Marina housing developer tries to sweeten the pot for locals, but competition is fierce.

To see the dream of a neighborhood today at California Avenue south of Imjin Parkway in Marina, you have to have some imagination. It’s a mostly flat area where utilities and streets are currently being installed; houses will come next.

But lots of people, it turns out, have a lot of imagination. For Phase 2 of The Dunes, which will include 219 homes, there are already thousands of prospective buyers on an interest list. When the homes go on the market, would-be buyers get a chance to buy based on a lottery system – a name on a ping-pong ball that goes into a bingo cage where one is randomly selected.

Of those new homes, 70 will be duets – like duplexes, but each unit is sold individually – and 45 of those will be workforce housing, sold according to a local preference policy. That means that prospective buyers who live or work in Marina get an extra ball with their name on it. (This in-person lottery system will likely be adapted for Covid-19 to a virtual platform, but the concept remains the same.)

“Everybody can see [the process],” says Donald Hofer, vice president of community development with Shea Homes. “We want it to be as fair as possible.”

Shea Homes, via the entity Marina Community Partners, has been redeveloping Marina for years. It’s a chance for the city of roughly 23,000 people to develop over 1,200 new housing units, plus a new retail base on former Fort Ord lands. Shea has almost completed Phase 1 of The Dunes, which includes the shopping center and Marriott hotel, as well as 332 homes (17 of them workforce housing) and 108 low – and very-low-income apartments known as University Villages. Phase 2 has already begun with the removal of more than 70 blighted buildings; it will also include 140 affordable apartments.

Shea agreed to make 25 percent of residential units available below market rate. That can mean different things – affordable housing is deed-restricted. Workforce housing, however, like the 45 duets under construction, will not be. “Pricing for the workforce homes has been close to the price of market rate homes and burdening these homes with additional restrictions makes sales of the homes difficult,” according to a 2019 report by Marina City Manager Layne Long.

Market rate pricing for Phase 2 has yet to be announced, but the workforce units will be priced in the $700,000s. Eligible buyers earn a household income of $105,000 to $141,000.