A developer is seeking permission to build a 13-story, 189-apartment building in San Rafael that would be the tallest building in city history.
Monahan Pacific Corp. wants to place the building at 1230 Fifth Ave., a 0.65-acre site across from City Hall. The company would demolish the one-story commercial building sitting there now.
The city’s tallest building is an eight-story office center at 1000 Fourth St.
Monahan Pacific filed the application on Dec. 3. It intends to use state density bonus law to secure permission for 63 more apartments than it would otherwise be allowed.
The developer also plans to rely on state density bonus law to receive a waiver from the 60-foot height limit imposed by city zoning. The proposed apartment building would be nearly 139 feet tall with a rooftop swimming pool.
“The project is utilizing the state density bonus law by providing 15% very low-income units which results in a 50% density bonus,” Monahan Pacific wrote in its application.
In order to qualify for extra apartments, developers are required to price a certain percentage as “affordable.” The very-low-income apartments will be priced to be affordable, for example, for two-person households earning $78,350 a year or four-person households earning $97,900 a year.
However, only 19 of the apartments would be priced for very-low-income households. State law allows developers to calculate their percentage of affordable apartments prior to adding the bonus.
State density law also affects the amount of parking that is required. A traffic study for the project was prepared by Kimley-Horn and Associates.
“Since the project is located within a 0.5-mile radius of a major transit stop and the project is providing a minimum of 11 percent very low income housing units, the project qualifies for the state density bonus that allows for a minimum parking requirement of 0.5 parking spaces per unit,” the study says.
Under state law, the 157 parking spaces the developer is proposing exceeds the minimum requirement of 95.
In addition to the height waiver, the developer is also seeking 13 other waivers. They include waivers from requirements to step the building back once it reaches 35 feet high, numerous setback edicts and a bike parking requirement.
“The height and setback waivers are allowed under state density bonus laws to encourage more housing to be built,” Collin Monahan of Monahan Pacific. “This is because such little housing has been built in California over the last four decades.”
The state has mandated San Rafael to allow 3,220 more residences by 2031, Monahan said.
“Many of these homes are designated to be built in the downtown corridor, which was intentionally zoned for high density housing projects — to encourage vitality in the downtown and away from other lower density neighborhoods in outlying parts of San Rafael,” Monahan said. “In other words, this is exactly where the city has invited larger developments.”
The site is among those targeted for development in San Rafael’s most recent housing element.
Monahan said that given the high costs of construction, financing and city fees, the project requires a much higher density than the zoned height limit in order to be economically feasible.
San Rafael’s planning manager, Margaret Kavanaugh-Lynch, said the project will be reviewed by the city Planning Commission.
“The city of San Rafael will be able to use a discretionary entitlement process to review the project, using the objective design standards found in the Downtown Precise Plan,” Kavanaugh-Lynch said.
She added that the project will be processed under Senate Bill 330, limiting the number of hearings the city may hold on the project to five.
Several years ago, as state legislators were passing more laws stripping local jurisdictions of their authority to reject or even amend building applications, San Rafael, along with Marin County and many other local municipalities, developed form-based building codes as a final bulwark defending local control. The codes employed objective design and building standards — height, setbacks, lot coverage, percentage of open space, density and parking requirements.
Much time, money and effort went into developing the codes. So far, however, they have proved ineffective because developers are able to secure concessions and waivers using state density bonus law.
Kavanaugh-Lynch said it is too early to say whether the city would grant all of the waivers required by Monahan Pacific.
Monahan Pacific, based in San Rafael, has been involved with other sizable projects in the city in recent years, including the 140-room hotel at 1201 Fifth Ave. In 2023, the company secured approvals to build an 80-foot-tall building with 162 apartments at 1515 Fourth St. using state density bonus law. In 2024, however, the project shifted to a seniors’ complex of the same size, but with 155 independent and assisted-living dwellings, plus 28 secured memory-care rooms.
Brad Sears, who is restoring a Victorian from the 1880s on Fifth Avenue in San Rafael, opposed the project at 1515 Fourth St. and finds the proposal for 1230 Fifth Ave. no more palatable.
“This development is just plain too big,” Sears said in an email, adding that the plan for just 19 affordable apartments in a 13-story building is “ludicrous.”
Sears said he isn’t optimistic about city officials requiring the developer to modify the plans.
“I expect the council, if it ever gets to them, to give Monahan everything and more,” Sears wrote. “Some communities have the audacity to question state mandates and follow their own path, it takes values, courage and vision to maintain the character of a city.”
Jennifer Silva, chair of the Marin Environmental Housing Collaborative, which advocates for more local housing, said: “If we’re going to accommodate more people, it’s better to go up than to consume our open space. It’s better environmentally to build with more density than to sprawl.”
As for the fact that 169 of the apartments would be market rate, Silva said multifamily housing is still more affordable than single-family housing, which accounts for most of Marin’s residences.
