By Dick Platkin : citywatchla – excerpt

PLANNING WATCH – Are your lying eyes still deceiving you? Do you see vacancy signs on unrented apartments and houses in your neighborhood, yet you are repeatedly told that Los Angeles has so much homelessness and overcrowding because of a housing shortage? No, your eyes are not deceiving you; those vacancy signs are for real, and the claims of a general housing shortage are fabricated. They are a ruse because the homeless and overcrowded do not have enough money to rent or buy vacant apartments or houses. Furthermore, once the Trump II tariffs take effect, the national and local housing crises will get even worse.

These deliberate deceptions about the worsening housing crises are on full display in Sacramento, in the state Legislature. The latest draft housing bill, Senate Bill 79, is another Senator Scott Wiener scheme to deregulate California’s housing market. If adopted, Senate Bill 79 would:

• Permit developers to build seven (7) story tall apartment buildings up to a half-mile from high-frequency bus stops, train stations, and ferry terminals.
• Transfer land use authority from cities and counties to transit agencies.
• Allow ministerial (not discretionary) approval of all SB79 projects. In other words, SB 79 projects will not have any public hearings or approval votes by local officials.
• Prosecute cities that deny a SB 79 project based on CEQA, the California Environmental Quality Act
• NOT apply CEQA to SB 79 projects, regardless of their environmental impacts, as long as the underlying parcel is owned by a transit agency.
• NOT fund infrastructure improvements to serve the new apartments and residents it allows.

The author of Senate Bill 79 is Senator Wiener, a San Francisco Democrat who is supported by Big Real Estate and is a darling of California YIMBY (Yes in My Backyard) Movement. Wiener’s SB 79 bill pretends to be a grass-roots housing bill, even though the real estate and high tech industries pay the bills and reap the benefits from inflated prices for new market housing…

So, when you wonder why the homeless and overcrowding crises continue to get worse despite so much effort that claims to reduce them, this is the answer…(more)

By Kate Talerico : siliconvalley – excerpt (audio)

Tenant organizers accused the California Apartment Association of paying gig workers to show up in support of rent control changes

Facing pressure from tenant advocates, landlords and frustrated residents, the Concord City Council in March approved amendments to a hotly debated rent control ordinance that increased the annual cap on rent increases to 5% from 3% — one of the most restrictive in the Bay Area.

But dozens of the supposed activists who turned up in “Repeal Rent Control” shirts had been paid $250 to attend the council meeting and speak in support of rolling back tenant protections, said Shamelle Salahuddin, CEO of a public relations company that organized the stunt.

“If you’re asking if I pay activists, I do,” Salahuddin said. “That’s the business that I’m in.”

The paid activists were handed signs that read “Concord Rent Control is Unsustainable” and stamped with the contact information for the California Apartment Association, a landlord industry group leading the fight against Concord’s rent control ordinance. Salahuddin said the California Apartment Association did not hire her company, Sunshine State, but she declined to say who did.

When asked if it had hired Salahuddin’s firm, the California Apartment Association did not answer. In a statement, the group said those who supported the amendment had been “victimized” by rent control activists who “behaved in a disturbing and unacceptable manner” during the meeting.… (more)

By Solange Reyner : newsman – excerpt

This gang of 4 is trying to take control of our California Coast and the natives are not having it. Engardio is up for a recall because of his work to close the highway against the wishes of his district. 

President Donald Trump and California Gov. Gavin Newsom have found common ground in attacking the California Coastal Commission, tasked with protecting roughly 1,100 miles of ocean coastline, reports The New York Times.

Ric Grenell, a top Trump aide, last month said the agency “needs to absolutely be defunded.”

He also echoed Trump’s calls for “conditions” for wildfire recovery aid, saying “we are going to have strings on the money that we give to California.”

Newsom, a Democrat whose term expires in 2026, last year criticized the commission’s decision to block a Department of Defense proposal to expand the number of SpaceX launches at Vandenberg Space Force Base.

“I’m with Elon [Musk],” Newsom said in an interview with Politico.

“I didn’t like that.”

Musk sued the agency in October, alleging it “engaged in naked political discrimination” when commissioners cited his support for Trump in rejecting the proposal.

“Look, I’m not helping the legal case,” Newsom added. “You can’t bring up that explicit level of politics.”

In January, Newsom issued an executive order directing the agency to suspend permitting requirements for property owners in fire-stricken Los Angeles and Ventura counties while chiding it for issuing guidance “that purports to apply the California Coastal Act’s statutory permit exemption provision, which generally triggers additional local approval procedures and potential appeals, to projects covered” by his previous orders.

Trump in January during a forum with fire victims in Los Angeles said he had “dealt with the Coastal Commission for a long time and they are considered the most difficult in the entire country.”

“We cannot have them play their games and wait 10 years to give somebody a permit. In fact, I’m going to override the Coastal Commission.”

Rep. Laura Friedman, D-Calif., has pushed back on criticism of the agency.

“They protect access to the beach for ordinary citizens. They push back on millionaires and billionaires who try to block the sand and tell kids that they can’t sit behind their house, breaking California law,” Friedman said.

“They push back against Elon Musk and his constant SpaceX launches and say, ‘You have to work with the Coastal Commission to minimize the impact of these launches.'”

