A recently listed house in San Francisco’s Duboce Triangle promises “the perfect backdrop for your new life” — one that “will redefine how you live.” The property in question is 160 Noe St.: a fully renovated 1907 Edwardian on a tree-lined slow street featuring three bedrooms, two bathrooms and 2,495 square feet full of Calacatta marble, designer lighting and custom woodwork. Listed for $2,995,000, the home has another standout characteristic..
The seller will consider Anthropic or OpenAI stock as payment.
That single line in an otherwise typical luxury listing may be the most succinct summary of what’s been going on in San Francisco for the past two years. It’s hard to believe that just a few years ago, the city’s obituary was being written in real time. Office vacancies soared. Retailers fled downtown. Then, of course, there was the doom loop… (more)
San Francisco may be proud of its role in making California the most expensive state in the union. Perfect for millionaires and whoever they need to augment their life of leisure that is not yet handled by AI and personal robots.
FILE: California apple farmers in Watsonville are bulldozing their orchards after Martinelli’s abruptly canceled their contracts. The company will continue to grow and source applies in the Pajaro Valley.
Karell Reader’s heart sank when she saw acres of apple trees piled up on her neighbor’s Watsonville farm last month. Her neighbor used to sell apples to California cider empire S. Martinelli & Company, but he was forced to bulldoze dozens of apple trees after the company canceled his contracts…
Lookout reported that the shift in vendors could be a strategic financial move by Martinelli’s as the company looks to find cheaper apples from out of state. According to the most recent Crop Report for Santa Cruz County, apples cost about $400 per ton in 2024. Comparatively, apples from Washington cost $135 a ton that same year. Farmers also relied on Martinelli’s for labor, equipment and chemicals for pest control, according to the Lookout… (more)
Another loss for California farmers who are operating the most expensive state in the unions. How much more of our state’s agricultural business will be replaced by water and power hungry AI computer centers in the name of progress?
Only one of the top candidates for mayor in Los Angeles supports Senate Bill 79, a state law that allows residential structures up to nine stories near transit stops
With the June 2 primary election only a few days away, most Californians are rightfully focused on figuring out who should be their next governor.
But another race could have a similar impact on the future of the state. And it’s one worth paying attention to even if you don’t live there.
I’m referring to the contest for Los Angeles mayor.
Three top candidates are fighting to advance to the general election in November. One of them has the potential to dramatically reshape the future of housing in California. Los Angeles City Council Member Nithya Raman has aggressively campaigned on major reforms to reduce the governmental housing bureaucracy and increase the city’s annual construction threefold. She has proposed issuing an executive directive guaranteeing approval for new housing construction in 60 days or less for developments that already comply with zoning. She wants a citywide self-certification model to speed up permits for “straightforward” projects.
But most importantly, Raman is a supporter of Senate Bill 79 — a new statewide law that goes into effect on July 1, which allows developers to construct residential structures up to nine stories near transit stops…
That’s a transformative number in a state with an unrelenting housing crisis. Yet the hopes that Los Angeles will get its act together and build at the scale needed to make a dent in the affordability crisis appear to be iffy at best. A UC Berkeley-Los Angeles Times poll released Thursday shows the mayoral race in a dead heat: incumbent Karen Bass with 26% support, Raman at 25% and Trump-backed reality television villain Spencer Pratt at 22%.
Bass and Pratt have shown little interest in implementing sweeping changes to the city’s housing needs…(more)
April 1, 2026 – The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has yet to initiate the 2025 application and payment process for funds authorized by Congress to help farmers afford organic certification.
Three months into 2026, the agency has not indicated when those funds might be made available. Due to rising costs of both certification and other farm necessities, it will likely result in fewer farmers pursuing certification, said Kate Mendenhall, executive director of the Organic Farmers Association.
“It’s the small farms where it really makes a financial impact,” said Mendenhall, who is an Iowa livestock farmer. “I would anticipate that farms might hold off on certifying for a few years, and we’ll probably lose some smaller farms.”
Data from the Organic Trade Association (OTA) shows an increase in organic food sales, up to more than $70 billion in 2025. But that increase is primarily from imported food. Other data points to a decrease between 2021 and 2023 in the number of U.S. acres certified organic, with many existing organic farms going out of business or dropping certification…(more)
District 1 Supervisor Connie Chan, and running against Scott Wiener, author of the sone of the most aggressive upzoning bills, said: “I am interested in doing everything we can to unlock the housing that’s already in the pipeline.”
