Three hundred Bolinas residents gathered on Sunday to discuss a topic increasingly weighing on their minds: the steady, debilitating loss of affordable local housing. Skyrocketing rental prices in San Francisco have stretched into West Marin, pushing up real estate values such that growing numbers of locals are finding it difficult, if not impossible, to forge a life. Compounding the problem is a trend in turning long-term rentals into vacation rentals managed through online services like Airbnb.
“Places that used to be available are not anymore,” said Mark Butler, who has lived in Bolinas for over 30 years. “If somebody loses the home that they’re in now, there’s a very good chance that they’ll have to find another place to live.”
Luckily the beach town, half of whose homes may lie unoccupied much of the year, Mr. Butler said, has a dogged affordable housing advocate: the Bolinas Community Land Trust. The nonprofit owns multi-use properties downtown that include Section 8 housing, retail space for locally run businesses and Bo-Gas. The group also has a new board president, Arianne Dar.
Much of Sunday’s meeting—the town’s first large-scale gathering to discuss housing—was reserved for a presentation by Ms. Dar, whose message was cautiously optimistic. “This is an eventuality, that we will be able to put up affordable units all over Bolinas,” Ms. Dar said. “It takes a while to get there, but I would say that this is going to happen.”
Recently, the land trust formed an affordable housing committee to focus on ways to promote the creation and legalization of second-unit dwellings. Ms. Dar said the committee is intent on determining how many homeowners would be willing to rent out extra rooms, developing a program whereby caretakers assist seniors in exchange for a place to live, and encouraging second-homeowners to allow locals to live on and manage properties that would otherwise sit empty.
On Sunday, Ms. Dar informed residents that the county waives fees tied to second-unit affordable housing construction if a homeowner places a deed restriction on the property requiring those units to be rented only to low-income persons. Those fees can cost between $3,500 and $11,500, said the county’s chief affordable housing planner, Leelee Thomas, though the amount varies based on specific projects. A new fee schedule will take effect in August.
Deed restrictions, Ms. Thomas said, usually stipulate that rent cannot exceed more than 30 percent of a tenant’s income. Only projects that create housing for people who earn 80 percent less than the median income—currently $101,900 for a four-person household—are eligible for the waiver.
Although the fee waiver serves as an intriguing option for homeowners interested in adding a second unit, the county’s regulations on septic capacity represent the town’s biggest housing-development hurdle.
In 1971, the town’s water purveyor, the Bolinas Community Public Utility District, placed a moratorium on new connections to the water system, and in doing so made new development in Bolinas impossible without possession of an existing water meter.
County septic regulations limit the average household in Bolinas to processing up to 240 gallons a day; the Bolinas Community Public Utility District sees an average of 170 gallons.
“Our septic systems are often designed for about four times the amount that we use them,” Ms. Dar said. “We can actually handle a lot thicker density than we currently do. We’re just over-engineered.”
Jennifer Blackman, the utility district’s general manager, told the Light that so long as people living in a home keep under their daily water limit, what they do on the property is up to them. “If there is no evidence that the existing system is malfunctioning or that it is incapable of handling additional wastewater, there can be some flexibility about not requiring automatically a revamping of the septic system,” Ms. Blackman said.
The land trust committee is looking into the possibility of developing and installing second-unit mobile homes that can tie into existing septic systems. Mobile homes, in particular, could help increase affordable housing on properties that already have a water meter and septic system in place.
“That would allow a lot of people in Bolinas to potentially own their own [second-unit] dwelling,” Ms. Dar said. “That also skirts having to do all the foundations, all the engineering. These would be, basically, already engineered units that would just tie in.”
According to the county, the utility district requested that county code reflect the Bolinas moratorium, and a resulting prohibition made the construction of second units virtually impossible. The county eliminated that prohibition in 2012, again at the district’s request, county staff told the Light.
These housing solutions would serve as ways to secure affordable housing other than by creating permanent second units, which face a long, costly and complicated permitting process. Permits and fees required by the Marin County Community Development Agency have long made second-unit conversion and construction so prohibitive that numerous illegal second units have sprung up over the years.
If a homeowner proposes adding a bedroom to a residence, the county requires a complete upgrade of the property’s septic system. The upgrade itself subject to an array of design and regulatory criteria, such as setback compliance, adequate percolation and a low enough groundwater table for the property to take the added wastewater load.
In 2014, the utility district amended its rules to grant residents the right to apply for “expanded water use permits,” whereby homes in Bolinas could ask to receive 50 percent more water based on either last year’s individual property usage or the town’s overall average consumption.
Residents eager to expand their water use must file an application with the district, which reviews and votes on the permit at a public meeting. Ms. Blackman said the utility district has received about five applications for expanded water use permits.
Still, the town’s water connections remain capped at 587. The utility district is licensed by the state to draw no more than 167 acre-feet of water per year from the Arroyo Honda Creek and two emergency reservoirs; that amount, particularly given the state’s ongoing drought, seems unlikely to change.
“Now that the county is allowing the permitting of second units, they’ve eliminated one of the biggest hurdles,” Ms. Blackman said. “But there is still a real and true limited water supply in this town.”
According to the land trust’s executive director, Lesa Kramer, the county also provides low-interest loans through the Marin Housing Authority for low-income homeowners to rehabilitate or build second units.
Ms. Kramer said that because the land trust is a nonprofit, it can build in a higher density than an individual can, opening the door for a new multi-unit dwelling in town. The county would calculate that density based on the parcel. (The trust also owns a water meter.) But to do so, the trust would need to purchase, lease or receive a donation of land on which it can develop.
Last year, a deal to purchase property that would have given the trust a chance to put up eight to 10 units fell through.
One question posed by attendees at the meeting was whether the trust could set up new mobile homes for affordable housing on the farmland owned by the Tacherra family, on the Big Mesa. Much of that property was gradually sold after being placed under receivership in 2006, and for over two decades the county has sought to enforce a nuisance abatement order that would remove the property’s mobile homes and trailers, where much of Bolinas’s local laborers have long
resided.
But the land, even when cleared of illegal dwellings, will remain unavailable for housing development due to its agricultural zoning, which restricts housing to one dwelling per 10 acres and requires that additional housing be occupied by farm workers.
Despite the tough challenges facing Bolinas residents, many viewed Sunday’s meeting as positive, and even inspiring. The meeting also served as a platform to introduce a new organization, the Bolinas Community Action Network, or BoCAN, which plans to hold meetings every other month, each of which will focus on a different issue confronting the community.
“The concept of BoCAN is we want to help connect people,” said Evie Wilhelm, a member of the group who facilitated Sunday’s meeting. “We want to help them get going by forming smaller groups to tackle some of these issues.”
The next BoCAN meeting will be held on July 19. Anyone interested in learning about the group may email [email protected].
This article was tweaked on June 11.