A&C Ventures revives downtown Tiburon housing plan with 127 units
Downtown landlord A&C Ventures has revived its plan to build housing on three Tiburon Boulevard properties, now proposing 127 rental units with 20 reserved for lower-income tenants.
The company announced Oct. 22 that it had submitted two preliminary applications to the town for the same three sites it targeted nearly two years ago: the old Bank of America and Shark’s Deli sites and the parking lot next to Town Hall.
The residential-only plan, from the Sonoma-based company, which does business locally as ACV Argo Tiburon LP, and San Diego-based developer Naturally Affordable Housing, would put 77 units on the old bank site and its parking lot at 1601 Tiburon Blvd. and 4 Beach Road; 19 across Tiburon Boulevard at 1600 Tiburon Blvd.; and 31 on the lot next to Town Hall at 1525 Tiburon Blvd.
It is the company’s second try. A&C Ventures filed a preliminary application for 120 units in December 2024 but did not follow it with a formal application by the June 2025 deadline. The new plan raises the number of lower-income units to 20, up from eight, and the parking to 197 spaces, up from 163.
Tiburon’s housing element, the state-required plan for meeting its share of regional housing need, counts on the same four parcels for 79 units, 64 of them for lower-income households. A&C’s plan would build 48 more units than that projection but 44 fewer for lower incomes, 36 of them in the very-low-income category.
Under state no-net-loss law, if Tiburon approves a project with fewer units in an income category than its housing element projected for a parcel, it must make written findings on whether its remaining sites can still meet its share of the regional need. That share includes 193 very-low-income and 110 low-income units in the 2023-2031 housing cycle. If the remaining sites fall short, the town has 180 days to identify and make available new ones. The law bars the town from denying a project on that basis.
Robert Brown, A&C Ventures’ senior vice president of real estate, said in an Oct. 22 news release, provided exclusively to The Ark, that the company wants to create opportunities for the local workforce “to live closer to where they work.”
“We have worked diligently with town staff, our development partners at Naturally Affordable Housing and TCA Architects to bring forward a balanced plan,” Brown said, “and we look forward to continuing this collaborative process with the town of Tiburon and our neighbors as we move through formal development review.”
“These homes will serve the people who make the Tiburon community work every day. The teachers who educate children. The nurses who care for families. The firefighters and police officers who keep residents safe,” said David Iwashita, co-founder of Naturally Affordable Housing.
Those workers, he said, “too often find themselves priced out of the very neighborhoods they serve.”
A&C Ventures bought the late Barbara Zelinsky Abrams’ commercial Tiburon portfolio in 2012. Its properties include the buildings housing Bungalow Kitchen, Caffe Acri, Malibu Farm and Cinelounge, as well as the Maritime Center across from the downtown fire station and the Golden Gate Ferry terminal.
What comes next
The design is preliminary, said company spokesperson Rob Poetsch. Under Senate Bill 330, the Housing Crisis Act of 2019, a preliminary application locks in fees and development standards as long as the developer files a formal application within 180 days.
Once one is filed, the town has 30 days to review it for completeness, and the developer then has another 90 days to supply anything missing before public hearings are scheduled.
Belvedere’s 40-unit Mallard Pointe redevelopment took a similar path under SB 330 and state density-bonus law. Its preliminary application was followed by community meetings and public study sessions before the formal application was filed, and the project still drew significant opposition and went through several major revisions before it was approved. Whether A&C’s proposal will follow a similar process is not yet known.
Under SB 330, Tiburon can apply only objective design and development standards. A project that meets the standards in the town’s general plan and zoning ordinance must be approved unless Tiburon can “make significant, written findings that there would be a specific, adverse impact to the public health or safety and this impact cannot be mitigated,” according to a Jan. 24, 2025, town newsletter issued after A&C’s first proposal.
The project could face no more than five public hearings, counting reviews by the Design Review Board, Planning Commission and Town Council and any appeals.
State density-bonus law requires the affordable units to stay rent-restricted for at least 55 years. Tiburon’s municipal code requires the deed restriction to last “in perpetuity or for the longest term possible,” and the town’s inclusionary rules require affordable units to be comparable in size and interior amenities to market-rate units and indistinguishable in appearance, according to the housing element.
