FAQs

825 Drake Avenue has been approved for a 74-unit affordable apartment rental project. Pacific West Communities, in coordination with the County, is working on redesigning the project so that only 42 units remain at this location. This redesign is contingent on the approval of moving the remaining 32 units to a new site in the County. The project will include indoor accessible common space. The community areas will include a community room, flex rooms (multi-purpose rooms), fitness center, and bicycle storage. Laundry facilities will be located on each residential floor. An on-site resident manager will live within the project and provide assistance and management to the tenants and the building.

Area median income (AMI) is a key metric in affordable housing. AMI is defined as the midpoint
of a specific area’s income distribution and is calculated on an annual basis by the Department
of Housing and Urban Development (“HUD”). Tenants will have to meet or be below certain
income restrictions in order to be eligible to live in this project.

This project has different levels of affordability which are based on HUD’s annual calculations. Please note that 22 one-bedroom units and 3 two-bedroom units will be Section 8 units. This means these 25 units (33% of the project) will only pay approximately 30% of their available household income and the remainder will be subsidized by HUD. Below is a breakdown of affordability levels in this project.

The tenants will not be responsible to pay for water, heating, trash or sewer costs. The tenant will be responsible for any electric bills related to their unit for cooking and other electrical usage. However, they will receive a monthly credit towards their rent for the electrical costs of $36 for the one-bedrooms, $52 for the two-bedrooms, $68 for the three-bedrooms.

The project was approved through the process outlined in CA Senate Bill 35, which is a streamlined approval process put in place by the State of California to ensure more affordable housing gets built throughout the state. The project was approved on November 20, 2020 and was not required to have any public hearings for the land use approval.

In response to community feedback, 32 units are being moved from 825 Drake to another site in Mill Valley, leaving 42 units at 825 Drake.

Construction is anticipated to begin September 30, 2024.

It will take approximately 18-24 months to complete construction of this 42-unit apartment project.

Our development team is currently working on redesigning the site plan with the reduced unit count which looks to provide a 1 parking spot per unit ratio. We will provide an update when these plans are finalized.

While following all required Fair Housing laws, we plan to create a priority list for those residents in need of housing who are living in Marin City first and then prioritize Marin County residents next. We will work with the Marin Housing Authority and advertise locally prior to reaching out beyond these jurisdictions.  We will reach out to local entities, employers and the Housing Authority to make sure that we give preference to those living locally or those that work in Marin City or Marin County who are currently commuting into Marin County.

In its current condition, the partially developed site sheds water off into Drake Avenue during storm events and most likely adds to the existing problems and deficiencies of the Marin City infrastructure, especially towards the lower elevations. The State of California and Marin County in the past decade have made necessary regulatory changes to require new developments to capture, treat and divert stormwater runoff to storm drain pipes. Older developments within California did not have such requirements, which is one of the reasons many jurisdictions have flooding problems.

The project will include three separate locations on-site that will have drainage vegetated flow captured through bioswales. Bioswales are landscape features that collect polluted stormwater runoff, soak it into the ground, and filter out pollution. Bioswales are similar to rain gardens but are designed to capture much more runoff coming from larger areas of impervious surfaces like streets and parking lots. They also have more complicated design features such as layers of engineered soil and gravel, perforated pipe underdrains, and overflow structures to help handle runoff from bigger storms. Underground storm drain pipes will collect the treated stormwater runoff from the project bioswales and convey the runoff to two existing publicly maintained large drains currently in place below Drake Avenue for draining run-off.

Like most of Marin City, the site is within a high fire hazard severity zone, as determined by the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. This is also in a Wildland‐Urban Interface (WUI) zone. A WUI is the zone of transition between unoccupied land and human development. It is the line, area or zone where structures and other human development meet or intermingle with undeveloped wildland or vegetative fuels.

The California Building Code has additional requirements for any new construction within a WUI zone. To best summarize these requirements, the exteriors of the structure must be ignition-resistant and be able to resist the entry of flying embers and fire radiation during a wildfire. In addition, the project will feature internal fire mitigation measures, such as fire sprinklers and fire alarms. 

Due to the strict regulations of the California Building Code and the WUI requirements, our building will be extremely resistant to fires and therefore does not increase the risks of fire to other parts of Marin City.