Marin Voice: Whistlestop housing is the right plan for the right place

The Marin Environmental Housing Collaborative supports Whistlestop’s Mission Plaza senior housing project. Whistlestop, the largest nonprofit serving older adults in Marin County, has provided a full range of services and activities at the former Southern Pacific depot in downtown San Rafael for the past 44 years. It is the community gathering place and lifeline for thousands of older adults.

Whistlestop now proposes to replace its aging building with 41 affordable apartments for seniors, better space for its Active Aging Center, and parking.

Low-income households are the most severely impacted by Marin’s housing crisis — the 2010 census found over 17,000 low-income Marin households spending more than 50 percent of their income on housing.

It’s getting worse, with rents up 66 percent since 2005.

Our elderly are particularly hard hit. Over 20,000 seniors live below the poverty line in our own Marin County. And it’s not just renters who are affected. Elderly homeowners, house-rich and cash poor, are also being forced out of their homes. Mission Plaza’s goal is to provide homes to some of these seniors.

Located across from the San Rafael Transit Center, Marin’s transportation hub, Whistlestop is an excellent spot for senior housing. Over 45 percent of Whistlestop’s clients arrive by public transit. Retail, entertainment and support services — groceries and other food shopping, affordable dining, the Marin Center for Independent Living, the Rafael Theater and the San Rafael library — are all within easy walking distance.

When Whistlestop unveiled its initial conceptual plans in January 2015, there were community concerns. While there was strong support for senior housing, there were complaints about the location, architectural styling, height and loss of the depot-style building, though it hasn’t served as such for over 40 years.

Whistlestop’s revised plans, submitted in July, go a long way in responding to community concerns. The redesign is in the Mission Revival architectural style typical in San Rafael. The plan is now smaller overall — the number of apartments is reduced from 48 to 41 units, portions of the building redesigned to three, rather than five stories, and the building is pulled back from Fourth Street to create a public plaza to enhance the pedestrian experience in downtown San Rafael, including outdoor dining at Whistlestop’s Jackson’s Café.

While some oppose the loss of the former depot building, realistically, it is simply not a good candidate for historic preservation. It is not even eligible for listing on the California Register of Historic Places or the National Register of Historic Places because its original design was seriously compromised by an awkward second-story addition years ago.

The depot would be expensive to repair, and its size and configuration make it ill-suited for virtually any purpose, including its current one.

Some question whether housing should be built near the SMART station.

Whistlestop looked into relocating, working with San Rafael’s economic development staff and a commercial real estate broker, analyzing 10 different sites, but none proved suitable or affordable for senior housing and service needs.

Mission Plaza is a work in progress. We appreciate and applaud Whistlestop’s plan to accept only those residents who don’t have cars, but the project will be even better if parking for Whistlestop staff and visitors could be moved offsite, such as to the BioMarin garage planned nearby.

We look to Mayor Gary Phillips and the City Council to facilitate this alternative and to explore whether the downtown parking district might be expanded to include the Mission Plaza site, additionally benefitting other area properties.

MEHC encourages supporters and those with concerns to participate in the EIR process that will start soon. We believe the facts that will come out in a transparent environmental review will show that Whistlestop’s Mission Plaza is the right project, in the right place, at the right time.

Steven Saxe and Colin Russell are leaders of the Marin Environmental Housing Collaborative.