Homer Hall, a longtime Marin City resident and a Marin Housing Authority board member, took on those living outside of his neighborhood who are criticizing plans to repair and renovate the housing project and build 156 new homes nearby.
The new homes would be used to house Golden Gate Village tenants while their housing units are repaired and brought up to current federal housing standards. The eventual revenue from those new homes will be used to underwrite the cost of the much-needed repairs and improvements.
That’s the housing agency’s current vision in its slow-moving planning process to come to grips that the 60-year-old public housing project, Marin’s largest, is in dire need of repairs, far beyond the annual funding it gets from the federal Housing and Urban Development Department and far beyond the public funds the county is interested in investing.
Based on the housing authority’s estimates, needed improvements and repairs could cost $16 million. Upgrades, including meeting green-building and energy-saving standards, could raise the cost to $50 million.
This is not a new problem. The housing authority has been talking about the need to get this work done for more than a decade. Executive directors have come and gone. Progress has been painfully slow, mostly due to the lack of a community consensus, primarily among Marin City’s residents.
The housing authority board recently voted to approve a two-year $75,000 contract with Michaels Development Co. of New Jersey to turn that vision into a master plan. Michaels says the current plan is a reflection of months of outreach to Golden Gate Village tenants.
The plan would preserve and repair the eight “towers,” the visual centerpiece of the complex’s Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired architecture.
The political problem is, even in Marin City, Not-In-My-Backyard — on NIMBY — politics are alive and well.
On one hand, the Golden Gate Village Resident Council doesn’t like the plan, particularly the addition of 156 new homes. The council wants the apartments fixed up, but wants the agency-owned land nearby kept as open space, not filled with new housing.
Why should they take on the development that no other community in the county wants, its leaders have asked.
Council Vice President LaDane Gibson recently told the housing authority: “We just want our places rehabbed. We don’t want any more extra buildings. We don’t need all these extra people. Extra people bring extra crime. We don’t want it.”
Then there’s Hall, who is angry that out-of-towners were speaking out against the plan at a recent housing authority meeting.
“At some point, the residents, people who live in Marin City, need to be here, lined up saying what they want.”
Hall is right. Forming and delivering a clear message from residents to the housing authority board is long overdue.
In the past, housing authority executive director Lewis Jordan has said that the community’s “trust” in the plan is a cornerstone for its foundation.
Hall’s frustration is understandable. But so-called “outsiders” should have a say. Because the county is responsible for managing and maintaining Golden Gate Village, all of Marin’s taxpayers are stakeholders in this debate.
That means they also bear some responsibility that the public housing is not compliant with minimum HUD standards.
Stephanie Moulton-Peters, who has been elected to succeed retiring county supervisor, Kate Sears, says she’s experienced in moving the public decision-making process forward to community consensus based on wide-open public input.
This long-delayed project has been wanting for that kind of political leadership for too long. We are hopeful that Moulton-Peters, a veteran Mill Valley City Council member, is up for this vital public task.
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Editorial: All need a say in Golden Gate Village housing plan - Marin Independent Journal
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