Public housing plan sets up key questions

A resident-driven plan for the costly rehabilitation of Marin City's public housing complex has gotten a cautionary go-ahead from the county Housing Authority commissioners.

The board agreed to shelve its controversial $387 million plan and start work toward submitting the Golden Gate Village Resident Council's “green” proposal to the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development.

HUD underwrites tenants' rents and contributes to the upkeep of the apartments and the complex. Its OK is critical to the fate of any plan and the agency has already set a deadline for the housing authority to demonstrate that it is making significant progress toward starting construction and compliance with its residency rules.

The county had been moving ahead — in painfully slow fashion — with its proposal to rehabilitate and repair the 62-yearold Golden Gate Village with plans to remove and rebuild some of the buildings and construct another large privately owned 156-unit apartment building on neighboring open land. The new apartment complex would provide temporary housing for tenants displaced by the work on their units.

While endorsed several times and delivered to HUD as the county-approved plan, that proposal was repeatedly sidetracked by the lack of strong tenant support, legal tangles and a failure by the agency's leadership to build a strong consensus among Marin City tenants.

Instead, critics were able to take advantage of lengthy lulls in the agency's yearslong planning process to build logistical obstacles to its progress. They also were able to build strong local political support for their proposal, including the creation of a local team that has developed the “green” design for rehabilitating the 300-unit low-income housing complex, without having to build a new apartment complex.

Seemingly, the more authority leaders tried to ignore and discount the tenants' proposal, the more community backing it garnered.

During this time, the authority has also been criticized for letting the housing fall into disrepair. Even 10 years ago, the authority was considering a scenario that it would be cheaper to level and rebuild the complex than repair it.

Marin Supervisor Stephanie Moulton-Peters inherited a political “hot potato” when she took office last year. Since then, she has worked to bridge this gap.

“This is setting the policy direction in alignment with the residents' plan,” she said at last week's housing authority board meeting. MoultonPeters cautioned the plan still faces “a number of issues.”

Such as winning HUD's blessing.

Another big one: How is the authority going to come up with the money — estimated to cost $90 million — for the work.

Even more, where will tenants live while their apartments are being renovated?

The authority has previously — and repeatedly — promised that tenants would not be permanently displaced by the work.

The authority also has to fulfill HUD's requirement that it remedy “overhousing” violations, where many long-standing residents have been able to live in three-bedroom units even though they are emptynesters and no longer need the additional bedrooms for family members.

HUD estimates that nearly one-fourth of Golden Gate Village units are “overhoused.”

That means moving many senior residents to smaller units and out of those they have called home for decades.

The authority also intends to create a community advisory group to help tackle those significant issues.

Moulton-Peters faces the challenge of bringing together Golden Gate Village tenants, the Housing Authority and HUD to develop a consensus that addresses these issues.

Making sure the group is inclusive is critical. Moulton-Peters' cautious backing for the tenants' “green” plan is a significant first step in that direction. Convincing HUD that substantial progress is being made will be another; a giant one that is going to require tenants' support and stakeholders' willingness to work together.

This is an important community project — one that needs to be done right and needs to be done well, from start to finish.