San Rafael is offering up a city-owned property near Highway 101 for affordable housing development, a significant move in one of the wealthiest and most housing-constrained counties in the country.
The site, at 350 Merrydale Road and 3833 Redwood Highway in north San Rafael, sits close to the Marin Civic Center SMART rail station, making it a candidate for the kind of transit-oriented affordable development that state officials have been pushing Marin County to produce. The city posted a request for proposals on Feb. 19, with developer responses due May 1.
The backdrop is California's mounting pressure on cities to expand housing supply. Under the state's current Regional Housing Needs Allocation cycle, which runs through 2031, San Rafael must plan for roughly 3,220 new housing units, a roughly fivefold increase over the previous cycle, with a significant share required to be affordable to lower-income households. Cities that fall short risk losing local control over project approvals under a provision known as the "builder's remedy."
State law also shapes how this particular site can be used. California's Surplus Land Act, strengthened in 2019, requires cities to give affordable housing developers priority access when disposing of public land, which is precisely what San Rafael is doing here.
Marin County has long drawn scrutiny for its resistance to dense and affordable housing. Federal investigators examined the county's exclusionary housing patterns in the 2010s, and the region has been repeatedly criticized in state and national coverage as one of California's least productive areas for affordable housing relative to its wealth, where median home values exceed $1.3 million. San Rafael, the county's largest city and most diverse community, has generally been more willing to pursue affordable projects than its neighbors, but even here proposals routinely face neighborhood opposition.
The Merrydale and Redwood Highway corridor runs through a more suburban, single-family part of north San Rafael, which makes this offering politically notable. Mayor Kate Colin and the City Council have publicly committed to hitting the city's RHNA targets.
Developers have until May 1 to submit proposals. What gets built, and when, will depend on who responds and what the city accepts.
