With two new property purchases and an innovative lease agreement, the Community Land Trust Association of West Marin has made another substantial stride toward its goal of providing homes for 40 displaced ranch families.
The new acquisitions include a Point Reyes Station property with three dwellings and an Inverness property with an additional three residences.
Meanwhile, CLAM has agreed to renovate and lease a Stinson Beach farmhouse from All Hands Ecology that was occupied for two decades by a staff member of the environmental nonprofit previously known as Audubon Canyon Ranch.
The new units will provide housing for seven households. CLAM has housed an additional six families in permanent homes acquired by the trust last year in Point Reyes Station, Tomales and Forest Knolls.
The most recent acquisitions come as the land trust is weeks away from opening 14 tiny homes at Sixth and B Streets in Point Reyes Station, which are expected to be ready by late April or early May.
“We’re picking up momentum,” Jarrod Russell, CLAM’s executive director, told the Light. “The seeds we’ve planted to make a difference for the ranch families are starting to take root.”
In all, CLAM has housed or identified housing for nearly three quarters of the 40 households—totaling roughly 150 people—being displaced from the Martinelli ranch, where homes were deemed unfit for habitation, and from the dairies and ranches in the Point Reyes National Seashore that closed as part of a legal settlement. CLAM is still seeking housing for roughly a dozen families. Ten other displaced families have left town and do not intend to return.
The renovation project in Stinson Beach marks the first time that CLAM has teamed up with an environmental nonprofit to address West Marin’s housing crisis. Tom Gardali, an Inverness resident and the executive director of All Hands Ecology, reached out to Mr. Russell last year to gauge his interest in partnering to restore a three-bedroom, 1,600-square-foot farmhouse built in 1880. It’s called the Crum house after former Audubon Canyon Ranch board member Eleanor Crum, who helped finance its relocation from the shores of the Bolinas Lagoon.
The structure, which could comfortably fit a family of six, already had a new roof and good bones but needs about $100,000 in renovations. CLAM agreed to cover the repairs in return for a five-year lease. When the lease expires, the two parties will revisit the agreement to see if the arrangement still suits their needs.
“My thought is that we would renew the lease for another five years, but five years is a fairly long time, and things could change,” Mr. Gardali said. “We chose five years because that’s just a good comfort zone for CLAM and for us.”
Though environmental and housing advocates are sometimes at odds—with one side seeking to protect land from development, and the other seeking to develop land for housing—CLAM and All Hands see an overlap in their missions.
“Both organizations, in their own ways, are in the business of protecting land from forces that would exploit it,” CLAM wrote in a statement announcing the deal. “The same impulse—to steward land for the long-term benefit of the community—animates both.”
The newly acquired Inverness property, on Hawthornden Way, includes a large single-family home, a studio and a one-bedroom unit. A former ranch resident has already signed a lease for the one-bedroom unit and CLAM expects to lease the others within two weeks.
The Point Reyes Station property, located near the Green Bridge on Levee Road, has four units on two parcels. A current tenant will continue to live in one of the units; the others will house about eight former ranch residents. CLAM closed the deal this week and expects to sign leases within the next week or two.
Both properties were purchased with support from the Marin Community Foundation, which provided a $5 million low-interest bridge loan to help house displaced ranch families. “We’ve already drawn $4 million of it to support not only a large portion of the purchase of the Hawthornden and Green Bridge properties but also to help fund the construction of the Sixth and B lot for interim housing,” Mr. Russell said. “We’ll be drawing on the additional $1 million in the weeks ahead.”
As housing becomes available, CLAM is conferring with ranch families and community partners to figure out which units best suit a particular family’s needs. “What’s the size of the household or family?” Mr. Russell said. “Do they have young kids? Do they have health issues? Where do they work? Where do their kids go to school? When is their potential eviction date or has it already passed? It’s a multi-faceted process. These are all the factors that weigh on us daily as we work to make the best decisions possible.”
The tiny homes at Sixth and B Streets will provide interim housing for three to five years while CLAM attempts to secure permanent housing for all displaced ranch residents who need it. The trust will then convert the temporary housing into permanent affordable homes.
Mr. Russell toured the site on Tuesday morning with Rep. Jared Huffman, who recently secured $2 million in federal funding to support the project. The money, which came from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, can be used to support both the interim and permanent housing.
“We have a housing and affordability crisis in Marin, and it’s felt acutely in West Marin, among other places,” Rep. Huffman said. “With some of the dislocation from the seashore settlement, it seemed like a very important time to do what I could for the housing stock in this space.”
Mr. Huffman and Mr. Russell also toured the nearby Coast Guard property, where CLAM and its partner, Eden Housing, plan to convert 54 vacant apartment units into permanent affordable housing. With support from the state and the county, CLAM has raised about half the money for the $55.4 million project. It is applying for federal low-income tax credits to cover the balance and will find out this spring whether its application is successful.
CLAM hopes to begin construction in early 2027 and complete the project sometime in 2028. If it brings the project online, the land trust will be the largest property manager in West Marin.
This article was corrected on April 13 to reflect the target completion date for the Coast Guard property—sometime in 2028, not 2029.