FIRST, residents sign a memorandum of understanding. Next comes a 90-day notice with instructions for moving household belongings. For the low-income residents who depend on public housing at Golden Gate Village in Marin City, these are the precursors to a major disruption.
The 296-unit postwar public housing project is about to undergo a multiyear renovation. The development opened in 1961 and received federal recognition for design excellence in 1964. It returned some dignity to Black workers who had been prevented from moving by racially restrictive covenants after the federal government closed the Marinship yard.
Like so many aging public housing projects in the U.S., Golden Gate Village has suffered from a steady decrease in federal assistance. Many 20th-century public housing projects were demolished when their upkeep became too costly.
“That’s been one of the reasons why the public housing stock in the U.S. has fallen into disrepair,” said Larry Florin, chief executive officer of Burbank Housing, the nonprofit developer partnering on the Golden Gate Village project. “Their capital improvements have been woefully underfunded.”
The property was entered in the National Register of Historic Places in 2017, and it was also listed in the California Register of Historical Resources, but the years have been hard on the buildings at Golden Gate Village. There are moldy walls with holes and rats. There are obsolete air, water and electrical systems.
The price tag for the full renovation is $266.6 million. The way that the renovation is financed will change the economic infrastructure that sustains Golden Gate Village.
During former President Barack Obama’s administration, in 2012, Congress authorized a pilot project that allowed private investors to finance the renovation of public housing projects called a Rental Assistance Demonstration. In the experiment, the federal government did not pay for the renovation directly, but it paid indirectly and over time.
The upfront costs were covered by private investors, who would be paid back with federal tax breaks, rental payments and federal rent subsidies, otherwise known as Section 8 vouchers.
Unlike public housing, the federal Section 8 program has been funded, according to Adam Cowing, assistant clinical professor at University of California, Irvine School of Law.
“Section 8 has been funded more stably over time. What the RAD program is trying to do is use the funding that’s available and get it into public housing that has capital needs,” Cowing said.
RAD is a HUD program that lets public housing agencies convert their leases to long-term, Section 8 vouchers that stay with the building. The goal is to keep units affordable while improving physical conditions and sustaining the value of the properties.
Korey Lundin, senior staff attorney with the nonprofit National Housing Law Project, said there is a bipartisan housing bill in Congress right now, proposed by U.S. Sens. Tim Scott, R-South Carolina, and Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, that would remove a limit on the number of public housing units that could be converted.
“So, all public housing in the U.S. would be able to be converted under RAD,” Lundin said. “[The bill will] sunset the RAD program in 2029, and it adds some additional HUD oversight and protections for tenants to enforce their rights. This bill has not yet been passed.”
It sounds real good, but I’m just curious about what is the underlying stuff.
Kim Robinson, Golden Gate Village resident
Florin from Burbank Housing said that HUD is encouraging housing authorities and communities to do the RAD program.
“HUD is all in,” Florin said. “We get immediate responses. They’re working with the State Historic Preservation Officer to move the approvals through with its designation, a process that says that it’s not going to diminish the value of the historic legacy of the property.”
However, in Marin City, Golden Gate Village residents are nervous that their public housing is on the path to becoming private. Some fear that federally funded housing vouchers will expire and give way to higher rents, followed by a rise of evictions and the disappearance of the historically Black population that the development was originally built to serve.
“A lot of people are scared they’re not going to be able to come back in,” said Kim Robinson, who has lived with her children for 18 years in one of the first buildings to be renovated.
Robinson wants the renovation to happen. She doesn’t want rodents. There are things she wants to fix, but she has not been able to attend informational meetings. Robinson said the written materials provided by the developer did not tell her much.
“It sounds real good, but I’m just curious about what is the underlying stuff,” she said. “I don’t understand the lingo.”
Who pays and who owns?
Funding has only been secured for Phase 1, the low-rise buildings containing 88 units, at a cost of $98 million.
Under the RAD conversion, the land beneath the Golden Gate Village will remain the property of the Marin Housing Authority. The buildings will be co-owned by the MHA and Burbank Housing under a new combined legal entity called Golden Gate Village Phase 1 L.P.
“The LLC being set up between us and MHA is responsible for securing and paying the mortgage,” said Florin. “The improvements, not the land, but the improvements will transfer to the new LLC that consists of MHA and Burbank.”
In other words, those people residing in the newly renovated buildings will be on a lease with Burbank.
Those residents living in Phase 2 and 3 buildings will still be managed by the MHA.
Burbank invested in the Phase 1 properties as co-owner and will share in the mortgage on the renovation loans, which it will earn back in the form of rents and Section 8 payments.
“Rents on the new buildings are under the new rent structure,” said Florin.
They will pay 30% of their gross income in rent, and the Section 8 voucher will make up the difference between what the tenant pays and the market value of the unit.
