That plans to build a five-story apartment building on Shoreline Highway in Tamalpais Valley got off to a rocky start should not come as a surprise.

The Tamalpais Design Review Board, the neighborhood planning board, was scheduled to review the plans, but it was removed from its agenda.

How much say the board will have is uncertain given the state Legislature’s pro-housing initiative that has effectively undermined local review and control over proposed housing developments.

The proposal calls for building a 32-unit affordable apartment complex on a half-acre at 150 Shoreline Highway.

The location, in a classified flood zone, runs into the county’s planning focus to limit development in areas that might be threatened by climate change and rising tides.

The county, just about three years ago, approved plans to build 10 studio apartments and an 11-room hotel on the site, property once occupied by a gas station.

The buildings were to be raised three feet to protect them from flooding. That project never progressed beyond its blueprints.

The new proposal not only takes advantage of a state bonus that allows a density boost that almost doubles its size, but also clashes with the local community plan’s 25-foot building height limit and would provide only eight onsite parking spaces.

It would be a significant change to the local landscape. One Tam board member called the design “monolithic.”

Developers seeking financial return on their investment is nothing new.

This planning quandary is further complicated by its involvement in an agreement with the county that developer Pacific Companies, an affordable housing builder, would build on the Tam Valley site instead of moving forward with its county-approved plans to build an apartment complex at 825 Drake Ave. in Marin City.

The Marin City project has drawn strong opposition, including a lawsuit, from residents who say their area has already seen too much high-density housing and wants the Drake Avenue property saved as parkland.

Meanwhile, the county has already found itself in the crosshairs of Sacramento for its history of restrictive zoning that has limited the construction of housing. There is little debate that Marin needs affordable housing and the ambitious building quotas set by the state — building 14,405 new units, or a 12% increase by 2032 — are fueling applications to build taller multi-story housing complexes that previously would never have stood a chance of winning local approvals.

Sacramento has rewritten the rules. Long held local visions of architecture that are fitting or complementary — and safe — have been changed by the state’s drive to build more housing.

How much discretion the county will have over the size and design of the Tam Valley proposal remains to be seen.

The housing is needed, though the size and design may seem jarring for the site. But it may just fit Sacramento’s vision of how California should build what it needs.