Novato schools opt into new Marin workforce housing coalition

Published in Marin Independent Journal
By Keri Brenner August 21, 2024

In its fifth try since 2008 to develop educator workforce housing, the Novato Unified School District is joining a regional initiative to create more housing.

The district has joined College of Marin and Marin County Office of Education to form the Marin County Housing Coalition, said Derek Knell, district director of staff housing.

“The Novato Unified School District is leading the way for other districts interested in developing surplus school property,” said Ken Lippi, senior deputy superintendent at the county education office.

“Their model of careful planning and study is laying a strong foundation for future decisions about their surplus school sites,” Lippi said. “They are taking the idea of workforce housing for school staff beyond discussion and elevating it to something tangible and real.”

Lippi is a point person on the 135-unit, $123 million Oak Hills Apartment workforce housing project underway near San Quentin.

“We know from past surveys that there are at least 1,400 school employees who would be interested in affordable housing options,” Lippi said. “That is why the Oak Hills Apartments project is so important to Marin. It will be the first project of its type in Marin in over 50 years, and hopefully it will be the catalyst for more projects in the future.”

At Tuesday’s Novato school board meeting, trustees voted unanimously to accept a feasibility study prepared by their consultant on the use of five district surplus sites for staff housing. The consultant, Chris White of Brookwood Partners, outlined possibilities for sites, along with suggestions for financing.

“This ends the stage of the feasibility study and moves us into the third stage, development,” Knell said of Tuesday’s actions by trustees.  “We’re hoping to do the development stage in one year, but it could take up to three years, with all the permits and entitlements.”

The sites being explored are: Meadow Annex, a 3.7-acre site at 5520 Nave Drive in southern Novato; Hill Education, a 5.6-acre site at 720 Diablo Ave.; Hamilton, an 8.8-acre at 1125 C. St. and 930-940 C St.

Also, San Andreas, a 26-acre site at 5 San Andreas Drive in the San Marin area in northern Novato; and the NUSD district office, two parcels of 1.5 acres and 0.4 acres at 1015 Seventh St. The larger parcel is district-owned; the smaller one is city-owned.

“For the development stage, we’re going to come back with a recommendation on which properties to develop and how to finance them,” Knell said. He said he expects to have a recommendation to present to Novato trustees in the first quarter of 2025.

Knell said the state Department of Education is also looking into a plan to develop education workforce housing at school districts across the state. Tony Thurmond, state superintendent of public instruction, said last week there could be up to 75,000 acres of unused surplus properties available for housing at school districts statewide.

Knell said the state is seeing the value of the Novato approach in hiring a full-time director of staff housing to manage the use of surplus properties. The approach works better than having an education administrator trying to navigate the intense complexities of housing development, as the Novato district did in the past unsuccessful four attempts, Knell said.

“The primary focus of educators is on education, not land use,” Knell said. Also, community members tend to trust that officials working for their local schools have the intention to serve the community and the schools, rather than making a profit.

“The community gets to negotiate with the school district — we’re not going to over-develop any site, for example,” Knell said. The schools are interested in housing for the purpose of attracting and retaining staff, he said.

“This effort isn’t just about building housing,” he said. “It’s about improving the consistency and quality of our community’s public education.”

At College of Marin, trustees were presented this week with a staff report on the new housing coalition from college President Jonathan Eldridge.

Eldridge, who is leading the formation of the coalition, told trustees he expects to send out a survey to all Marin school districts to see if others are interested in getting involved.

“Broadly speaking, College of Marin believes this is a more collective approach to what is a collective problem, and that we can be more effective in attempting to solve it if we join forces,” Nicole Cruz, COM’s communications director, said in an email.

“The thought is that by bringing a group together as a coalition we can better leverage properties across the county that are currently unused or underutilized to create educator housing,” she said.

A handful of local leaders voiced appreciation for Novato’s efforts at the meeting Tuesday.

“We are so excited to see that Novato Unified School District — the leadership, the board, the community — is rallying around,” said Mo de Nieva-Marsh, a San Rafael City Schools trustee.

“It’s really exciting to witness the momentum with the Novato schools workforce housing development and the Marin County Office of Education’s Oak Hills project,” she added.

“Hopefully the momentum and witnessing it will build momentum for other school districts,” de Nieva-Marsh said. “All eyes are on Novato.”

Novato schools pursue workforce housing to offset staff woes

Published in Marin Independent Journal
Keri Brenner April 16, 2024

Novato school officials are looking to lower-cost workforce housing to help fill future staff vacancies.

Members of the district’s workforce housing advisory committee meeting met Monday to discuss local and regional school district workforce housing efforts.

Chris White, principal of Oakland-based consulting firm Brookwood Partners, told the advisory committee that a 2022 workforce housing project at the Jefferson Union High School District in Daly City eliminated staff vacancies.

“We leased up the property in a couple months,” White said. “The school district had no job vacancies for the 2022-23 school year.”

Committee members toured the project, at 705 Serramonte Blvd. in Daly City, on March 21. It occupies 4.5 acres of a 22-acre former district high school site.

Brookwood Partners received approval from Daly City to develop the remaining 17.5 acres with market-rate and affordable housing for the public, White said.

