FAQs

Why do we need more housing? Our housing prices are creating a number of problems in Marin. It’s extremely hard to recruit and retain teachers and health care workers – and not just nurses, but doctors and dentists as well. In addition, our population in Marin is aging rapidly and we have very little accessible housing. We need housing for those no longer can or want to maintain single family homes in the hills.

How much funding will be available for the whole Bay Area? The total bond measure will provide $20 billion for the Bay Area.

How much funding will be available for Marin? The estimated funding for Marin is $700 million.

What projects will be funded? The specific projects funded will be determined by an Expenditure Plan. The Expenditure Plan will be created by a public process led by Marin County. You can find information on the creation of the plan at Marin Housing Bond.

How much will it cost me?  The estimated annual cost is $19/$100,000 of assessed value. The assessed value is the number that appears on your property tax bill. It is not your market value or a valuation used for refinancing a mortgage.

How long will bond payments last? The bonds are expected to be released issuances. Each bond issue will have a repayment period of 35 years. Overall, the current estimate is that it will be 53 years from the first payment to the last payment. The annual cost will start and end lower than the estimated average of $19/$100,000 and will be a little higher in the middle.

How affordable will the housing be? The bond must be used for deed-restricted affordable housing. However, the level of affordability is up to the people of Marin and will be determined via the expenditure plan. We can focus on housing for extremely low income people (30% of AMI¹) or workforce (such as 80% of AMI), or anywhere in between.

Why are we building affordable housing for people who make $100,000 – they can afford housing? Actually, in Marin, it is very difficult for someone who makes $100,000 to find housing. And, we can decide through the expenditure plan that we will focus on lower affordability levels.

How will the expenditure plan be created? The expenditure plan will be created by a public process which will be overseen by Marin County. There is a commission being created to oversee the process which will include stakeholders from various jurisdictions throughout Marin. More on the the requirements of the expenditure plan are here. Marin County has a website with dates of public meetings and a survey on the plan.

When will the expenditure plan be published? By law, it cannot be finalized until after the election.

Will more affordable housing be put in Marin City? This will depend on the expenditure plan, but we would have the ability to put in strong protections against further concentrating affordable housing in Marin City.

What will the affordable housing bond be used for? At least 52% of the bond proceeds must be used for housing production and at least 15% must be used for preservation. Marin gets to decide how the remainder is used, as long as it is used for deed restricted affordable housing.

Can the bonds be used for affordable home ownership? Yes, the bonds can be used for home ownership or rental.

Where will the affordable housing go? All Marin jurisdictions recently completed a process (referred to the Housing Element) for identifying where in their communities affordable housing can be accommodated. This process took into account transit corridors, environmental issues and the distribution of affordable housing. However, this process did not provide funding for this housing. This bond will help fill the gap.

Why haven’t we built affordable housing to date? Is it too expensive? Environmental constraints? The #1 reason that we haven’t built sufficient affordable housing is that the people of Marin have fought it. You can see this with the 3 year approval process for the affordable projejct in Mill Valley, or the fight over Mallard Point in Belvedere. However, despite the challenges in getting these projects approved, Marin attitudes are changing and state laws are making it easier to approve projects. Now, funding is becoming a barrier, and we need more funding to build.

What is the status of the project at Northgate? (or Novato? Or Mill Valley?) The best source for that information is the marinmehc.org website. We track the status of projects in Marin.

How much of our workforce commutes into Marin? Approximately 44,000 – 66,000 (depends on the data source) people commute into Marin daily.

What about the traffic? Our traffic problems are not caused by overpopulation. Our most severe traffic is our workforce coming in and out of Marin. Refusing to build housing makes traffic worse, not better.

We like Marin like this! We don’t want to build on our open space! There is plenty of room to build in Marin without touching our open space, or materially impacting our current environment.

Is there an exemption in the bond for disabled and/or the elderly? No, everyone pays their share, and it’s based on assessed property tax value, so it is adjusted some on ability to pay.

Will the money for the bond be coming from Federal or State? This is a regional bond. It is paid for and distributed to the residents of the 9-county Bay Area.

How will we provide water for this housing? The Marin Municipal Water District has planned for the addition of these new homes. New housing requires very little water. New appliances are far more efficient than the appliances in houses built in the 60’s and 70’s, when most houses in Marin were built. And most residential water is used for landscaping, which now has restrictions for new housing production. Overall, agriculture uses more water than residential.

If the bond measure passes, will affordable projects become waylaid in their approval / planning process? The state has passed a number of laws geared to speed the approval of affordable housing projects. Some projects in Marin County may now be approved without a formal hearing, and others, like 4th and Grand in Novato, can be approved after just one hearing. This issue has become much better in the past couple of years, but funding remains a large issue.

How many people live in Marin today? How many people lived in Marin in 1973? Today we have a population of 260,000 and in 1973 we had a population of 240,000.

How many people did the 1973 Marin General Plan estimate would live here in 2023? 800,000. We actually planned for a much larger population.

1. AMI is Area Median Income. It is used to determine who qualifies for affordable housing. ↩︎