A REMODELED QUADPLEX, a triplex and a couple of single-family homes are some of the properties being pursued by the Community Land Trust Association of West Marin to house displaced and ill-housed farm workers before the spring. One project in Point Reyes Station is being engineered for two lives — a temporary tiny home village and permanent affordable housing.
The trust faces a deadline of March 1. That is when 12 ranches on the Point Reyes National Seashore will close operations in accordance with a new land management plan brought by the National Park Service as part of a legal agreement with the Nature Conservancy and other groups. That January decision has led to the imminent displacement of 90 ranch workers.
Outside of the national park on the mainland, a second population of roughly 30 people living in 11 unpermitted trailers in substandard conditions on the Martinelli Ranch will also be rehoused.
With the clock ticking on the ranch closings, the county has an opportunity to solve both housing problems at once, Marin County Director of Community Development Sarah Jones said.
“This is West Marin, where do they go?” she said.
In March, the county declared a three-year shelter crisis. In August, the county contributed $1.1 million to help CLAM purchase a 1-acre lot at Sixth and B streets in Point Reyes Station. The crisis ordinance allows the county to build temporary dwellings on private and unincorporated land without certain permits.
The tiny home village can only last as long as the crisis, said Jones, but if they don’t find alternative housing in three years then the crisis could be extended.
“If people are living in the tiny homes and still don’t have a housing option, then we have shelter crisis, right?” she said.
This week, all required permits are being submitted to build the tiny homes.
“Our architects, our civil engineer, our wastewater engineer, our electrical engineer, all those sheets are ready to go,” said Tom McCafferty, CLAM’s director of properties. “We have done preliminary reviews with the [county] Building Department, Environmental Health Services and the Fire Marshall and Department of Public Works.”
“The county is partnering with us, but CLAM will own it,” said McCafferty. “CLAM is pursuing ownership in all of the other properties with support from foundations and Marin County’s typical affordable housing subsidy pathways — Measure W and the affordable housing trust fund.”
McCafferty said it is also a good location because of its proximity to the Marin County Health and Human Services and the West Marin Community Services.
Septic for the long term
The shelter crisis ordinance allows the tiny homes to be built without a California Environmental Quality Act permit or a Coastal Development Permit. But according to McCafferty, everything below ground is being designed to meet both those permits anyway, and everything above ground is going to be temporary.
“Ideally the investment that CLAM in the county will put into this site will not just serve the interim housing, but also a future permanent affordable housing development,” McCafferty said. “So, what we’re aiming to do is install utility trenches one time for both developments. That includes designing a site that would be adequate for a Coastal Development Permit.”
The CDP, issued under the California Coastal Act, is just for projects in the coastal zone. They must demonstrate that a project is being built in a way to slow the impacts of global warming. The same documents often fulfill the requirements for a California Environmental Quality Act permit, an assessment and accounting of the overall environmental impact of a project.
“We are proposing a pressurized trench system, and it will be a secondary system,” said McCafferty, referring to the septic system plans for the tiny homes site. He explained that a primary septic system is just a septic tank and a gravity-fed leach system.
“We’re going one step above that,” said McCafferty. “We will have additional tanks that recirculate the effluent through textile filters. It goes into a pump tank which will pump it out into the pressurized trenches at regular intervals.” He said the system will be governed by an electrical control board, which is different than a gravity-fed treatment.
What about the system’s proximity to groundwater and rising sea levels?
“We are at 30 feet above sea level,” he said. “That depth of the trenches is two feet from grade and then another six down to the bottom of the trench. So, you’d be at 24 feet above sea level.”
Septic was one of the concerns the neighbors shared with Jones. It is a little mind boggling for them to see 14 units on a single septic system, she said.
“These units are going to use less water than your standard single-family home. They are not big enough for a lot of occupancy. There is also oversight and management in this situation,” Jones said, referring to the operational agreement being developed by CLAM which will determine how many people go into each unit and how the property will be managed.
McCafferty said CLAM will start by placing smaller households in the tiny homes before moving to larger households. He said CLAM has already fixed up a triplex where they have placed a family of four from the Martinelli Ranch and a family of five from the Point Reyes National Seashore.
“There’s maybe five singles, six or seven couples, a similar number of households of three that would be a better fit for the tiny home site than any of the larger families,” he said.
Jones said the county first visited Martinelli ranch in response to a complaint about the dwellings. Inspectors found open sewage outside but have not yet inspected the interiors.
“They are technically considered homeless,” said Jones, adding that the Martinelli children have inherited the ranch after their father’s death and wish to eventually sell it. “What we’re authorized to do is provide a homeless shelter. They qualify, but they don’t consider themselves homeless. We don’t want things to get worse for them before they get better.”
