Dick Spotswood: 13 stories is too big for downtown San Rafael site
Downtown San Rafael may see a 13-story apartment block that will become the Mission City’s dominant feature. It’ll overwhelm St. Raphael Catholic Church’s iconic bell tower and everything else for miles.
The plan is to build an inappropriately large apartment building across the street from City Hall at 1230 Fifth Ave. It’s currently the site of a nondescript commercial structure. Clearly, the site is appropriate for housing that’s scaled and designed for the neighborhood.
Most Marin residents acknowledge that more sites must be made available to provide affordable homes for our essential workers, particularly those in the low-paid service and hospitality industries. Yet, at 1230 Fifth Ave. only 19 of the proposed 189 units will be set aside for those whose incomes are defined as very low.
By federal definition, in Marin for a one-person household, it’s considered “low-very low income” if they annually earn 50% of the median income or $63,950.
What Marin doesn’t need is more “market rate” homes. The 13-story box-like tower complete with a rooftop swimming pool is fundamentally a market-rate development. The 10% of units reserved for lower income workers is a pathetic token.
The idea behind state law that scraps well-thought-out local land use laws in favor of “one size fits all” state mandates is based on a fallacy.
The fallacy promoted by both progressive Democrats and Trump Republicans in California’s state Legislature and Gov. Gavin Newsom is that if millions of new market rate housing units are erected, the overall price of market-rate housing will decline.
That theory is based on misapplying a high school economics lesson. Students are taught that if more brands of, say, deodorant are offered, competition will cause some to lower their price to gain market share, forcing the price of all deodorants down. That works in grocery stores if the demand side is stable. The concept fails in a housing market where demand is insatiable.
Despite contentions by politically motivated naysayers, coastal California is one of the most desirable spots to live and work on the planet. It’s physically beautiful with a Mediterranean climate, enjoys a world-class education and cultural sector, and is blessed with a booming economy with well-paid jobs.
The demand to live in coastal California won’t be satiated even if Gov. Newsom’s unattainable promise to build 2.5 million new housing units in the next six years is achieved.
With housing, when demand exceeds supply, the price will increase regardless of how much new supply is added. Look at Hong Kong, a city with a “housing crisis.” The 7.5 million folks in China’s “special economic zone” are packed into dense high-rises built on every available square foot of land.
The South China Morning Post reports, “Hong Kong is one, if not the most, expensive places in the world to own a home … buying a home remains an unaffordable dream for most residents.” That’s due to newly wealthy people from “mainland” China who want a Hong Kong residence.
It’s simplistic to blame San Rafael Planning Commission members, the mayor or elected representatives on the City Council if the 13-story tower is approved.
The true culprit is state legislators who have eviscerated local planning control. They’ve done it under the misguided idea that flooding the coastal zone with more mostly market-rate housing will somehow make single-family homes and apartments more affordable for all. Crowded Hong Kong, New York and London all prove that is a fallacy.
Realistically, the only way to create housing that’s truly needed is for taxpayers to collectively acknowledge that building workforce housing requires governmental subsidies. That’s the hard choice. Either allocate taxes toward subsidizing construction of workforce homes or have our small towns overwhelmed by a series of inappropriate 13-floor towers that’ll do little to decrease the cost of family housing.
Columnist Dick Spotswood of Mill Valley writes on local issues Sundays and Wednesdays. Email him at spotswood@comcast.net.