Marin City Past and Present

We Don't Need your Facilitation! Leave us alone!

Marin City gets a new developer to "improve" their community

Marin Voice: Repairing Marin City housing needs to be higher priority

By Susan Kirsch

POSTED: 01/23/16, 2:43 PM PST |

2 COMMENTS

We recently celebrated the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. In the 1960s, King inspired the nation to stand up to injustice. How is justice playing out in our own backyard?

Three recent events catch my attention — a lawsuit, a bonus, and a facelift.

A lawsuit: In 2014, after two years of Marin Housing Authority’s failure to respond to residents of Golden Gate Village, the U.S District Court ruled in the residents’ favor.

It took Bay Area Legal Aid’s lawsuit filed in 2012 on behalf of the Golden Gate Village Resident Council to re-establish the legitimacy of the council as the voice of the residents.

The housing authority board includes the five-member Board of Supervisors and two public housing residents. Its stated mission is to provide decent and safe housing for low-income people.

It oversees six affordable housing complexes with nearly 500 units of public housing. Golden Gate Village has two-thirds of the authority’s total population. It houses 700, mostly people of color, in 294 units.

It is Marin’s only public housing for families with children.

Prior to filing the lawsuit, Royce McLemore, a Golden Gate Village community leader, reached out to Supervisor Kate Sears 11 times in an attempt to find a solution. She got no response.

A bonus: The Board of Supervisors hired Lewis Jordan, former housing authority chief in Chicago, as director of Marin Housing Authority in 2012 with a salary of $169,500.

In December 2015, it gave him a $20,000 bonus, equivalent to an annual salary for a Marin City resident working full-time at minimum wage.

A bonus?

True, Jordan inherited a tough situation. Under his direction, authority staff submitted updated five-year agency plans for 2014-18 to HUD. The plan is practically identical to the one Jordan’s predecessor submitted for 2010-14.

Read the full article in the Marin IJ HERE

Marin City residents challenge that "Not one person displaced in Hunters Point"

Marin City residents challenge the "Housing Consultant" RDJ Enterprises who says no San Francisco residents were displaced in Hunters Point.  He maintains that people left on their own free will and some residents were excluded when they made up new rules.  Marin City residents are not fooled.  The clever word games do not change the reality that San Francisco has seen a huge drop of African Americans in the last few years due largely because of redevelopment.  Marin City will not yield so easy. Their residents are determined to hold onto their community.

"We Shall not be Moved" Marin City 11/23/2015

Marin City Residents Deserve to be Heard

Marin City residents deserve to be heard

By Royce McLemore

In reading the IJ article, “Study, Marin City, Canal among Bay Area communities at high risk for gentrification,” it was reported that in Marin City “one option being explored is a public/private partnership in which a developer would rebuild or upgrade existing housing and possibly add market rate units.”

The Marin Housing Authority’s consideration of that option justifies the concerns of residents of Marin City’s Golden Gate Village that the authority’s planning and strategy is formula for gentrification.

The Marin Housing Authority has wasted funds on studies aimed at providing cover for developers to extract value by adding market-rate density into an already overbuilt working class neighborhood — the very definition of gentrification.

Is there a need for inclusive housing in Marin County? Yes.

Should one single neighborhood, an historic neighborhood at that, be the focus of housing development? No.

The planning that Lewis Jordan, the authority’s executive director, described is exactly what the recent Supreme Court case spoke to, disparate impact.

We have seen this before and lost the fabric of great neighborhoods to what simply amounts to convenience and greed — people priced out of their community for developer profits!

The Marin Housing Authority is doing the same thing, as usual, but somehow promising a different result. The plan Mr. Jordan describes is no more than auctioning the Marin City community’s future to a favored developer.

Creating a path for development without gentrification is the reason why the Golden Gate Village Residents Council, which is the official voice for the residents of Golden Gate Village, worked with local economy experts, housing experts, federal and private institutions, and residents themselves to develop and share a community-centered plan, including precedents for outcomes and costs that are in line with restoring, not erasing, a legacy.

First, we formally proved that Golden Gate Village is historically significant and should be preserved.

Golden Gate Village was not built to be like any public housing; the intent was to create a sense of home for black people who were left behind after the first phase of redevelopment in Marin City in the late ’50s. The property was designed by Aaron Greene, West Coast partner of Frank Lloyd Wright, embedding the same theory of design used in development of the Marin Civic Center, a national historical landmark.