Said Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif.: “Republicans say they’re for states’ rights — and they are until they’re not — until it’s politically expedient to say, well, we want a Bigfoot local or state government. That’s really not what you do in the wake of a disaster.”… (more)

Related Stories:

• Trump: California Rail Project to Be Investigated
• Trump Demands California Voter ID Law, Eyes Ending FEMA

By Brett Wilkins : commondreams – excerpt

“There is no mystery as to why Americans are angry about Republicans’ handling of the economy,” said one economic justice campaigner.

Multiple public opinion surveys published in recent days reveal widespread voter disenchantment with U.S. President Donald Trump’s economic stewardship amid ever-rising consumer prices, the specter of a recession sparked by what many see as a deliberate attempt to crash the economy for the benefit of the ultrawealthy, and overall policies that favor oligarchs and corporations over everyday Americans.

An NBCpoll published Sunday found that while Trump’s overall approval rating of 47% is his highest ever recorded, most respondents—51%—disapproved of how he’s started his second term. And while more Americans believe the country is on the right track than at any time since 2004, they are still in the minority, at 44%. A majority of respondents (54%) said the nation is generally heading in the wrong direction.

The poll also found that 44% of respondents approve of Trump’s handling of the economy, while 54% disapprove. Regarding inflation—a key Trump campaign issue—just 42% of respondents said they approve of the president’s leadership, versus 55% who disapprove.

Meanwhile, the latest data from the University of Michigan’s Consumer Sentiment Survey showed a 22% plunge since last December amid heightened inflation expectations, while a poll published last week by Groundwork Collaborative and Data for Progress found that respondents are most frustrated by grocery price increases, healthcare costs, and housing prices.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s latest Food Price Outlook, overall food prices are projected to rise 3.4% in 2025, with the cost of some staples expected to soar much higher. For example, eggs prices are projected to skyrocket by a staggering 41%—and possibly as much as nearly 75%… (more)

By Christopher LeGras :allaspectreport. – excerpt

The first in an occasional series about the erosion of local democracy in the Golden State

The American people have heard a lot over the last decade about tyranny and facism. Don’t look now, but the state of California, home of the alleged “resistance” to Trumpian fascism, has been practicing its own version of not-so-soft tyranny. Over the last six years — which not coincidentally coincide with the Gavin Newsom era — Sacramento increasingly has wrested control from cities over a range of issues, including education, environmental protections, and transportation. Most significantly, thanks to a tsunami of more than 400 new laws passed in just the last few years, the state has all but usurped authority over a foundational responsibility of local government: Where, how, and what kind of housing gets built in their communities.

The political cover is the so-called “YIMBY” movement, which stands for “yes in my back yard.” This is in contrast to their sworn enemies, people they disparage as “NIMBYs,” or “not in my back yard.” A NIMBY is basically anyone who likes their neighborhood and wants to preserve its character. To YIMBYs, this basic human impulse is beyond the pale. The notion that millions of Californians work hard to live in a neighborhood of their choosing is anathema. This is where we see the seeds of tyranny begin to sprout: Take something that is fundamental, even essential to human life, and warp it into something that must be exterminated.

The YIMBYs have gained enormous influence and power in Sacramento. When it comes to housing, they are the only game in town. Never mind that they are an astroturf movementfunded by some of the most powerful special interests in real estate, finance, and tech. They could not care less about housing affordability, much less quality of life. They have particular animosity for suburbs and single family homes. Again, they demonize. Single family homes, they say, are exclusionary and, of course, racist. In this way they are the biggest racists of all: They erase the three quarters of a million Black homeowners and and the seven million Latino homeowners in the state. Talk about “othering.”… (more)

RELATED:
CALIFORNIA TYRANNY, PART 2 Lawmakers in Sacramento recently upped the ante in their ongoing assault on local democracy in the Golden State. Earlier this year State Senator Scott Wiener (D–San Francisco) introduced a bill called SB 79. If passed, it would all but eliminate local authority over zoning, land use, and development. It would place the fate of thousands of neighborhoods not in the hands of the people who live in them and want to live in them, but in the hands of for-profit real estate speculators and the financial class behind them. The bill is part of an assault on the foundations local democracy that, as I wrote two weeks ago, trace their origins back 800 years to Magna Carta itself….(more)

By Tim Redmond : 48hills – except

Without federal support, San Francisco can never even remotely reach its state-mandated housing goals. Sen. Scott Wiener needs to address this if he wants to run for Congress.

Thanks to state Sen. Scott Wiener and his Yimby allies, San Francisco is under a mandate not just to zone for and approve but to issue permits for 82,000 new housing units in the next six year. The market-rate housing never going to happen, and not because of neighborhood opposition; private developers aren’t building because the projects don’t work at current interest rates and rents.

But the mandate also includes 46,000 affordable units, which price out at $19 billion. And Donald Trump has just essentially cut off federal funding for affordable housing in cities. Even if the Department of Housing and Urban Development retains some grant money, the staff cuts mean nobody will be available to get that money out the door or to monitor it…

t’s clear at this point that, even with the GOP holding a slim margin in Congress, Trump’s budget plans are going to pass. So what are California and San Francisco going to do?

Right now? Nothing.

Newsom is telling cities that if they aren’t even more harsh and brutal to the unhoused, they will lose state money:…

I texted Wiener today:

Now that Trump is cutting off almost all federal housing money making it impossible for S.F. to meet its state mandates should the state do anything?

I don’t expect I will get a response.

Instead, I got a fundraising email:…(more)