All posts by discowk7

Uncategorized

How’s San Jose’s mayor performing? New data shows figures on public safety, homelessness

By Gabreil Greschler : mercurynews – excerpt (includes audio track)

City is doing well on keeping homeless off the street — but continues to face challenges with backlog of blight cases

As San Jose nears one year into Mayor Matt Mahan’s tenure — are his major campaign promises going anywhere?

A new trove of data focused specifically on public safety, blight, homelessness and economic development shows improvements in some areas and setbacks in others as Mahan prepares to run for re-election in 2024 with no opposition thus far.

The figures show the city making incremental progress on keeping homeless residents off the streets, the speed of housing permit reviews and the city’s downtown activity rate according to cell phone data. But the city is also facing problems with its enormous backlog of code enforcement cases and housing production.

“I would like us to at least once a quarter have a very focused and structured conversation that is rooted in performance data,” said Mahan to reporters on Tuesday. “Where we are actually objectively looking at how the things we’ve funded are doing. Right now we do that every 12 months. But it is overwhelming, it is in the context of a budget.”

Here are some key takeaways from the data…(more)

Uncategorized

S.F. struggles are causing ‘weak demand’ and rent concessions, apartment landlords say

By Roland Li : sfchronicle – excerpt

Some of San Francisco’s largest apartment owners are in agreement: The city is still struggling from a pandemic hangover that is dampening pricing, and free rent concessions are widespread.

AvalonBay, which owns 12,133 Bay Area apartments, saw demand soften in the past month, in part because of continued remote work.

“San Francisco — just to pick on it since everyone seems to like to lately — there’s a number of different headwinds there as I think we’re all well aware of,” said Sean Breslin, AvalonBay’s chief operating officer, on an earnings call last week. “Probably not the best time of the year to be seeing some elevated demand there — it’s just not the case. And there’s not really a great reason for people to be coming back to the office at this point still…(more)

You may concllude that the demand is down, but, I can think of over a dozen reasons why people are not moving. Rents are only one of those reasons. People are picky about where and how they live. Just because the Sacramento politiicans want to force cities to build tiny units in towers, without parking, opening windows, sun or view, does not mean that people will live in them. When there are over 40K (we have heard as high as 60K) unoccupied units in the city that no one is clamoring to move into, it hardly makes since to build more of those unpopular units, but, our state representatives think they are smarer than we are, so they will continue to build their idea of the city we should live in until we vote for new leaders to correct their mistakes. Perhaps the landlords should stop labeling communities as a “class A or B”. It sounds a bit like a caste system and no one wants that in America do they?

CEQA, Housing, Politics

Mission ‘group housing’ moves forward, likely to cut some affordable homes

By ANNIKA HOM : missionlocal – excerpt

It could be one of the first projects to utilize a
dial-back of inclusionary units

The long game may just be starting to pan out for the developer brothers Chris and Brian Elsey.

After four years, a 149-unit group housing project at 401 South Van Ness Ave. near 15th Street moved one step closer to development on Thursday, when the Planning Commission unanimously approved a special permit the project needed.

The four-year process, however, also means the project can incidentally abandon its previous 25 percent affordability requirement and slash it to just over 15 percent, thanks to city legislation that took effect approximately two weeks ago…(more)

People are looking for proof that the state developer bills are decreasing affordable housing in the state and this is one of the first projects to take advantage of those bills. This is also proof that there is no incentive to build on these lots since the longer they wait, the better the deal gets for the owners. They started with a 20% affordable, now they are down to ten. If they wait another year, the incentives to build any will diminish along with the fees to pay for the infrastructure. Those are shifting from developers to the taxpayers. Say goodbye to your city or wait to be screwed by the state.

CEQA, Politics

Once it was hailed as a drought fix — but now California’s moving to restrict synthetic turf over health concerns

By Shreya  Agrawal  : Calmatters – excerpt (includes audio track)

IN SUMMARY: California cities can ban synthetic turf under a law Gov. Gavin Newsom signed. He rejected a bill to ban PFAS in fake lawns.

