MEHC endorsement letter for 930 Irwin Street

On May 5, 2025 MEHC formally endorsed the 930 Irwin Street project in San Rafael. Below you can read the letter sent to the San Rafael Planning Commission.

Dear San Rafael Planning Commissioners,

The Marin Environmental Housing Collaborative (MEHC) urges the San Rafael Planning Commission to approve the 930 Irwin housing project. This project places 213 housing units near a Marin County transit hub, one of only 14 transit hubs in the County. This project meets our project guidelines.

Housing affordability: This project provides 18 affordable housing units and 195 apartments to Marin’s housing stock. Apartments are naturally far more affordable than comparable single family homes, the majority of Marin’s housing stock. MEHC would like to find a path for supporting more affordable units in projects like this, while maintaining financial viability. Funding for affordable housing is extremely limited in Marin and financial viability is hard to achieve. Additional funding streams for affordable housing units in Marin would help achieve this goal. This project will have a positive impact on the affordability of Marin’s housing inventory, and we support its approval.

Environmental benefits: This project has many environmental benefits. The project will be built at a Greenpoint Certified Silver level. Multi-family buildings offer far superior energy and water efficiency compared to single family homes, ADUs, duplexes and small apartment buildings. This project redevelops currently developed land, which is environmentally preferable developing new land. The project is ideally located for transit, as it is a short walk to the Downtown San Rafael train station and transit hub, which provides extensive bus service. The project is a short ride to the San Rafael bike paths to Larkspur and Novato. These protected, high quality bike paths are ideal for commutes to nearby communities. This project provides secure bike parking for 124 bikes. We are pleased to learn that the parking is decoupled from units

Racial equity: San Rafael is a high resource area, and we are pleased to see affordable units in this development. This development also includes 2 and 3 bedroom units, making units appropriate for small families. Family sized units are particularly scarce in multi-family developments in Marin

We encourage San Rafael to approve this project.