While the Jefferson Union workforce housing project was financed by a district general obligation bond and a loan, the new market-rate and affordable housing developments would be done with long-term ground leases, providing ongoing revenue to the Jefferson Union district, he said.

“This is the new creative way that school districts are looking at handling their under-utilized and surplus properties,” White said.

“It’s often by necessity, given the difficulty that districts are having in retaining teachers and staff to meet their educational missions, as well as the housing crisis all over California,” he said.

White and Brookwood Partners principal Alan Katz are on a not-to-exceed $135,000 contract with Novato Unified to produce a feasibility study to determine which district-owned properties have the potential for workforce housing development.

The study is expected to be presented to the board of trustees on June 25. The trustees could vote to approve the feasibility study at their Aug. 6 meeting.

If the district moves forward on a site this fall, the actual project could take five to eight years to complete, said Derek Knell, staff housing development director for the Novato Unified School District.

Knell said the district has nearly completed a new staff survey asking employees about their housing needs, income restrictions and commuting situations to gauge their interest in a potential workforce housing project.

“We have close to 30% of our workforce expected to retire in the next five years,” said Knell. “It’s going to be very difficult to bring in young people to come to work for us, given the cost of living here.”

The survey, which closes April 30, is scheduled for review at the next advisory committee meeting at 5:30 p.m. May 13.

Eric Lucan, who represents Novato on the Marin Board of Supervisors, said he stopped by the committee to listen and learn about the project.

”We know that we’re in a housing crisis in Marin and throughout the state,” Lucan said after the meeting. “I think this is a really innovative option of looking at how do we help to address the housing crisis, but specifically for our teachers, right here in Novato.”

Lucan added he wanted “to be part of the process” in the event some funds became available for Novato in the future.

A regional housing bond measure is on the ballot in November through the Bay Area Housing Finance Authority, for example, he said. Or a future allocation from the Marin County Housing Trust Fund might become a possibility.

“Being in on the early ground floor and hearing and learning would help me make good policy when it comes to distributing either our county housing trust fund or BAFHA dollars, or other money that might be available to partner with housing projects in the county,” Lucan said.

The Novato Unified workforce housing plan is the second major education-based project to be announced in Marin.

Oak HIll Apartments near San Quentin State Prison is moving forward after an environmental impact report was certified at the end of last year, said Ken Lippi, senior deputy superintendent at the Marin County Office of Education.

“Currently, pre-construction decisions are being readied for contractor and engineering services,” Lippi said this week.

Lippi said construction on the 135-unit, $123 million project was set to begin in early 2025.

Novato school district picks workforce housing consultant

Marin Independent Journal
Keri Brenner
March 16, 2024

The Novato Unified School District has selected an Oakland real estate development firm as a consultant for its workforce housing program.

A district committee chose Brookwood Partners, which has completed similar projects at other Bay Area school districts, from a group of potential candidates. The committee was composed of Derek Knell, the staff housing development director; Tracy Smith, the superintendent; Joshua Braff, the chief financial officer; attorney James Traber; and Leslie Benjamin, the communications director.

“Brookwood Partners demonstrated extensive practical development experience on various projects, including the workforce housing project recently completed by Jefferson Union High School District,” Knell told trustees at a board meeting on March 5. “After careful consideration, the district staff believes Brookwood Partners would be the best fit for the district.”

Brookwood Partners’ proposed contract, including financial terms and scope of work, is pending approval by the trustees. It will be presented at a board meeting on March 19, Knell said.

Chris White, a principal of Brookwood Partners, told trustees his firm would plan to develop a feasibility study for a below-market or subsidized housing development in Novato to attract and retain teachers and other staff who could not otherwise afford to live in Marin.

White said he and his colleagues would produce the feasibility study over three months. Their work would include a site analysis of all available surplus or underutilized district-owned land, a survey of employees who might be interested in such a housing opportunity and a review of Novato’s pending housing plans.

“All those elements will give us an idea of the cost of the project and some budget projections,” White told trustees.

If the contract is approved, the company would arrange a tour of its latest project, in Daly City, for members of Novato’s workforce housing advisory committee. The 122-residence development in the Jefferson Union High School District was completed last year, White said.

“It was fully leased in three months and now has a waitlist,” he said. He said the project was “more dense” than what might be envisioned for Novato, but the goal of attracting and retaining staff was the same.

“The district had no new job openings at the beginning of the school year,” White said. “All signs point to the teachers and staff who are living there all being very happy.”

Other recent projects by the firm include a 60-residence development in Half Moon Bay for the Cabrillo Unified School District, and a 70-residence project for the Pacifica School District.

Trustees said they wanted to make sure that Brookwood Partners had access to all relevant resources in Novato, such as the Rotary Club of Novato, which runs its own affordable home program. Also, the firm needed to be steeped in the Novato culture, trustees said.

“Novato is very close-knit,” trustee Ross Millerick said. “We’re like a small town.”

The school district “depends on the support of our community,” Millerick said. “You need to be very careful to be in step with the community.”

The next meeting of the district’s workforce housing advisory committee is April 15.

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