The effort to turn 36 townhouses into affordable housing in Point Reyes Station cleared a hurdle this week when the House of Representatives passed the Coast Guard Authorization Act of 2015, which includes a provision requiring the head of the Coast Guard—the property’s owner—to first offer to sell the 30-acre housing complex to Marin County.
It’s the next step forward in an effort spearheaded by the Community Land Trust Association of West Marin to address a housing crisis and ensure that a developer doesn’t snap up the complex, which also includes a playground and tennis courts. Without legislative action—which still needs Senate approval—the federal government will put the property up for public auction and sell to the highest bidder as soon as October.
The House vote came the day after CLAM’s annual meeting and a light clam chowder dinner, which provided a crowd at the Dance Palace Community Center with a mix of visions for the future of the complex and downright practical changes the nonprofit is undertaking, like bylaw amendments. The meeting highlighted not just the housing complex issue itself but CLAM’s evolution into a more powerful entity.
“Every year, you’re growing as an organization,” Supervisor Steve Kinsey said at the meeting of the 14-year-old group, which saw the number of new members more than double last year, bringing the total to 223 in 2014. (Funds from members are key to supporting CLAM’s efforts and operating costs like salaries and rent payments for a tiny office in the Creamery Building.)
CLAM itself put it rather succinctly in its 2014 annual report: “A small organization that takes on a big idea is a good story. But an even better story is a small organization becoming bigger by taking on a big idea.”
The recent growth has been spurred in large part by excitement over the Coast Guard complex, enthusiasm that was literally on display Sunday in the form of letters of support from local organizations and community members that lined the Dance Palace’s walls. Last year, the nonprofit also sold its first home, in Inverness; under a new ownership model, which assures that the property will remain affordable in perpetuity, a family owns the home itself, while CLAM retains ownership of the land.
The group also says it has tripled the number of members who donate at least $10 every month as part of a new “key club” membership. (Regular members pay at least $35 a year.) That growth, the logic goes, will hopefully bring in even more support and funding. “As people start looking at us, they want to know, how does the community feel about CLAM?” Kim Thompson, the executive director since 2012, said at the meeting.
CLAM is also undertaking its first-ever audit, which Ms. Thompson said could open the organization up to a broader array of funders.
Maureen Cornelia, the board president, said this week that Ms. Thompson’s leadership has been vital to the nonprofit’s strength and growth. Ms. Thompson—whose background includes working with refugees and teaching at a university level—organized the massive letter writing campaign in support of the Coast Guard site. Congressional representatives have told CLAM that the letters have been immensely helpful in moving legislation along, Ms. Cornelia said. And Ms. Thompson has developed contacts around the country in the community land trust movement, to inform CLAM’s own work.
“She’s got a very genuine, approachable style, and I think because of that, she’s been able to build a sense of trust and inspiration,” Ms. Cornelia said.
Opening the board
At Sunday’s meeting, CLAM won approval from membership to change bylaws regarding board membership. The changes are part of the nonprofit’s efforts to examine the organization’s structure and prepare itself for the Coast Guard project.
Members used to be prohibited from serving more than two consecutive terms. But the complexity of the effort to secure and develop the housing complex, which will undoubtedly take years, has underscored the need for continuity of leadership. The nonprofit proposed striking the prohibition, allowing members to serve indefinitely as long as the board and CLAM members approve of someone sticking around. “We’re asking for some flexibility for board members who otherwise would be terming off,” Ms. Thompson said.
CLAM also formalized the board nomination process. Previously, members could make nominations at the annual meeting. But from now on, names must be submitted at least two weeks in advance of the annual meeting, and a committee will meet with candidates to discuss their interest in serving.
The final change made Sunday was meant to broaden board representation of renters, who are increasingly finding themselves without a place to live as houses are turned into short-term vacation rentals or second homes used a few weeks or months of the year.
The board is comprised of three different kinds of members: public representatives with expertise in specific subjects, such as finance or law; members of the community at large; and “lessee members,” previously defined as anyone who lived in CLAM housing. There are just nine households who do so; one owns a CLAM home, and the others rent.
Ideally, a third of the board would be comprised of lessee members; right now, the nonprofit’s 11-member board has one renter and one CLAM homeowner. Broadening the definition of lessees to include anyone who rents in West Marin and those who can speak on their behalf will hopefully broaden representation for the people who struggle to find rentals, CLAM said. “This becomes important, folks, because community land trusts hold as fundamental the principle of a balance of voices,” Ms. Thompson said.
(Ballots were distributed at the meeting, though voting was primarily by a show of hands. Everyone voted in favor of the changes.)
The meeting also touched on the future of the Coast Guard site if the county acquires it and eventually turns it over to CLAM. Two presenters—one from a community land trust in Wisconsin that developed a 30-acre site into homes, a garden and a farm called Troy Gardens; the other from a Bay Area consortium of land trusts—touched on possible uses. These ranged from affordable rentals to a cooperative ownership model to “co-housing” more akin to a condominium in which tenants own the units in which they live.
Those decisions lie far ahead, and there are still big hurdles to cross, such as securing financing to buy the site and installing a wastewater treatment system. (For decades, wastewater was hauled offsite.) Two community members at the meeting wanted to know how CLAM would ensure that people who already live in West Marin would be given housing at the site, rather than opening it up to people from farther afield. “How can we guarantee this housing will prioritize the community?” asked local Charlie Morgan.
Another woman said, “The real question is, who’s gonna get to live there?”
Those questions seemed to stem at least in part from EAH Housing’s affordable housing complex in Point Reyes Station. Some of those units, which were rented out with a lottery system in 2005, were opened up to people living or working anywhere in Marin and Sonoma, a result of the constraints of federal funding, though other units were offered only to locals. That complex also offers Section 8 housing, which cannot be restricted to those in West Marin.
The presenter from Wisconsin, Greg Rosenberg, said that if the community wanted to try to ensure those priorities, they should work with their elected officials. “I hear you’re really good at stopping things you don’t like,” he added.
Ms. Thompson said the first step is just getting control of the site. “We need to ensure it’s a possibility,” she said.
But the presentations provided extra hope to some in the crowd. “It seems more doable now,” Donna Larkin, who runs a bed and breakfast in Inverness Park, said after the meeting. In comparison to Troy Gardens, she said, which was built from scratch, CLAM has the advantage of already-developed homes.
For Supervisor Kinsey, who helped rally his board toward a unanimous approval of a resolution supporting the congressional legislation, there is no question of whether the complex will become affordable housing. “This project will happen,” he said. “There are several ways it could happen, but it will happen.”
After he spoke, Ms. Thompson thanked him for his support with a bouquet of orange roses—and a piece of square cardboard, which momentarily seemed to confuse him. It was a kind of 3-D puzzle that must be broken up and then put back together.
“You pop out the pieces,” she explained, “and it becomes a CLAM home.”
This article was corrected on May 27; the presenter from Wisconsin was Greg Rosenberg.