Golden Gate Village Phase 1 L.P. also obtained a tax credit to be sold to an outside investor. Back in August, the California Tax Credit Allocation Committee approved a $3.9 million 10-year annual federal tax credit for the project. A tax break of $3.9 million every year is attractive to investors that have high tax liability. Over a decade, that will amount to a total tax savings of $39 million for the investor, who paid $43 million for the credit this year. That money covers much of the renovation costs.
Under the RAD conversion, the federal tax credit and rental subsidies with Section 8 vouchers are a way the federal government can financially pay back private investors for funding the upfront costs of renovations.
According to the HUD website, a public or nonprofit entity must always maintain a controlling interest in the property to ensure its public use.
30% of what?
There are two elements in a tenant’s contract that use the figure 30%. They are not related to each other. One figure relates to the income limit that qualifies a person to rent a unit. The other addresses how much a tenant must pay in rent.
The deed restriction is where the first 30% is found. The deed for the life of a housing unit in Golden Gate Village says that no one who lives there will have a household income of more than 30% of the area median income of Marin County.
As an example, a family of four in Marin County makes a median income of $185,700, according to the MHA website. Of that amount, 30% is $55,710. If a rental applicant at Golden Gate Village makes more than that, they will not qualify to rent that unit. It’s a way of retaining low-cost housing for the neediest citizens.
The average household income of a resident in Golden Gate Village is about $14,000.
The second 30% is found in the Section 8 voucher. A family with a voucher at Golden Gate Village pays no more than 30% of its household income. In other words, if a Section 8 household makes $15,000 a year, $4,500 goes to rent. The remainder of the rent will be paid by HUD.
“The deed restrictions simply limit the ability to use the unit for anything but its intended purpose,” said Florin. “The vouchers are what pay for the difference between the resident’s income and the fair market value of the rents.”
The vouchers are project-based, meaning they are tied to the unit, and they last forever. After a year of residence in the completed Phase 1, vouchers can be converted to tenant-based vouchers, when there are vouchers available to issue, and ported to other housing authorities throughout the United States.
“Folks who are in good standing automatically return once their units are renovated,” Florin said.
According to the Burbank Housing website, good standing means being up to date on rent, submitting all standard yearly recertification documents and having no lease violations or criminal charges.
“MHA continues to work with all residents, one-on-one, to assist them to get into good standing prior to signing a new lease for their unit under revitalization,” said MHA Director Kimberly Carroll.
What happens next?
Construction will be carried out in three phases, beginning with the low-rise buildings.
The first 90-day notice went out to all of the Phase 1 residents to notify them the buildings were being converted to Section 8 vouchers, according to Riley Weissenborn, Burbank Housing senior project manager, in a meeting with residents.
A second 90-day notice went to residents in the first buildings scheduled for renovation, with instructions for the move. About 60 days ahead of the move, dumpsters will be delivered for people to throw away unwanted belongings. A 30-day notice comes when residents must sign a new lease with Burbank Housing Management Corporation, using the same documentation they would use to renew their leases with MHA.
About 225 people will be temporarily relocated during Phase 1. Burbank representatives are meeting one-on-one with residents to assess their needs for a relocation site.
“We have to because everybody’s situation is different in terms of temporary housing,” Florin said.
Roughly 18 to 20 temporary apartments will be needed at a time for each construction subphase, said Florin. All rent and utilities in the temporary units will be paid.
Some people will move into vacant units already located within Golden Gate Village, while others may stay with family members or move into nearby apartments secured by the development team. About 10 units at Golden Gate have been kept empty for relocations.
“We’re trying to utilize as many units on site as possible to keep families and households within the community,” said Weissenborn. “It helps with families that have kids that are taking the bus to school.”
A final seven-day notice will let them know what temporary unit they will be moving into, unless it has been previously arranged.
“They’re going to pay people to come in our house, pack our stuff up, put it in storage, pay for the storage,” said Robinson, the first phase resident. “The only thing we have to do is continue to pay our rent in our unit.”
Fencing will go up around the job site to avoid injuries and to allow PG&E to lay new underground power lines.
Crews will work floor-by-floor, building by building.
“It will take three to four months to get in and completely renovate their units in each subphase,” said Florin.
When it is all over, tenants will return to refurbished apartments with new kitchens and bathrooms, new electrical appliances, dishwashers and in-unit laundry machines.
“It’s fair to say that the vast majority of folks that we talk to at the property are both excited and want the project to move as quickly as possible,” Florin said.
Burbank will be the property manager for the renovated Phase 1 buildings, with a residential manager onsite. MHA will continue to manage the buildings in Phase 2 and 3 while financing is sought for their renovations.
The Phase 2 renovation is planned for 2027, and the final phase could begin around 2029.
All Section 8 vouchers will be handled by MHA, before and after renovations.