A Petaluma resident is seeking to block a Bolinas housing project that would add eight affordable units to the town’s center, warning that the increased density could alter the character of the town.
James Meyer, who grew up in Bolinas and owns property there, filed an appeal to the Planning Commission last week to overturn the approval of the development at 31 Wharf Road.
The $9.7 million project, led by the Bolinas Community Land Trust in partnership with Habitat for Humanity, has been more than six years in the making and is scheduled to break ground this fall.
“There are people who don’t understand the scope of the project or the ramifications of building a condo complex there,” Mr. Meyer said. “My voice is just one, but I want everybody to be fully informed and take the time to see what could be and help shape the future.”
The Planning Commission must hear the appeal within two months. Its decision can then be challenged before the Board of Supervisors. The county’s principal planner, Michelle Levenson, noted that the project’s development approval was not contested; the appeal instead targets the condominium map, a step that would allow the eight units to be sold to individual families, rather than kept under a single owner as rentals.
Mr. Meyer’s objections center on Wharf Road’s historic nature. Much of the road has remained unchanged since the mid-19th century, and he believes a precedent would be set by allowing a subdivision downtown. His appeal asks the Board of Supervisors to impose a six-month pause on the project to allow for a historic resources survey and the drafting of a broader town plan and design guidelines that would help control the aesthetic of future projects.
Mr. Meyer invoked Bolinas’s history of resisting development, pointing to the water meter moratorium enacted in 1971 after newcomers won control of the Bolinas Community Public Utility District and declared a water shortage. With a fixed number of meters available and new construction tied to existing meters, the policy has served as cudgel against growth.
“We love Bolinas the way it is, and it is that way because we protected it,” Mr. Meyer said. “It was protected by a group of hippies, and we’re failing to take the next step and continue.”
In 2020, the utility district amended its water policy to add flexibility for properties managed by the local land trust or otherwise restricted for affordable housing. At the trust’s request, the district agreed to allow its use of more than one meter per property. By combining unused allotments at other properties, the 31 Wharf Road townhomes will each have access to an average of 225 gallons a day, according to Annie O’Connor, the land trust’s director.
The project will include two buildings: one with four three-bedroom townhomes, the other with four two-bedroom units. Plans also call for two ground-floor commercial spaces, one to be occupied by the land trust, as well as parking for residents and employees of Smiley’s Saloon and the neighboring Coast Café, whose owner, Roseanne LaVoy, sold the property to the B.C.L.T. in 2019.
The Wharf Road homes will be owned by their occupants for as long as they reside in them while the B.C.L.T. will own the land beneath. Habitat for Humanity will serve as the lender, offering zero-percent mortgages to the buyers, whose incomes must be 50 to 80 percent of Marin’s annual median income, or between $87,000 and $140,000 for a family of four. Mortgage payments will be limited to 30 percent of a family’s income.
If an owner chooses to sell, they will recoup the principal of their loan plus an inflation adjustment. Habitat would then resell the unit to another qualifying family, keeping the homes affordable in perpetuity.
“This is an incredible opportunity to return something to the community that is now so out of touch for people,” said Maureen Sedonaen, Habitat’s regional chief executive. “It’s about equity, it’s about social justice. It’s sad to us that one person can stand in the way of equity in a community where people want to raise their families and serve their neighbors.”
Kristina Amoroso, who grew up in Bolinas and is now raising her son in town, said she has watched school class sizes shrink as housing has become increasingly out of reach.
“I don’t want Bolinas to be built up as a cruise terminal, as was the risk in the 1980s, and I appreciate the history of what has been done to keep development at bay,” she said. “But the reality is that there is no low-cost housing, and something has to change so the school doesn’t eventually disappear and the town become nothing but vacation homes.”
Housing scarcity and affordability are among West Marin’s most daunting challenges. The average home price in Bolinas is $1.7 million, according to Zillow, while the median household income is $95,192. For the land trust, which has nearly 400 households on its waiting list, the project is an attempt to begin to bridge that widening gap.
“This project is bringing a phenomenal opportunity into the community, for its families and working people,” Ms. O’Connor said. Appeals like Mr. Meyer’s, she added, only serve to stymie projects, drawing out their timelines and raising their costs.
“At Habitat, we’ve seen this a lot,” Ms. Sedonaen said. “One voice can slow down and cost the project very precious resources. We are ready to break ground, we are ready to start recruiting families into the lottery process, and we are ready to build this beautiful project that is going to be a lasting asset for the community.”
The nonprofits have previously partnered on two Bolinas projects that provided four homes on the mesa. This fall, they plan to host a site cleanup in September, a block party in October to mark the groundbreaking, and a series of homebuyer workshops, offered in English and Spanish.