Gov. Gavin Newsom last week passed on a chance to limit the use of the so-called “forever chemicals” in legions of plastic products when he vetoed a bill that would have banned them in synthetic lawns.

His veto of an environmental bill that overwhelmingly passed the Legislature underscores California’s convoluted guidance on the plastic turf that some homeowners, schools and businesses use in place of grass in a state accustomed to drought.

Less than a decade ago then-Gov. Jerry Brown signed a law prohibiting cities and counties from banning synthetic grass. At the time, the state was in the middle of a crippling drought and fake lawns were thought to be helpful in saving water…(more)

Housing

How Long It Really Takes to Get a Building Permit in San Francisco — and Why

By Adam Brinklow : thefrisc – excerpt

Whether you’re swapping windows or putting up new homes, SF’s red tape is notorious. Those in charge say relief is finally coming.

It’s a simple project,” says John McDowell, a permit expediter who helps would-be builders untangle San Francisco’s legendary red tape. His current clients, who own an early 20th-century, mixed-use building on Market Street, want to replace wood windows with more durable materials that he swears will look “exactly the same.”

McDowell says SF’s planning commissioners, who must approve the swap, won’t be able to tell the difference, let alone someone walking by on the street. The windows “are on the second floor, even,” he adds. He wouldn’t disclose the specific address…

Plenty of people with experience developing in San Francisco — be they architects, engineers, developers, permitting experts, and property owners large and small — have a horror story to share, perhaps more than one…

Mayor London Breed, some supervisors, and the Planning Commission are pushing for reform — and surprise, so are the very city bodies whose practices are under the microscope. In interviews and recent public meetings, staffers at both the Planning Department and Department of Building Inspection say they’re eager to speed up the way things work…(more)

Housing, Politics

San Jose Says Its ‘Tiny Homes’ Are Reducing Homelessness. More Are on the Way

By Calmatters :sfstandard – excerpt

It was the bathrooms that convinced Darlene Pizarro to accept an offer of shelter at a lot of “tiny homes” in San Jose last month…

“Tiny home” describes a specific type of housing more permanent than a tent or disaster shelter, but less than a single-family home, townhouse, apartment or something else thought of as permanent housing. The structures—smaller than 400 square feet, often lacking either a kitchen or private bathroom—have become increasingly common in California’s response to homelessness over the past five years, though opinions are split on how much to rely on them in years to come.

Pizarro’s unit boasts all the fixings of what homeless advocates say are best practices for temporary housing: Individualized case management allowing residents to stay as long as they need to get permanent housing

  • Laundry and kitchen facilities
  • The privacy of individual rooms that lock, with personal bathrooms
  • Other elements that emphasize residents’ dignity, like dog runs and weekly community events

Tiny homes are sometimes called modular homes or, in the case of San Jose, “emergency interim housing.” The city is all in, operating more than 600 such beds across six sites and building more. Mayor Matt Mahan credits them with a recent 10% decline in the city’s unsheltered population and notes that of the 1,500 people the city has sheltered in its tiny home sites, 48% moved to permanent housing. That’s compared to an average rate of 34% across Santa Clara County’s shelters over the past three years…

RELATED: Building Tiny Homes a Gigantic Task in Broken San Francisco…

A sense of privacy

Also making the sites attractive are a host of modular housing companies springing up to offer tiny homes that are more livable.

Compared to flimsier and less fireproof prior models that evoked disaster zones, many tiny homes now include double-pane windows that can open, individual thermostats and doorbells. In San Jose, one site where the city broke ground this year will include some tiny homes that have private kitchenettes.

Though not all cities use them, many companies build modular units with en suite bathrooms, which residents say provide significantly more privacy and dignity…(more)

Housing, Politics

Newsom signed 60 housing bills in 2023

Newsom signed 60 housing bills in 2023

Download the pdf or read the article in the Chronicle: https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/newsom-california-housing-bills-18442548.php

Unfortunately, the real elephant in the room in SF is not the lack of housing projects being entitled. The problem is that they are not being built thanks to the the DBI holding back on processing buildings and then one must run the gauntlet of the inspections department, but, have been heavily mired in corruption and are years behind schedule, unless you are a big corporate developer.