Amid rising construction and financing costs, the tax and fee incentives adopted in 2023 by San Francisco in an effort to spur housing construction weren’t enough to reverse the decline in The City’s residential building activity, according to a new report — but without those measures, it said, the slowdown likely would have been worse.
The analysis, conducted by the Board of Supervisors Budget and Legislative Analyst at the request of Supervisor Connie Chan, examined the effects of temporary reductions in inclusionary housing requirements approved in September 2023, along with incentives that included cuts in development-impact fees assessed on residential projects.
It concluded that while fee reductions and other policy actions might have provided financial relief for some projects in the pipeline, the changes were insufficient to offset or counteract broader macroeconomic conditions largely outside city control, including high building costs, interest rates, and the slow recovery of rents and condominium prices.
“We all want to build more housing, particularly housing that people can afford,” Chan said in discussing the report. “And so how do we do that in a way that is thoughtful?”… (more)
RELATED:
Supervisor wants city voters to grow Housing Trust Fund
We are seeing a slowdown in the building and sales of homes due to a lot of economic conditions that have nothing to do with housing density or upping or carrots or sticks. It is refreshing to hear a few of the candidates running for governor mention some of the obvious moves that may be easily made to preserve the affordable housing we have rather than tear it down during this slow down when many buildings are being put up for auctions as the overly optimistic owners are losing them to the lenders.. Some of comments on that subject may be heard on this recording of a Ezra Klein interview posted on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HETwu7Kfu8
What happened to the 2024 Prop A voter-approved $300 million affordable-housing bond money? What did the voters get out of it? Does passing another bond measure make sense?
SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — Sen. Scott Wiener’s effort to give cities like San Francisco a clearer path to cut ties with PG&E stalled this week after the Senate Energy, Utilities and Communications Committee failed to advance SB 875, legislation aimed at reforming the state process for creating local public utilities.
SB 875 would have sought to unrig what supporters described as a broken California Public Utilities Commission process that prevents cities like San Francisco from leaving PG&E and forming their own public utilities. The bill was the first of its kind to pass even one committee. It aimed to reform procedures at the California Public Utilities Commission to allow cities that wish to exit PG&E to establish their own public utilities while providing more affordable and reliable energy to residents…
In 2019, San Francisco began trying to exit PG&E, but in the years since, it has faced repeated delays at the CPUC due to what supporters called a broken process rigged by private utilities, especially PG&E. The current valuation proceeding was filed with the CPUC in July 2021. Even with a strict 180-day timeline required by law, PG&E has successfully drawn the CPUC process out to more than four and a half years… (more)
Electricity and water requirements prompt council vote for temporary ban
Oakley, a city in Contra Costa County, has become the first municipality in the Bay Area city to impose a temporary ban on new data centers.
The Oakley City Council’s unanimous vote for a 45‑day moratorium halts all new land‑use applications for data centers, giving officials time to evaluate their long‑term impact, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. The ban can be extended in phases for up to two years, allowing the city to craft zoning and environmental rules before the next wave of proposals arrives.
City Attorney Derek Cole said the measure will allow Oakley to “study, deliberate and determine the acceptable scope” of future development. The move follows public opposition to the Bridgehead Industrial Project, where developer JB2 Partners withdrew plans for a data center near Highway 160 after residents raised concerns about power and water consumption.
Council Member Shannon Shaw emphasized the need for a deliberate approach, noting that the city wants to “do it right” before committing to large‑scale infrastructure…(more)
How likely is Scott’s appetite for SF land going to help him win votes for his next big leap to Washington? How mad are the voters over the treatment they got from him in Sacramento?
For California’s local governments hoping to have some say over where and how large apartment buildings get packed near major transit stops, it’s crunch time.
Last fall, state lawmakers made it legal for developers to build mid-rises — some as tall as nine stories — in major metro neighborhoods near train, subway and certain dedicated bus stops.
But the final version of Senate Bill 79, which goes into effect on July 1, offered local governments plenty of wiggle room over the where, when and how of the new law.
With the summer deadline rapidly approaching, cities across the state are starting to wiggle…
The move took advantage of a set of escape clauses written into the state law: Transit-adjacent areas that already allow at least half of the housing required under SB 79 can hold off on changing the rules until a year after the next state-mandated planning period.