Under 2026 federal income limits, which treat Marin, San Francisco and San Mateo counties as one metro area, a household qualifies as very low income at up to $73,550 a year for one person or $105,050 for four, and as low income at up to $117,700 or $168,100. The area’s median family income is $200,800.
Density and waivers
The three sites are split into two concurrent applications, which the company said followed “procedural guidance from the town.” The bank and deli sites, across Tiburon Boulevard from each other, form one application, and the lot next to Town Hall is the other. Together they would hold 37 studios, 64 one-bedrooms and 26 two-bedrooms on 2.69 acres.
The sites are in the town’s mixed-use zone, a downtown district the town created in 2023 to carry out its housing element. It allows 30-35 units an acre, or about 94 units across the three sites.
By reserving 15% of each site’s base units for low incomes and 5% for very low incomes, the company qualifies for state density bonuses of 29% to 36%, according to the plans. The plans propose 46 to 48 units an acre, against the zone’s maximum of 35.
The owners of the bank site and the Town Hall lot told the town in February 2022 that the previous limit, 20.7 units an acre, was too low to justify building, according to the housing element. The town raised the limit to 30-35 when it created the mixed-use zone.
Tiburon’s inclusionary rules require projects of more than 12 units to make 20% of them affordable, including at least 5% for very-low- or low-income households, or to pay an in-lieu fee of $405,000 for each required unit not built, according to the housing element. A&C’s 20 units equal roughly 21% of the sites’ base density but about 16% of the 127 units, and how the town will count them is not yet known.
Through waivers and concessions, the application seeks to skip the retail component and the zone’s massing and façade setbacks, reduce the required private open space, calculate floor-area ratio under residential rules and exceed the zone’s three-story, 45-foot height limit, citing the floodplain.
The design calls for front-facing landscaped courtyards, residential roof decks, articulated rooflines and natural composite and wood-toned materials, according to the news release.
Wini Wang, associate principal and studio director at TCA Architects, which designed the project, said her firm studied downtown Tiburon’s existing architecture and town development standards “because we wanted these homes to look like they’ve always belonged here.”
“What came out of that is a modern, coastal look, with rooflines and natural materials that fit the waterfront and the neighborhood,” Wang said.
Each building would have puzzle-lift parking inside its footprint, electric-vehicle charging stations, indoor bicycle-storage rooms and private, off-street loading bays for passengers and deliveries, according to the news release. Ground floors would sit at elevations of 12 to 12.6 feet, above the sites’ 10-foot base flood elevation. All three sites are in a flood hazard area and the wildland-urban interface, according to the housing element.
Site by site
The bank site would get a three-story building with a main roofline of about 43 feet, parapets up to about 51 feet and an elevator housing at 54 feet, on a 53,368-square-foot footprint, according to plans provided to The Ark. Its 77 units would include 24 studios, 39 one-bedrooms and 14 two-bedrooms, with three studios, six one-bedrooms and three two-bedrooms deed-restricted for lower incomes. Its garage would hold 143 spaces, 138 of them on puzzle lifts and five accessible, where the plans list 91 as required.
The deli site would get a four-story building with a main roofline of about 53 feet, parapets up to about 61 feet and an elevator housing at 64 feet, on a 12,104-square-foot footprint. Its 19 units would include four studios, six one-bedrooms and nine two-bedrooms, with one of each deed-restricted for lower incomes. Its garage would hold 19 spaces, nine fewer than the 28 the plans list as required: 16 on puzzle lifts, two standard and one accessible.
The Town Hall lot would also get a four-story building with a main roofline of about 53 feet, parapets up to about 61 feet and an elevator housing at 64 feet, on a 16,233-square-foot footprint. Its 31 units would include nine studios, 19 one-bedrooms and three two-bedrooms, with one studio, three one-bedrooms and one two-bedroom deed-restricted. Its garage would hold 35 spaces, one more than required: 30 on puzzle lifts, two standard and three accessible.
Reach Tiburon reporter Francisco Martinez at 415-944-4634.