 

Housing

California exodus: Charts show huge shift in which U.S. states most people are moving to

By Christian Leonard : sfchronicle – excerpt
Texas remained the most common destination for former Californians, followed by Arizona.

California lost a net of 340,000 people to other states from 2021 to 2022, with a growing number of residents leaving for Florida and Arizona.

The outflow from California to other states was lower than it was from 2020 to 2021, when about 410,000 more people left California than arrived, according to new migration data from the U.S. Census Bureau. But it was still far higher than in the years before the pandemic, when the annual net loss was fewer than 200,000.

The Census Bureau’s estimates for the calendar years, which don’t include international migration, are based on responses to its American Community Survey. The 2022 survey asked respondents whether they lived at a different place than they did a year ago, and if so, where they lived previously.

The emigration from California contributed to a slight dip in the state’s population from 2021 to 2022, from about 39,143,000 to 39,029,000…(more)

Looks like the state finance department has more accurate calculations that HCD.

CEQA, deregulated housing bills, Housing, Politics

These 12 secret power players are shaping the Bay Area housing market

By Susie Neilson, Emma Stiefel, J.K. Dineen and Lauren Hepler : sfchronicle – excerpt (includes audio track)

Last year, The Chronicle obtained data on almost every property in the Bay Area — about 2.3 million unique records. We were hoping the data would be a treasure trove of information about real estate ownership in the region, allowing us to easily identify who owns what, and thus pinpoint the most powerful corporate owners of rental housing.

Quickly, we learned it wasn’t so simple. California doesn’t have hard-and-fast rules on how property owners identify themselves; large corporations, hedge funds and even wealthy families often purchase multiple homes through shell companies or trusts, shielding their names from ownership records. It’s only by carefully tracing networks of ownership that one can start to grasp how much property an entity actually has.

So we redoubled our efforts. During the past year, The Chronicle analyzed these property records, which were collected from county assessors’ offices, plus nearly 7 million unique business records. We used machine learning methods to parse the data and called on dozens of experts and additional data sources. This work yielded a list of 12 of the Bay Area’s largest, most influential ownership networks. We believe this is an unprecedented effort to uncover rental ownership and management networks across all nine counties in the region: Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Solano and Sonoma…

We still aren’t sure we’ve captured all of the Bay Area’s largest owners, but we’re confident this list of 12 includes some of the region’s major power players in residential real estate, housing tens of thousands of families in nearly 7,000 assessor-defined properties from San Jose to Santa Rosa…

Even if the owner of your property isn’t on our list, you can learn more about who owns it by using our map of nearly 2.3 million Bay Area properties here. You may read more about our methodology here.

Read why transparency matters…

Navigate to our content

One company operates thousands of San Francisco apartments. Just don’t call them a landlord

This map reveals who owns every property in the S.F. Bay Area…

Invitation Homes
Michael Marr
Greystar
Woodmont / Tad Taube
Equity Residential
John Vidovich
Neill Sullivan / REO Homes
Essex
UDR, Inc.
Tricon Residential
AvalonBay
Ardenbrook / Ardenwood…(more)

RELATED:

This map reveals who owns every property in the S.F. Bay Area

By Emma Stiefel and Susie Neilson: sfchronicle – excerpt

This tool will help you investigate your landlord or anyone else’s

To our knowledge, there has never been a centralized database where someone could see who owns any property in the nine-county Bay Area region, making it difficult to investigate connections between the powerful forces that shape the housing market for all. So The Chronicle built one.

Type in your full address, or any Bay Area address, to see who officially owns nearly any building. The map contains data on almost 2.3 million properties registered across the Bay Area’s nine counties, which The Chronicle obtained in summer 2021…(more)

Uncategorized

State legislation updates

via email from sfchronicle

State legislation updates: New California laws takes aim at injustices in water rights system and bring big changes for campsite reservations. More: California voters will now choose “keep the law” or “overturn the law” when voting on referendums. Gov. Newsom signs treatment-focused bills in response to fentanyl crisis, but vetoes others. Also vetoed are a layoff notice bill that would have protected contract workers, and one to pay low-income jurors $100 a day.