Point Reyes Light - November 4, 1999
EAH makes more changes to affordable-housing plan
Negotiations over the size and design of the proposed affordable housing project for Point Reyes Station continued on Monday at a meeting between the non-profit Ecumenical Association for Housing and the Design Review Committee of the Point Reyes Village Association.
EAH senior project planner Lamar Turner presented a reconfigured design incorporating suggestions from the committee at their last meeting, but said he could not reduce the overall total of 27 affordable rental units. The revised plan for the 19-acre Giacomini property, which essentially swaps the location of the apartment housing with the for-sale homes, includes:
18 rental units in a four-building quadrangle with adjacent parking situated just south of West Marin School and just east of Shoreline Highway.
Nine additional rental units, including one manager's unit, in three buildings just east of town along Commodore Webster Drive.
Seven for-sale permanently affordable cottage residences further east of town along Commodore Webster Drive.
An organic farm with a single-family home, a guest house, and a barn in the northeast corner of the property, just east of West Marin School.
The designation of a parcel just north of the intersection of Mesa Road and Commodore Webster Drive for future commercial development, the boundary for which is yet to be established.
Overall, the current EAH proposal calls for 73 bedrooms, a 33 percent reduction from the original EAH plan.
"The design was very different from the original idea. We were very pleased that [EAH] had taken into consideration our recommendations in their proposal," said Wiebke Buxbaum, chairperson of Design Review. "We think that this is a workable plan, but there are still many things to consider."
Aspects that will require the most attention, Buxbaum said, are the commercial parcel set along Mesa Road, and the development of the farm. Both items, she explained, are "contingencies" that were discussed at the Monday meeting, but with no final results.
"We spent much of the meeting discussing the boundary of the commercial lot," Buxbaum said. "And the farm is a very important aspect of this proposal... We need to assure that if the property is sold, there won't be a risk [of improper development] in the future."
As for Design Review's request for EAH to drop the number of rental units to between 16 and 20, Design Review member Chuck Eckart said that although EAH "would not budge off the 27 rental units," the committee was pleased that the overall footprint of the project had been reduced.
The proposal will now come before the full membership of the Point Reyes Village Association at their meeting scheduled for Nov. 11 at 7:30 p.m. at the Dance Palace.
EAH architect Michael Rex will present the new plan to the association's approximately 85 members, to be followed by a question and answer session with Rex, Turner, and Supervisor Steve Kinsey.
It is likely, Buxbaum said, that the Village Association's 60 or so voting members will cast ballots at the meeting on whether or not to endorse the project. While non-association members who may have participated in the community-wide poll last May cannot take part in the vote, they are welcome to attend the presentation and participate in the discussion.
For her part, Buxbaum said she and the other members of Design Review will present their thoughts on the proposal if prompted by the association, and that she believes it is time for the group to vote.
"It is important for the members to vote," she said. "That is the only way we really know where everybody stands."