For Los Angeles and much of Southern California that’s 2030…(more)
Why is San Francisco rushing to do what other cities are putting off till 2030?
The top contenders vying to replace Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi in Congress took the stage at San Francisco’s Sydney Goldstein Theater for a debate moderated by Political Breakdown host Scott Shafer and KQED’s Sydney Johnson. The candidates fielded questions spanning domestic and international policy, offering voters a glimpse into their priorities and leadership style.
The field for Congressional District 11 includes San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan, former congressional aide and software engineer Saikat Chakrabarti, and State Senator Scott Wiener… (more)
The map that adds heights and density where it was already added and plans were drawn up to stabilize the gentrified neighborhoods that were designed by the community to protect what needed protecting:
Added base height limits by Scott Wiener’s SB 79 in 2025. This will take away any hope Scott had of dividing and conquering the city. He has now touched every district in SF with his density bills and anti-CEQA actions. Base heights starting at 95′ going down to 85′ around the BART stations and trains and for some reason around General Hospital? 85′ on the piers? No exit plans or any emergency options will be left to anyone on the east or west side of San Francisco the way they are now configured on the west side.
After three years of labor and argument, San Francisco passed the Family Zoning Plan in December. It lifted 50-year-old restrictions on building heights and densities across many neighborhoods, including the Sunset, Richmond, and Marina Districts.
But the plan avoids many other neighborhoods considered “priority equity” areas where residents are more likely to be low-income renters than in other neighborhoods. The Tenderloin is one of the city’s lowest-income, for example, and Chinatown, the Mission, and the Bayview are home to minority populations that at various times in SF history have been subject to restrictive racist policies and redevelopment.
But the city’s decision not to loosen building restrictions in these neighborhoods doesn’t mean they’re off-limits. Thanks to a new law from SF’s own state Sen. Scott Wiener, whose earlier work also led to the Family Zoning Plan, select parts of south and east neighborhoods, including the Bayview, Mission, and Excelsior, must be unlocked as well.
The law, SB 79, also calls for changes to parcels in Potrero Hill, along Guerrero and Valencia Streets, and in other areas that are not designated for equity protection.
SB 79 requires California cities to make housing easier to build near major transit lines. In many cases, this new round of zoning only means small-bore changes, such as making room for a single new home near St. Mary’s Playground in the Outer Mission. But some parcels will be zoned for more, such as 20-plus units next to the former Candlestick Park site or at the corner of Cesar Chavez and Guerrero Streets. In all, planning documents call them “modest zoning changes.”…
The new rules will then make their way to the Board of Supervisors, which must approve them by July 1.
If SF doesn’t meet that deadline or tries to modify the rules, SB 79 could trigger more dramatic upzoning across much more of the city. “Even if they are against this type of legislation, supervisors don’t really have a choice,” says Zach Weisenburger, policy analyst at SF-based Young Community Developers… (more)
2019 cranes were everywhere. There are very few today.
If you were herein 2019 you may remember a lot of tall cranes in the air all over the city. Dozens of office towers were being built due to the belief that they would be needed for the next tech wave. It hit San Francisco with a bang but fizzled out when AI came to town and started laying off tech workers. Vast amounts of square footage built to meet the “imagined demand” sit idle. The only game in town now is buying and selling over priced real estate. And the Mayor wants to cut that revenue under the familiar guise of incentive to grow the down town again. Isn’t this a familiar tune?
So much for politicians’ predictions, and response to reality when their dreams and aspirations do not go as planned. Instead of changing their strategy when reality pokes holes in their theories, they go charging full steam ahead and digging ever bigger holes in their budgets. When their funds run out they go screaming to the voters demanding more money and higher taxes to fulfill their flawed schemes.
Now SF Planning claims we need more density to provide for more housing, even though people are losing their jobs to AI and leaving the city at a very fast pace. Realtors report that the new wealthy buyers only want single family housing and many prefer to live and work in mansions. They are shying away from office downtown offices and condos. Aaron Peskin was right when he said, most people want the housing that developers want to demolish, not what the developers want to build.
Housing is much like transportation. Everyone in our friendly city wants other people to live in crowded quarters and take the bus.
Many cities are demanding a pause in the enforcement deadlines so they can figure out what they are supposed to do with all the complicated contradictory bills that their state legislators cannot explain. Senator Wiener has considered holding off on the deadline, so why is San Francisco in such a rush to upzone more now?
