Point Reyes Light- September 10, 1998
No consensus on affordable housing in Point Reyes Station
After discussing the pressing need for affordable housing and the change that construction of new homes would bring to Point Reyes Station, a diverse crowd of 130 West Marin residents left the Dance Palace Wednesday night no closer to consensus on a proposed housing development in the heart of town.
Supervisor Steve Kinsey began the two-and-a-half hour meeting by offering to form a local committee with county assistance to assist Ecumenical Association for Housing, a non-profit developer, design an affordable housing complex on about 19 acres along Mesa Road.
No one in the audience declined EAH's unusual invitation to let townspeople help design a housing project on its property, which the organization has agreed to buy from the Toby Giacomini family. However, several people quickly raised concerns about how to build as many as 50 new homes without bringing newcomers into town.
"How on earth are you going to keep people from coming from outside of the community and making the streets busier than they are today?" asked Stan Schuler, a Point Reyes Station homeowner, who worried aloud about declining property values.
Innkeeper Herb Goldberg said, "I feel I'm being threatened to go along with the development... It's like class warfare... You might want to include some people who are not in favor of the project on the committee."
Many others questioned how to tailor the project expressly for local housing needs, and to assure dwellings be "affordable" based on West Marin incomes. "How much flexibility does EAH have as a developer?" asked Ken Levin. "Before the community puts a lot of energy into this task force, I'd like to see some specific information about what the community can afford."
And others insisted that irreversible changes had come to Point Reyes Station already. "A lot of people have left because their incomes were not high enough," noted Pat Pickering. "I, for one, miss them."
Added writer Philip Fradkin: "Change happens: There's nothing we can do about it. We've been fortunate in this part of the country as opposed to the rest of California and the West."
Kinsey estimated that with county help, a community advisory committee could determine within six to eight months the appropriate size and type of development, and whether townspeople want to take charge of Point Reyes Station's destiny - or just react to outside attempts to shape it for them, which would surely happen if this property and others are conceded for market-rate development.
"I think that's the critical issue that we're here to understand," he said.