The San Francisco Bay Area's Vacant Homes of Mystery

In Novato, California almost 300 beautiful homes are sitting vacant while the Sam Francisco Bay Area region continues to experience a major housing shortage which is creating record-breaking high housing costs, widespread gentrification and displacement and instability for renters. The homes are on the site of the former Hamilton Army Airfield an Air Force base that was inactivated in 1973 and closed in 1988. The empty homes are owned by the U.S. Coast Guard and the plans for the buildings appear to be something of a secret.

Per Wikipedia "...The U.S. Coast Guard currently owns 282 Spanish style duplexes and homes; these units were part of the old Hamilton Air Force Base housing. Due to the buildings' age, there is a need for maintenance. Many issues experienced with older homes are experienced by Coast Guard tenants, such as insufficient wiring and water damage... .... most of the buildings were complete by late 1934. Captain Howard B. Nurse ...supervised the design and construction. He departed from traditional base design by rendering the buildings in the Spanish Eclectic (Spanish Revival) style then popular in California. Churrigueresque elements adorn the more important buildings. Reinforced concrete walls were covered in stucco to appear similar to earlier California missions; mission tile roofs topped the buildings. Recessed porches, cantilevered balconies, polychrome tile bands and wrought iron grillework complement the designs...."

I recently visited Hamilton Field and was shocked to see dozens of vacant housing units, many of them large and/or luxurious. I talked to one of the few remaining residents who indicated that they will be leaving soon and that the other residents were already removed. That raised several questions that I hoped to include in this article. Unfortunately, the Coast Guard's public information officers that I spoke with knew nothing about the plans for the housing and they never got back to me with additional information.

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