A local cook and his family are the latest victims in West Marin’s affordable housing crisis after being evicted last week from their Point Reyes Station home, where they lived for three years after a fire burned down their previous home in 2011. Now, Armando Gonzalez, his wife and their two children have been given a few months of respite to stay together in a second unit owned by Pat Healy, the former Station House Café proprietor who hired Mr. Gonzalez in 1995.
“They are on the verge of having no place to live,” Ms. Healy said. “We’ve got to find them a place.”
The family’s eviction from their Tomasini Canyon Road home follows a decision of Charles and Virginia Rose—a San Diego couple who purchased the property in September—not to renew their lease after it ran out that same month. The property’s deed restricts the rental to low-income tenants like the Gonzalez family.
Ms. Rose said the house will undergo extensive repairs; she also said the family would not be given an opportunity to move back in once the fix-up is complete. “We believe that other people should have a chance, just to help them out,” she said. “He’s been there for three years, so we’d like another family to have an opportunity.”
Housing advocates have stopped short of blaming the new out-of-town owners for the possible loss of four community members, instead pointing their finger at the Marin County Community Development Agency. The agency, they say, botched the affordable-housing deed restriction and negotiations in 2012 for the Community Land Trust Association of West Marin to buy the house from its former owners, Gal and Cheryl Bar-or.
“This is just so classic,” said Susan Scott, a board member of CLAM who has been working with the Gonzalez family to find new housing and who spoke to the Light as an individual. “They were one of the few families who were able to live here. They work here, their kids go to school here and they’re part of the community here. But they can’t live here anymore.”
Where the county failed, Ms. Scott and others argue, was in its handling of what are called “inclusionary requirements,” which are triggered by the county building code when a large property is subdivided in certain unincorporated areas.
By these rules, a landowner who subdivides a property into three or more lots is required to choose from one of two options: to set aside 20 percent of those lots for affordable housing or to purchase another home for affordable housing in a different location.
In 2012, Ms. Bar-or—who owns a ranch in town and splits time in Wyoming—purchased the property after a prolonged attempt to sell 20 percent of several lots she owned to CLAM. The county, she said, foiled the attempt. At first it agreed to let her sell to CLAM, but then it flip-flopped, leaving her unsure whether she had legal standing to finalize the deal.
Ultimately, Ms. Bar-or sued the county. Had the original deal gone through, Ms. Bar-Or said, CLAM would have built two affordable-housing units rather than the one that she bought on Tomasini Canyon Road.
For its part, the county said it was hamstrung by old rules meant to preserve affordable housing. And in a twist of irony, planner Leelee Thomas said, the code dealing with inclusionary policy was changed in 2013 so that the two houses would now be encouraged.
“This is a weird fluke,” Ms. Thomas said. “Our code no longer would allow this to happen.
Ms. Thomas said the county would be keeping a close eye on Tomasini Canyon Road to make sure either the Gonzalez family or a similarly low-income family moves in. She added that Marin County’s tenant protections are relatively lax compared to other parts of the Bay Area like Oakland and San Francisco, which have ordinances ensuring just-cause evictions.
Another curiosity of Ms. and Mr. Rose’s deed restriction is a section that requires a six-month eviction notice if a tenant’s household income rises to exceed the low-income threshold, but only a six-week notice if the lease runs out. It’s this point that Laurie Joyce, an attorney for Legal Aid of Marin, would liked to have tested in court. “We thought there was some legal argument that that seems to violate the spirit of the agreement,” said Ms. Joyce, who was approached by the family in October for help. “It doesn’t make sense. It just doesn’t seem to read consistent with the [lease] agreement.”
In the end, though, the family declined to go to court out of fear that losing a suit would strap them with both heavy legal fees and an eviction judgment, which Ms. Joyce called “the kiss of death” for a low-income family seeking a new rental.
“For a very low-income family, that’s risky,” Ms. Joyce said. “I completely understand why they didn’t want to challenge it, but it’s very disappointing to us. The county really should have been a steward of this property.”
She emphasized that the working poor in Marin are facing “a horrible housing crisis,” a fact that Mr. Gonzalez said is taking a toll on low-income—particularly Latino—families in West Marin.
“It’s too crazy,” said Mr. Gonzalez, a native of Michoacán who cooks at the Inverness Park Market and The Station House Café. “People buy houses who come here only for the weekend or to rent out to visitors.”
And even though Ms. Bar-or no longer has any say in what happens at her former property, she has implored the Roses to let the Gonzalez family stay.
“I strongly encourage them to keep Armando,” Ms. Bar-or said. “He’s an asset to the community.”