summary of these findings to make it easier for the public to see a snapshot of progress made and understand why some work hasn’t started. The final report, targeted for the end of 2025, will provide this summary progress report, identify gaps in implementation and opportunities for greater collaboration and alignment, and provide an appendix that includes a virtual database with the individual status of each initiative. Following the release of the report, the City will solicit feedback from the community and facilitate a dialogue to determine what issue areas remain a priority.
While this project is focused on East San Rafael and the Canal neighborhood, the impact is much broader. The lessons we are learning here are shaping how we engage across the entire city. The data from this report will shape the citywide engagement program and inform multiple upcoming planning efforts, including the East San Rafael Specific Plan, a major initiative in the City’s 2025–2028 Strategic Plan, the Nuestro Canal, Nuestro Futuro Vision Plan led by Canal Alliance, and the strategic investment efforts connected to the Canal Promise Neighborhood Plan.