Supervisors OK $250K Grant For Workforce Housing In Stinson Beach

MARIN COUNTY, CA — Marin County supervisors decided on Tuesday to send $250,000 from the county's Affordable Housing Fund to the Bolinas Community Land Trust to convert five existing homes in Stinson Beach into affordable workforce housing.

The Bolinas Community Land Trust is working with the Stinson Beach Affordable Housing Committee, which has raised more than $650,000, to acquire a lot at 3755 Shoreline Highway in Stinson Beach for the project.

The Bolinas Community Land Trust also has applied for a $250,000 grant from the Marin Community Foundation for the Stinson Beach project.

"These allocations not only improve the chances of local families living close to where they work and reducing carbon footprints, but it helps maintain population diversity in a area of our county that has a mix of mostly wealthy residents and a less affluent workforce," Community Development Agency planning manager Leelee Thomas said.

"West Marin has many more vacation rentals for our visitors than it has affordable housing for the lower-income people who live there year-round," Thomas said.

Households with annual incomes in the extremely low and low designations will be eligible to purchase the workforce homes. In Marin County, extremely low household income for a family of four is $48,350 or less per year, and low income is $86,601 to $129,150.

The conversion of existing homes into short-term vacation rental units has caused a shortage of affordable housing for workers in West Marin, the Community Development Agency said.

Housing units designated as affordable for lower-income residents are in high demand near the Pacific coast. Residents there, especially farm and ranch workers, earn a fraction of the county's median household annual income of more than $94,000.

The median single-family home price in Marin County is around $1.2 million as of fall 2019, the Community Development Agency said.

The Bolinas Community Land Trust also received a $400,000 grant on Nov. 5 from the county for pre-development costs and construction of 10 affordable homes in Bolinas. One project is on a 2.5-acre parcel on Wharf Road in the business district and the other on a 20-acre property on Mesa Road three-quarters of a mile west of downtown.

The Marin County Affordable Housing Fund has supported the preservation and construction of 48 units of family housing and 74 units of housing for individuals and older adults in Fairfax, Forest Knolls and Stinson Beach.

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