Magnolia Village provides a model for redeveloping underutilized commercial properties
Magnolia Village is an excellent opportunity to provide badly needed homeownership opportunities – including for lower income households. This project is a model for redeveloping underutilized commercial properties into mixed-use development that includes affordable homeownership.
The housing benefits of this project are obvious. Condominiums are a rare and highly desirable product in Marin, offering the financial and life-style benefits of homeownership but with a smaller environmental footprint and lower cost than the equivalent single family detached home. Magnolia Village is particularly exceptional in that four of the units – 20% — will be affordable to lower-income households. Homeownership is an almost impossible dream for lower income families in our market. We should make it happen.
Converting commercial properties to mixed use is an important strategy in Marin for building more housing. It is environmentally friendly. Infill housing prevents sprawl and the associated traffic and emissions. The traffic impact of this project is minimal and less than would be for equivalent single family detached housing. The reuse of an already developed property avoids the environmental impacts of raw land conversion. A side benefit of the project will be repair of the adjacent slide-prone slope.
Magnolia Village will also support the city’s Housing Element, which HCD is currently reviewing. This site is included in the Housing Element. Overturning the staff recommendation and Planning Commission vote will raise questions about the validity of other sites and strategies in the Housing Element.
Many in the community have raised complaints about the height of the project. In California, inclusionary housing like this – that is requiring affordable units in market rate buildings – is our primary method of funding affordable housing. It requires the remaining units in the building to subsidize the affordable units. There is no questioning that larger units with outdoor space are going to be more valuable than smaller units without outdoor space. Further, we believe that it is time for Marin to embrace more height in its housing developments. It is the only way we can both produce the affordable housing we need and protect the Open Space that is a defining feature of Marin.
Magnolia Village is a rare opportunity to provide homeownership opportunities – including affordable housing — at an environmentally sustainable density while redeveloping a rundown commercial property.