Point Reyes Light - November 4, 2004

Good news in Point Reyes for affordable-housing project

By Jacob Resneck

It has been a good week for EAH’s affordable-housing project in Point Reyes Station. The US Department of Housing and Urban Development has now agreed to a waiver that will allow 10 of the 27 affordable apartment units to be classified as "Section 8 housing."

The effect will be to restore some of the funding that had been earmarked for the project. However, the waiver will allow the allocation of only half of its original $1.2 million subsidy.

While Lamar Turner, EAH’s senior project manager, said it is too early to say exactly how much the vouchers would be worth to the project currently under construction, county Planning Division staff estimate the new subsidy will be around $600,000.

Effect of Measure A

In other news, Marin County voters passed Measure A, a transport sales tax, giving the West Marin Stagecoach, West Marin’s only transit link with East Marin, a permanent source of funding.

One of HUD’s requirements is that the project is served by public transit. Because the West Marin Stagecoach was a pilot program, which would have died this spring had Measure A transportation bonds not been approved by voters, HUD had not assumed the Stage would be permanent.

Without the Stage, EAH would have had to budget more than $300,000 to run its own shuttlebus to be eligible for HUD money. EAH believes the West Marin Stagecoach can satisfy HUD’s requirements, but Larry Bush, a spokesman in San Francisco for HUD, said it is premature to say what effect Measure A will have on the project.

"At this point any discussion over the measure would be speculative, and not something HUD can answer," Bush told The Light.

Vouchers worth less

Under Section 8 housing rules, tenants pay 30 percent of their income towards housing, while landlords receive "fair-market rent," with HUD making up the difference.

Economist Robert Jolda, an analyst for HUD, explained that each year the definition of "fair market rent" is recalculated, and there appears to have been a decrease since last year. After adjustment, he said, Section 8 vouchers will have lost 20 to 30 percent of their value.

Under last year’s formula, HUD considered "fair market rent" in Marin County to be $2,435 per month for a three-bedroom unit. After this year’s reevaluation, which HUD calculated by randomly sampling rents in Marin, the "fair-market rent" figure was reduced to $1,700.

Tenants will not be affected by the change because they will pay the same amount regardless. However, landlords will receive less, reducing the subsidy EAH can use to repay loans financing the project.

Supes’ OK still needed

Last week, county planning commissioners on a 5-2 vote endorsed an amendment to the project’s masterplan so that EAH could sell its seven for-sale cottages at real-estate-market rates, rather than at affordable rates as first proposed.

This will bring in more money to finance the rental units, but it has led to anger and dismay among those who have applied to be buyers. It also upset West Marin residents who complained EAH is delivering a different project than was originally approved in a Point Reyes Station-area advisory vote back in 1999.

EAH has responded that it isn’t in the market-rate-housing business by choice. Unexpected increases in the cost of materials, a decrease in its federal subsidy, and HUD’s questioning whether the contractors are paying "prevailing wages" (as determined by a federal formula) have forced EAH to propose selling some cottages at full price. County supervisors on Nov. 9 will decide whether EAH can sell at least some of the seven cottages at market rates.

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