A decade after its decommissioning, the former United States Coast Guard site in Point Reyes Station is one step closer to becoming affordable housing.
On Tuesday, the Marin County Board of Supervisors approved a $9.5 million loan to the Community Land Trust Association of West Marin, providing a critical share of the estimated $55 million needed to transform the property into 54 below-market rental units.
Around $4.5 million of the funding comes from the county’s Affordable Housing Trust Fund, while the remaining $5 million is from the area’s transient occupancy tax.
“I didn’t think I’d ever say this,” Supervisor Dennis Rodoni said, “but short-term rentals are making a substantial contribution to affordable housing in West Marin.”
The Marin Community Foundation on Tuesday pledged a $1 million grant toward the project.
With local funds in hand, CLAM and its partner, Eden Housing, will soon apply for state support through the Joe Serna, Jr. Farmworker Housing Grant Program, which could provide around $7 million to build about 13 affordable units for agricultural workers.
“It all starts here at the local level,” said Jarrod Russell, CLAM’s executive director. “Each of these milestones builds on the next. With local funds secured, we can put in an application for state funding. If we get good news from the state in August, then we can apply for federal funding in February.”
That federal aid, from the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program, could deliver roughly half the project’s total financing. Both the Serna grants and the tax credits are highly competitive; last year, only 16 of 40 applicants received Serna awards, and about $1 billion in tax credits are allocated biannually in California amid heavy demand.
But if the financing materializes, construction on what would be West Marin’s largest housing complex could begin in 2026, with the first residents moving in by mid-2028. The units would serve households earning between 30 and 60 percent of Marin’s median income—from $58,740 to $117,480 for a household of four.
Beginning in 2014, local advocates inundated the Coast Guard, the county and Representative Jared Huffman with letters of support for repurposing the vacant property. “There are communities out there that are trying to block the development of affordable housing,” former CLAM board president Maureen Cornelia said. “We have the opposite happening here.”
Yet the project has dragged on far longer than anyone expected. “In 2014, the housing situation was already critical, and it’s only gotten more acute,” she said. “I really do feel like this is an opportunity for the county to look at their overall processes.”
Sarah Jones, director the Community Development Agency, attributed delays to the complexities of adapting 1970s-era buildings to meet modern codes, along with the challenge of designing a septic system on a site that never had one—especially given its proximity to Lagunitas Creek and a North Marin Water District well.
Though the project is lauded as a game-changer, Mr. Russell warned that it will not singlehandedly solve the area’s affordable housing crisis. “This alone won’t end the threat of displacement in this county,” he said.
In Marin, where new construction has reached record lows, most housing dates to between 1950 and 1980, according to a new county report on displacement. Over the past decade, Marin produced one-tenth of its average historical output. While 42 percent of homes built since 1970 are now rental units, a mere 11 percent of homes built since 2020 are rentals. About half of West Marin’s renters qualify as very low income, and a quarter spend over half their earnings on rent.
While CLAM pursues funding for the Coast Guard site, it is also grappling with the needs of residents at risk of immediate displacement. That includes a dozen families at the Martinelli ranch and 90 or so people living on ranches in the Point Reyes National Seashore.
At a CLAM meeting last week, attendees questioned why the Coast Guard property could not temporarily accommodate some of these residents—particularly after Marin declared a shelter crisis that enables certain stopgap measures such as R.V.s or tiny homes. “This emergency housing crisis is not just in front of us—it’s on top of us,” said Mark Switzer, a Point Reyes Station resident. “We have to respond to the emergency housing situation first and foremost if we want to hold this community together.”
But Mr. Russell pointed to federal rules tied to tax-credit projects that prohibit occupancy once construction begins—and speeding up the timeline remains paramount, he said.
For now, CLAM is exploring more than a dozen other possible interim sites. Among them are a vacant property at Sixth and B Streets and several private ranches.