A vacant hillside property overlooking U.S. Highway 101 in San Rafael is now on track for nearly 200 apartments, all of them income-restricted, after a formal planning application landed at City Hall on August 28. The seven-story building at 1100 Los Gamos Drive would rise 87 feet and include 190 affordable units for extremely low-income, very low-income, and low-income households, a dramatic reworking of a site that was originally approved for a much smaller share of low-cost housing.
The filing, reported by San Francisco YIMBY, shows Community Development Partners submitted a pre-application for the site on July 20 before following up with the formal application in late August, according to the City of San Rafael. The project would include 30 one-bedroom units, 63 two-bedroom units, 84 three-bedroom units, 15 four-bedroom units, and two units set aside for on-site property managers, per the same account. Design architecture is being handled by KTGY, while landscape work falls to Costa Mesa-based Sitescapes Inc., the outlet reports.
A Density Bonus Trades Height For Affordability
The project leans on California's State Density Bonus Law to secure concessions on height, unit count, and parking that would otherwise exceed local limits, the city notes in its own project description. The current plan totals 192 units and is an 87-foot structure with a 91,500-square-foot, two-story podium garage holding parking for 230 vehicles and 98 bicycles, according to San Francisco YIMBY. The current application, filed by Seagull Prime Fund through an entity called County Strategic Fund 1 LLC, covers housing and residential parking only — a narrower scope than the mixed-use vision the site once carried.
That earlier vision was considerably different. When the original “Neighborhood at Los Gamos” master plan was approved by San Rafael in 2022, it envisioned 192 units across six structures designed by Colin Russell Architects, alongside a 5,600-square-foot public market and cafe and a 5,000-square-foot “Village Commons” community center, according to the City of San Rafael. Only 20 of those units were designated affordable. Seagull Prime Fund, which filed its initial plans around 2020, is listed as the owner, while Community Development Partners is the applicant for the fully affordable complex, which would trade the promised market and community space for 190 deed-restricted units, up from 20.
Site Amenities And Freeway Access
Despite dropping the retail and community-center elements, the new design still includes shared amenity space: an open courtyard on the ground floor, two rear podium-top decks, a clubroom overlooking the courtyard, and a fitness center, San Francisco YIMBY reports. The property has direct vehicular access to U.S. Highway 101 without passing through residential neighborhoods and sits within 0.4 miles of transit bus pads, according to city planning documents tied to the site's 2021 CEQA review. Future residents would also be just over half a mile from a grocery store-anchored shopping center, with the Northgate Shopping Mall sitting slightly farther away, per the outlet's reporting.
Merlone Geier Partners' redevelopment of Northgate Shopping Mall, approved in 2024, is expected to eventually bring more than 1,000 housing units along with new retail and public open space, and its Town Square component was under construction as of April, San Francisco YIMBY notes. That mall redevelopment is also where organic grocer Good Earth plans to open a 21,300-square-foot supermarket in spring 2027, giving the Terra Linda corridor a fresh grocery anchor even as the Los Gamos site's own on-site market plan gets shelved. No construction timeline or cost estimate for the Los Gamos project has been publicly shared.
Part Of A Citywide Affordable Housing Surge
The Los Gamos filing isn't an isolated case. San Rafael published a notice on September 3 confirming it is simultaneously reviewing two major 100% affordable proposals: the 190-unit Los Gamos project and a 124-unit development at 88 Vivian Street, according to the city. Both arrive as San Rafael works to satisfy its state-mandated 6th Cycle Regional Housing Needs Allocation, which requires the city to plan for 3,220 new housing units between 2023 and 2031, including 1,349 reserved for low- and very-low-income households.
The pace of approvals citywide has shifted sharply as those state mandates have taken hold. San Rafael's housing approvals jumped from an average of 188 units annually between 2018 and 2023 to roughly 1,403 units per year after 2024, according to Ascend Real Estate. Other large projects moving through the pipeline include an eight-story, 331-unit apartment complex that developer Mill Creek Residential has proposed for the site of the downtown Safeway at 700 B Street, which Hoodline detailed in July, while Hoodline also covered a smaller 12-unit project earlier this month.
Local Ownership Behind The Land
Seagull Prime Fund, listed as the property owner and led by San Rafael resident Chris Hart since its 2019 founding, also describes “The Residences at 4th and Grand,” a 35-unit downtown San Rafael apartment project, on its website, according to the Seagull Prime Real Estate Fund. That existing local footprint underscores how the Los Gamos redesign fits into a broader pattern of San Rafael landowners reworking stalled or underbuilt sites into fully affordable developments under state density rules.
For now, the 1100 Los Gamos Drive proposal remains in the formal review stage, with no construction start date or public cost figure attached. Whether the city ultimately signs off on the 87-foot height and reduced parking concessions will shape how many of San Rafael's 1,349 low-income RHNA units come from this one hillside parcel near the freeway.
