A developer that let a deadline lapse on its downtown Tiburon housing plan is back with a bigger ask: 127 rental units spread across three sites near Town Hall, the old Bank of America building and the former Shark's Deli. The company behind the proposal, doing business locally as ACV Argo Tiburon, has reserved 20 units for lower-income tenants, up from the eight it floated in an earlier version of the plan, and increased total parking to 197 spaces from 163.
A Plan That Stalled, Then Came Back Bigger
A&C Ventures first filed a preliminary application for 120 units at the same three downtown parcels, a filing reported by The Ark and by the Marin Independent Journal. That earlier concept split 82 units at the Beach Road corner, 12 at the former deli site and 26 into the Town Hall lot, with 112 market-rate units and eight set aside for very-low-income households. The Ark reported the filing was made Dec. 30 with a 180-day freeze expiring June 28, while the Independent Journal reported the filing date as Dec. 27 with a final-application deadline of June 25 — accounts that conflict on the exact dates. Either way, the developer missed that original deadline for a formal application.
Now the company has split the project into two concurrent applications covering the same three properties: the former Bank of America site, the former Shark's Deli site and the parking lot next to Town Hall. The revised total calls for 77 units at 1601 Tiburon Blvd. and 4 Beach Road, 19 units at 1600 Tiburon Blvd. and 31 units at 1525 Tiburon Blvd. — 127 units total.
Why The Developer Says It's Pushing Forward
In an Oct. 22 news release, A&C Ventures representative Robert Brown said the company wants local workers to live closer to where they work. Brown said the firm worked with town staff, San Diego-based developer Naturally Affordable Housing and TCA Architects on the plan, and expects continued collaboration with the town and neighbors. David Iwashita, also speaking for the project, said the homes would serve teachers, nurses, firefighters and police officers, adding that workers are often priced out of the neighborhoods they serve. Architect Wini Wang said the design sought to fit into downtown Tiburon, describing it as modern coastal with rooflines and natural materials suited to the waterfront and the surrounding neighborhood. Company spokesperson Rob Poetsch cautioned that the design is still preliminary.
How The Numbers Stack Up Against The Town's Own Plan
Tiburon's own housing element, the document the town submitted to the state housing department after a unanimous council vote reported by the Independent Journal, projected a combined realistic capacity of just 79 units on these same parcels — 41 fewer than the earlier 120-unit pitch, and now 48 fewer than the revised 127-unit proposal. On the affordability side, the housing element projected 64 units for lower-income households on the same four parcels; the new plan's 20 lower-income units fall short of that figure by 44, with 36 of the shortfall in the very-low-income category.
The sites sit in a neighborhood commercial district that allows 30 to 35 units per acre, with a 94-unit maximum based on the earlier 2.86-acre site area. Tiburon's inclusionary housing rules require projects with at least 12 units to make 20% of units affordable, including at least 5% for very-low-income households; affordable units must be comparable in size and interior amenities to market-rate units and indistinguishable in appearance, and deed-restricted in perpetuity or for the longest term possible. State density-bonus law separately requires affordable units to stay rent-restricted for at least 55 years.
What SB 330 Means For The Approval Process
The project is moving under Senate Bill 330, the state law that locks in fees and development standards once a preliminary application is filed, provided a formal application follows within 180 days. Under SB 330, Tiburon may apply only objective design and development standards to the project, and must approve it if it meets general-plan and zoning standards unless the town makes specific written findings of unmitigable adverse impacts to public health or safety. The town has 30 days to review a formal application for completeness, and the developer then has 90 days to supply any missing materials. The law also limits the proposal to no more than five public hearings. In its earlier preliminary application, A&C Ventures sought waivers and concessions to omit ground-floor retail, relax setbacks, reduce private open space and exceed the zone's standard height limits.
The earlier proposal took floodplain considerations into account. The revised proposal calls for 31 homes at the Town Hall lot, 19 at the former deli site and 77 at the former bank site.
Parking Counts And State Housing Obligations
The plans also feature front-facing landscaped courtyards, residential roof decks and natural composite and wood-toned materials.
If Tiburon were to approve fewer units in a given income category than its housing element projected, state law requires the town to make written findings that its remaining sites can still meet regional housing needs — and if those sites fall short, the town would have 180 days to identify and make new sites available. A separate state no-net-loss law bars Tiburon from denying the project on the basis of that remaining-sites finding alone. The town's broader housing element requires it to permit at least 639 new residences by 2031, including 193 very-low-income and 110 low-income units in the current cycle, according to figures reported by the Independent Journal.
A Familiar Pattern Across Marin
A&C Ventures is a Sonoma-based company doing local business as ACV Argo Tiburon LP; it bought the late Barbara Zelinsky Abrams' commercial Tiburon portfolio in 2012, a holding that includes buildings housing Bungalow Kitchen, Caffe Acri, Malibu Farm and CineLounge, as well as the Maritime Center across from the downtown fire station and Golden Gate Ferry terminal. Nearby, Belvedere's 40-unit Mallard Pointe redevelopment followed a similar path under SB 330 and state density-bonus laws, moving through community meetings and revisions before approval, per The Ark's reporting. Elsewhere in the county, Sausalito voters approved a multi-site housing overlay in November 2025 with more than 75% support, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, and Bayspring Development Partners has since filed a preliminary application for a 294-unit project at 1 Harbor Drive, with 46 units set aside for very-low-, low- and moderate-income households — a notable jump for a town that permitted just 58 units total between 2015 and 2022. In San Rafael, a Mill Creek Residential proposal at 700 B Street would bring 331 units downtown, 28 of them deed-restricted as affordable, according to SFYIMBY.
