Creating new affordable housing in Marin is no simple feat, but the Bolinas Community Land Trust has been in the early stages of developing plans for between two to six new affordable homes on the Big Mesa, with the help of an anonymous source of funding, donated land and free architectural plans.
Yet the project came to a halt recently because of a wastewater ditch—or a wetland, depending on your perspective.
Two weeks ago, the land trust learned that the county considers the potential homes too close—about 20 feet or so—to a ditch made in the 1970s around the sewer ponds. A county planner said that coastal areas fall under a strict definition for wetlands even if they are manmade, though an environmental biologist hired by the land trust said in a report that a small exemption may exist.
For the land trust, the dispute underscores the hardships in creating new affordable housing and what feel like absurd impediments.
“We have an environmental report that says this is not a wetland,” said Arianne Dar, the board president of the land trust. “It’s literally a drainage ditch to protect residences close by.”
The project was in the early stages. In advance of applying for a coastal permit, the nonprofit hired a biologist to prepare an environmental report and meet with a county planner so that it could proceed with putting together an application.
According to Ms. Dar, the idea for the housing project arose a year ago, when three contiguous parcels on Overlook Drive came on the market. Ms. Dar said the parcels were purchased by a new owner who has agreed to let the land trust work on a development project, with the idea that the land would be deeded to the trust further along in the process.
If the project were to move forward, the nonprofit would sell the houses and retain development rights on the land.
Each parcel is zoned for single-family residential use, so theoretically each could have two units—one home and one second unit. Although water is often a problem because of the town’s decades-old moratorium on new hookups, the land trust owns one water meter. Ms. Dar said the Bolinas Community Public Utility District has indicated that a meter could serve up two or three units as long as they collectively keep their water use down. If the land trust could acquire another meter, it could potentially build up to six homes.
In a way, the project aims to fill in the gaps left by county action on affordable housing development. The county’s response to Marin’s housing crisis isn’t focused on developing new single family homes. Instead, after a series of workshops over the winter, supervisors decided to target preserving affordable housing, converting existing buildings to affordable housing, creating incentives for landlords to rent affordably, promoting junior second units and making it easier to build second units.
In that vein, the county recently promised $1 million to the Community Land Trust Association of West Marin to purchase an eight-unit apartment complex in Stinson Beach and turn it into permanent affordable housing. Supervisors also facilitated the purchase of a 19-unit mobile home park in Forest Knolls, and set aside $450,000 in next year’s budget for a landlord incentive program.
But from the land trust’s perspective, those solutions aren’t enough for Bolinas, which it believes cannot thrive without more affordable family homes. And for many residents, homes on the market are astronomically expensive. “You’re going to buy a $3 million home?” Ms. Dar asked rhetorically. “A two-bedroom home is not affordable in Bolinas. It’s not possible to buy affordably.”
That’s why the land trust, which currently operates 13 apartment rentals on Wharf Road, says it is focused on providing more housing for local families living in Bolinas full time—and now, finding a way around the ditch dilemma or looking for another site entirely.
Don Smith, a Bolinas Community Public Utility District director, said that calling the ditch—built as a safety measure in the 1970s to contain wastewater from the ponds—a wetland is a stretch. “This is on the periphery of our sewer field so there’s no runoff,” said. “That’s part of the design of the plant.”
According to the land trust’s environmental report, written by Terry Huffman of the San Rafael environmental consulting firm Huffman-Broadway Group, the ditch contains wetlands vegetation that absorbs “harmful concentrations of nitrogen from the wastewater during the disposal process.”
Jerry Bernstein, who replaced Lesa Kramer as the land trust’s executive this summer, said the ditch is also mowed periodically, which to him made a buffer restriction seem all the more absurd. “Well, it can’t be that sensitive if they’re mowing,” he said.
He also noted that as sea-level rise continues to encroach on the coast, higher ground is the best bet for new home projects. “We’ve got to think ‘up,’” he said.
Mr. Smith has experience with wetlands issues. When the B.C.P.U.D. wanted to install a solar array at one of its man-made reservoirs, he said the project almost didn’t happen because of concerns about red-legged frogs.
He said that he is a strong environmentalist, but he feels the Coastal Act has been interpreted more and more restrictively in recent years, turning an important law into a frustrating obstacle for projects that are trying to reduce energy use or create affordable homes.
“The Coastal Act is an important law,” Mr. Smith said. “But this is going beyond that to the extreme. This is vacant land in a residential neighborhood.”
The definition of a wetland in the Coastal Act is land “which may be covered periodically or permanently with shallow water.” Jeremy Tejirian, the county planner who spoke with Mr. Huffman, and indicated that the project was too close to the ditch, also noted that the ditch contains wetlands plants, another important part of the designation.
The Coastal Act requires a 100-foot buffer between wetlands and development, but that’s not necessarily set in stone along the coast. The California Coastal Commission, which enforces the act, said in interpretive guidelines issued in 1981 that exceptions are allowed when protecting habitat is deemed unnecessary.
But Mr. Tejirian said the county’s current Local Coastal Program, which is over three decades old, does not allow any buffer exceptions. “The standards are very stringent, and they’ve been that way for a long time,” he said.
In the proposed updates to the Local Coastal Program, however, that could change. Mr. Tejirian said that, as currently written, there would be “more flexibility” if an applicant can demonstrate that there would be no environmental effect.
Yet there’s no guarantee that the county’s proposed language will be approved by the commission. And although it may be unlikely, if the county isn’t happy with the coastal commission’s changes, supervisors could elect to simply keep the current Local Coastal Program.
Yet even under the current program, some say there may be avenues forward. Theoretically, Mr. Smith said, the land trust could submit an application for a coastal permit; once it is denied, it could appeal the decision to the commission. But that route would be expensive and not ideal for a nonprofit that prefers to work in less antagonistic ways.
Another possibility is that the ditch is ultimately not considered a wetland. In the 1981 statewide interpretive guidelines, the commission said drainage ditches that meet three general guidelines—that are man-made, created out of dry land, and less than roughly five feet wide—are not considered wetlands. But the coastal commission must make that determination.
For Mr. Smith, a longtime resident, a solution needs to come soon. “We have a crisis going on with the affordable housing,” he said. “It is destroying our coastal community. The public relies on these communities for services and meals and trash collection. Someone has to run all that, and people are getting run out of town. They can’t serve the public. They’re not even here.”