Point Reyes Light - October 7, 2004

Seven cottages will no longer be affordable

By Jim Kravets

What were once intended to be seven cottages affordable for low- and moderate-income families in the Point Reyes Affordable Housing Project are no longer going to be "affordable" homes. They will instead be sold at prevailing real-estate market prices.

So said the project’s main sponsors on Monday.

In an announcement signed by County Supervisor Steve Kinsey, Marin Community Foundation President Tom Peters, and EAH Chairman Joe Walsh, representing the main backers of the project, the federal government is blamed for forcing the change.

Last June the US Department of Housing and Urban Development dealt the affordable-housing project a "serious financial blow."

Some $1.2 million in project-based Section 8 vouchers – rent assistance for low-income residents, money that would have helped subsidize the project, evaporated. HUD decided the Marin Housing Authority, which administrates the county’s allotment of 2,100 vouchers, had failed to meet several HUD requirements for selecting recipients when it allotted 10 vouchers to the Point Reyes Project.

Without that $1.2 million, EAH concluded the only way to raise enough money to keep the project’s 27 rental apartments affordable would be "to sell the seven homes at market prices," the sponsors’ announcement said.

For the hundreds of hopeful candidates on EAH’s list of eligible homebuyers, the change is extremely disappointing. "I share their sentiment," said Kinsey. "This is a very sad day."

The announcement comes on the heels of EAH’s disclosure in June aast workshopther announcement ewhen project manager Lamar Turner told a housing workshop for the public that two of the seven affordable homes would have to be sold at market rates to make up for lost financial help.

‘A difficult situation’

"This is a very difficult situation," Kinsey told The Light. "It came out of the blue, and if we don’t address it quickly, it has the potential to collapse the entire project and any affordability on that site." Kinsey said that if EAH doesn’t begin construction now, the nonprofit developer will face greatly increased expenses.

These include increased prices for materials because of inflation and the cost of having a contractor and crew stop working.

EAH was aware of the project-based Section 8 vouchers’ tenuousness ever since June when the HUD’s regional office in San Francisco said Marin Housing Authority had failed to let other projects compete equally for the vouchers that would subsidize rent in 10 homes for 10 years.

County seeks HUD waiver

Marin Housing Authority has asked HUD to waive the competition-process requirement, but so far there’s been no reply from HUD. "We’re in the same position as we were in June," said acting Deputy Director for Marin Housing, Maurice Wolohan. "We thought we’d have an answer from HUD before now. We continue to check with HUD in Washington DC. We’re calling almost everyday," he said. "I’m hopeful we’ll hear something this week. But I would have said this last week, too," he added.

Even if the waivers are approved by HUD and the Section 8 money is reinstated, EAH said, the amount of money available through the vouchers would be closer to $600,000 than the earlier $1.2 million figure. Chris Gouig, executive director of the Housing Authority, said HUD has decided the rents the Housing Authority planned to charge were too high.

After concluding how much the rents should be lowered, HUD reduced the size of rent vouchers by an equal percentage. The result is that EAH will get, at most, half of what it had expected from HUD.

Still looking for money

Kinsey said that county government is continuing to look for other sources of money; moreover, he added, the local community could help out too.

"What people can do is follow the lead of Bolinas where the community rallied around their affordable housing project and took accountability for it." In recent years, grassroots fundraising by people in Bolinas brought in enough money to significantly subsidize buying the Gibson House and Bolinas Garage and convert them into affordable housing.

"Alternately," Kinsey added, "some local businesses could buy units and make them available for their workers."

For such a profound impact on the community, the request for the change itself was deceptively simple. EAH (there is no longer any name behind the acronym) on Sept. 27 asked the county Community Development Agency to substitute the cottages’ description as "market rate" instead of "affordable" in the project’s masterplan.

If planning commissioners on Oct. 25 endorse the change, the Board of Supervisors will in November most likely approve it. There will be public hearings when both decisions are made.

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