Comment by mceoin | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mceoin | Hacker News Reader

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For those interested in the history of Bolinas, I recommend reading The Town That Fought To Save Itself.

For a broader history of how Marin is able to uniquely exist as parkland/farmland adjacent to a major metropolitan area, I recommend watching Rebels with a Cause.

For anyone interested in helping to preserve low-cost housing availability in Bolinas, I strongly encourage donating to the Bolinas Community Land Trust.

And as a final note on culture: for anyone considering purchasing in Bolinas, it's important to be mindful that it is important to actually _live_ there. There is a limited supply of housing, and vacation homes/rentals have a serious, negative, cultural impact on the town compared to full-time residents who will participate in the community over time.

https://www.amazon.com/Town-That-Fought-Save-Itself/dp/03944...

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2231578/

https://www.bolinaslandtrust.org/

I once visited and saw in a realtors window a water meter for sale for $300k dollars. No land. When I enquired why this water meter was so expensive the realtor said you can only connect a property to Bolinas water using an approved water meter, and this was the only one of its type available for sale. Crazy!

I agree about the importance of actually living there and contributing (_not_ monetarily) to the community. Several of my roommates in college grew up in Bolinas, and for them it was clearly a magical and a formative experience. But this is only achievable if you have a critical mass of intentional community builders residing there. Despite some downsides (only one of my friends has been able to continue living there in the long term) and trickling gentrification, Bolinas seems to have successfully clung on to that ethos for now.

Surely that ship has sailed. There are 40 properties in Bolinas listed on the Marin transient occupancy tax registry, and there are listings on Airbnb that aren't in the registry, too. It's one of the big issues with Prop 13. Half of the houses in Bolinas are owned by Dead Boomer Perpetual Family Trust. The heirs don't want to live there so they just throw the house up on Airbnb. The community gets nothing.

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