Dick Spotswood: Marin’s new developments should include compatible workforce housing

Housing dominated last week’s elections in Fairfax and Sausalito. In 2026’s elections for city and town councils plus the county Board of Supervisors, housing will again be a constant topic.

Housing’s affordability and lack of its availability present a conundrum. Polling shows that most Californians are of two minds. They agree that for younger folks and newcomers, finding housing is a daunting prospect unless they’re employed in technology or similar high-paying industries.

They’re simultaneously opposed to changing the character of their own small towns or neighborhoods. Change is threatening. It’s not about the false slam that they’re fearful about the race, ethnicity or economic class of new neighbors. They don’t like multi-unit housing regardless of its occupants.

This applies to urban centers including San Francisco as it does to Marin. Elected leaders have unsuccessfully struggled to address these conflicting goals.

That needs to change. The best route forward is to facilitate compromises.

That’s not the approach pursued by those including state Sen. Scott “Mr. Housing” Wiener who are focused on “build, baby, build.” For Wiener, the solution appears to be building hundreds of thousands of new housing units regardless of their impact on existing communities.

Wiener and his disciples are unpersuaded by those who contend that in coastal California, as in other world-class economic hot spots, the supply of market-rate housing will never meet the demand no matter how much is built.

The other view is represented by Tam Valley data specialist Gaetan Lion. “The real problem is affordability, not supply. While teachers and essential workers are priced out, building more housing won’t solve this. The solution lies in targeted rent subsidy programs for essential workers, a more cost-effective approach than constructing expensive affordable housing units.”

Marin and similarly placed coastal locales can provide new workforce housing only if new projects are subsidized. The old scheme of allowing developers to devote 85% of a project to market rate units to subsidize a 15% “affordable” component has failed.

It’s not just about the “not in my backyard” crowd. San Francisco currently has 47,000 fully entitled but unbuilt housing units The delay is due to high construction and financing costs. Housing construction is a business. Those developments don’t pencil out in this weak economy.

With passage of Measure K, Sausalito will construct 50 units of “senior, affordable” homes at MLK Park. It’s only possible because the project’s land cost is zero since the city owns the site. It’s similar to Mill Valley’s city-approved plan for workforce housing adjacent to its public safety building. When cities own the land, housing development costs decrease.

State legislators need to do more than grandstanding and virtue signaling. They should reorient their priorities by funding grants to local governments to buy land for workforce housing and fund rent subsidies. Think of federal Section 8-like vouchers expanded in California to support our workforce.

With cities in the driver’s seat, affordable goals can be achieved while simultaneously pursuing architecture that’s compatible with the site and surrounding neighborhoods.

It’s no sin for local governments to borrow ideas from other jurisdictions.  Marin County Executive Derek Johnson, previously city manager of the Central Coast city of San Luis Obispo, recently led a delegation of Marin officials and planners to SLO, population 49,800.

Those officials thought outside the box to facilitate construction of properly scaled and well-sited workforce homes. Marin Supervisor Brian Colbert was on that fact-finding trip.

Colbert reports visiting San Luis Ranch, a 131-acre master planned community that “integrates within a single neighborhood, homes, offices, retail, a hotel and preserved agricultural land creating a true mixed-use community. It stands as a model of intentional design, aligning economic opportunity with quality of life.”

That’s the assignment for Marin planners. Encourage new developments that provide workforce housing compatible with Marin’s smallish towns’ character.

Columnist Dick Spotswood of Mill Valley writes on local issues Sundays and Wednesdays. Email him at spotswood@comcast.net.