In fact, Greene was the architect who oversaw the development of the Civic Center, during the same time as Golden Gate Village took form. Golden Gate Village is, in reality and design, the “sister” property to the Civic Center.

The deferral of maintenance of this public property was allowed to happen for over 10 years. This neglect of an historic property has been intentional, to create a case for demolition of a unique property.

Case in point, the county Board of Supervisors will raise $21 million to repair just the roof of the Civic Center. They have the ability to do the same for its “sister” property to cover the cost of all necessary maintenance, at less than the cost of a roof.

Mr. Jordan continues to ignore his obligation to communicate the interest of residents by failing to mention any aspect or even the existence of the resident plan in the quotes for this article.

This omission reflects a continual refusal to recognize and share the fact that the Golden Gate Village Resident Council has had a detailed plan for funding and executing deferred maintenance, while at the same time revitalizing the local economy supports for this working class community.

Lastly, the Marin City community is more diverse than any community in Marin and its housing density, by a factor of eight, is greater than our neighboring communities.

Our community is at maximum, “built-out” in accordance with our community plan. Preservation and renovation of the neighborhood that exists, versus “demolition by diffusion” if that happens with infill development of market rate units, is the only answer that we will accept as truly resident-led and community-centered.

Royce McLemore is  a leader of the Golden Gate Village Residents Council, a former board member of the Marin Housing Authority.

Marin City "Displacement Double Talk" and Full Meeting 08/17/2015

The Incredible Bread Machine Film (lessons in real world economics)

At time 20:00 there is a narrative on urban renewal which states the number of housing units destroyed are greater than the number replaced. This net loss of housing would of course create a housing shortage which would allow the justification of additional government intervention in housing. Government having created the problem allows government to step in and "solve" the problem.

This is exactly what will be happening with Marin City.  Good buildings will be destroyed and a community displaced.  Future residents will be "mixed income" i.e. gentrified and the needy families will be priced out of the community.

Marin City Residents talk about preserving Golden Gate Village June 22, 2015.

Marin City in the Cross Hairs of Massive Redevelopment

Marin City is just one of two Priority Development Areas in Marin.  Soon bulldozers and cranes will be coming for massive redevelopment and the construction of market rate housing.  The current residents of Golden Gate Village fear they will be displaced first from their community during construction and secondly from rent increases once the area becomes gentrified with market rate housing.  Here is a sample of recent community meetings concerning Redevelopment.

Marin City Fights Back! Marin city meeting about the PDA redevelopment

Here is the unedited version of the Marin City residents meetings to discuss the redevelopment of Golden Gate villages. Emotions were heated as residents fought for fairness.

I am reminded of the Vietnam era military expression, "You've got to destroy a village to save it".  

Marin city is perhaps the most deep rooted community of all in Marin.  It's residents go back generations to the WWII shipbuilding industry and the Deep South where many of the original workers came from.

The meeting begins with the consultant from EMG describing the millions of dollars of deferred maintenance and expected future capital costs.  His eighty page report is meant to lay the groundwork for the NEED of replacement housing.  (As an aside, the consultant had no idea what EMG stood for.  I think it means "Evil Money Grubbers".  He also referred to Marin City as "Marina City". Perhaps this is the new name planners have for the area just as "Hunters Point" in SF has been rechristened as "Hunters View" to attract new residents.)

Residents have pointed out that deferred maintenance has going on for decades.  Repair the buildings and leave us alone.  Please do not destroy this vibrant community that we love.

Lewis Jordan, Marin Housing Authority director fended off sharp criticism.  I was impressed with his ability to stay cool.  He came from Cabrini Green in Chicago that was dismantled in favor of smaller "smart growth" developments. Residents have reason to be concerned about the future of their community.

The future of public housing according to the facilitator is with "public-private partnerships" with companies like Bridge Housing that is the suitor for the Marinwood Plaza housing project.  They make money for their non profit by selling tax advantaged investments to Wall Street and huge management fees to run the facilities often taking 60% or more of the rents in "fees".  They also receive millions in public funds and donations to their non profit.  Nice work if you can get it.

The "Marina City PDA" is going to be a gold mine for consultants, developers, builders and politicians. Residents have every reason to be concerned.  

Planners and Politicians need to stop talking about "housing" and start talking about "community".  We shouldn't be destroying villages to save them.

Golden Gate Village Redevelopment Discussion on "Education"