THE MARIN COUNTY Board of Supervisors this week approved the expansion of an existing financing package to accommodate the construction of a multifamily affordable housing project in Mill Valley. It constitutes about half of the units originally planned for a single 74-unit building in Marin City.
After residents of Marin City protested the scale and placement of the original development at 825 Drake Ave., an alternative agreement was made in early 2025 between the developer, Caleb Roope of The Pacific Companies, and the county. The project was split in half — 42 units in Marin City, and 32 units would go to a site at 156 Shoreline Highway in Mill Valley.
The California Municipal Finance Authority, a joint powers agency that approves tax-exempt bonds to finance housing and infrastructure projects, had previously issued $40 million in tax-exempt bonds for the Drake Avenue project. Now that there is a second building to accommodate, CMFA proposed expanding that package to $60 million.
According to the developer, the new $60 million total, combined with the developer’s own financing, should more than accommodate the construction of both projects. As of The board authorized $39 million is being used to help finance the Drake Avenue project, which is well underway, and $21 million for the 32-unit Shoreline Apartments in Mill Valley.
The Drake Avenue project was the first application by the county’s Community Development Agency for ministerial approval under Senate Bill 35, a 2017 state law that automatically streamlines approval for affordable housing projects that meet all legal requirements if the city or county is behind on its affordable housing needs.
Many Marin City residents were against the original project. They felt that the five-story apartment building was too tall since it blocked the view for low-income seniors living in a group home behind it. It was the subject of two lawsuits and years of protests.
Some of those protests continued at Tuesday’s meeting.
“According to the developer, his company has other financing options, finding other funding or putting his own money into the project,” said public commenter Ann Devero-Rosenfeld. “So why are we giving him more money via the bonds?”
“These bonds are not county bonds,” said Marin County Counsel Brian Washington. “There’s no financial obligation to the county associated with these bonds.”
“Doing two sites is more expensive than doing one site,” said Sarah Jones, director of the Marin County Community Development Agency. “It is not $60 million more that we were discussing. It would be $60 million total over the two projects.”
Marin City has the largest population of Black residents in the county, and it holds close to 60% of the county’s public housing units. Its legacy dates to the Great Migration, when people from the South headed west to work in California’s military shipyards during World War II, including the Marinship yards located in Marin City.
After the war, white workers largely left the shipyards while Black workers were blocked from buying homes elsewhere by restrictive covenants and redlining. There are just over 600 Black residents left in unincorporated Marin City, which has a population of about 3,000.
“We have no representation in Marin City,” said commenter Terrie Green at Tuesday’s meeting. “At what point are you going to sit back and say let’s treat them like we treat everybody else in this county and do the right thing?”
The Drake Avenue project is currently under construction, while the Shoreline project has recently received design review approval. The alternative compromise comes with a commitment for 25 vouchers for very low-income and extremely low-income residents to rent units in the Drake Avenue building at 30% of their income.