By James Salazar: sfexaminer – excerpt

Local leaders this week said a portion of the $35.8 million in grant funding awarded to San Francisco for transit infrastructure and street-safety upgrades will address traffic-spillover concerns stemming from the pending Great Highway closure.

The Metropolitan Transportation Commission awarded the funds as part of its Housing Incentive Pool Grants program, to construct new traffic signals on Lincoln Way at 45th Avenue and at La Playa Street. Another traffic light had already been set to be installed at Lincoln and 41st Avenue, and all three are set to replace stop signs…(more)

We would like to have a discussion about why the housing funds are being used to pay for transit programs instead of housing. Remember this is how the MTC is spending the Housing Grants next time someone complains about the lack of money for affordable housing. No wonder people are living on the streets. That is where the housing funds are going.

California property tax map: How much Prop 13 is saving homeowners by ZIP code

This map shows how Proposition 13 affects property tax subsidies on average in every city, county and ZIP code in California.

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By Dick Platkin : citywatchla – excerpt

Many people feel the income gap resulting in the diminishing middle class is largely to blame for the homeless crisis.

PLANNING WATCH – The city, county, and state of California are spending billions to eliminate homelessness, yet the number of homeless people is still increasing. For example, by mid-2023, the State of California had spent $17.5 billion on homelessness. LA Countyhas allocated about $800 million for fiscal year 2024-25, and the City of Los Angeles has budgeted $961 million…

Let me explain why I think the numbers of homeless and overcrowded people are still increasing, despite so much local spending.

The problem is NOT a housing shortage. Even though well-funded pressure groups, public officials, and the corporate media endlessly repeat this bogus claim. What they rarely say, however, is that the basic problem is a lack of low-priced housing, and that private sector solutions only make the low-priced housing shortage worse.

For example, in San Jose there are 11 empty housing units for each homeless person, and in San Diego there are three (3) empty housing units for each homeless individual. Since some people have roommates, spouses, or partners, the ratio of vacant houses and apartments per homeless persons is actually higher. As for Los Angeles, the ACCE Vacancy Reportdocumented 93,000 vacant housing units, half of which are withheld from the housing market. This is more than LA’s 45,000 homeless people.

If a housing shortage is not the underlying cause or the housing crisis, then what is?… (more)

By Teliha Draheim : marinpost – excerpt

Dear Governor Newsom,

Though we welcome you and your family to Marin County, the spreading boondoggle you have created pertaining to affordable housing in California will soon land in your own backyard.

Californians, as residents of the fifth largest economy in the world, have the reasonable expectation that State policy decision making is evidence-based.

Yet, this is clearly not the case in regards to the gross inaccuracy of the California Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) [1] assessments, which are amplified by new housing laws and corresponding civic punishments, encouraged and ratified by your administration.

You have claimed that there will be a huge future population growth in California, a claim which has been questioned by many authorities and disproven by the State Department of Finance, which predicts population growth will be largely flat through 2060.

The California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) claims California will need 2.5 million housing units by 2031. HUD and Freddie Mac say we need 3.8 million new homes to fill the housing shortage for the entire country.

California has been losing population for years. Do you believe California needs 2/3rds of the nation’s total housing in a state that is projected to have negative growth?

This number, determined by your projected population growth claim, is not supported by the facts. The California State Auditor found this number was determined by imprecise methodologies, and not reliable or reproducible; yet the audit result was ignored by HCD and the State refused to adjust its RHNA calculations… (more)

By Silas Valentino : sfgate – excerpt

In this column, SFGATE’s Silas Valentino prefers the Presidio over pandering to Trumpism

In anticipation of a second Trump administration, a pair of conservative policy advocates published a disturbing vision in a conservative urban policy magazine that calls for destroying the Presidio in favor of building housing.

The authors, Mark Lutter and Nick Allen, suggest that obliterating the iconic San Francisco landmark would “unleash” the city’s full potential by building “Paris-level density and six-story apartment buildings” to “add 120,000 residents.”

Their proposal is a direct appeal to President-elect Donald Trump. Last year, Trump first suggested transforming federal land into housing for an initiative he dubbed “freedom cities.” His plan calls for repurposing federal land to “reignite American imagination” by creating a hub for flying car ports and offering incentives to people who procreate… (more)

This is not the story that is brewing elsewhere. This is proof that the media is not the media she once knew. When you get so many different details from so many different sources it is hard to believe anyone knows of what they speak. On the off chance that any of this may be pushed, you heard it here.

By Zain Jaffer : sfexaminer – excerpt

The San Francisco Bay Area, just like many parts of the United States, is suffering from a housing shortage, aggravated by construction pauses brought on during the COVID-19 pandemic and the Federal Reserve’s interest-rate hikes of the last few years.

It’s only natural to consider converting some of the vacant office spaces and buildings dotting The City’s skyline to residential use, mainly because they are already there and are a negative weight to many bank and real-estate company balance sheets because the forecast rental incomes aren’t showing up.

A 2023 SPUR research paper claimed that empty downtown San Francisco offices — extending from the Northern Waterfront to Mission Bay — could accommodate more than 14,000 homes. But why are there so many vacant office spaces? It’s worth breaking understanding what makes up The City’s commercial real-estate stock…

Often, it’s better to simply demolish an older building that already has zero book value — or fully depreciated — for the underlying land and build a new residential building. Higher commercial-property taxes need to be adjusted for residential rates, plus there are transfer taxes and recertification costs, all aside from rebuilding costs….(More)

by Adam Brinklow : thefrisc – excerpt

100% affordable housing is tough to pull off. SF’s transit agency will front up to $100M extra just to get the $2B project underway.

Best-case scenario: If funding comes through, a new Potrero Yard bus facility will include 465 units of affordable housing perched on top. SF’s transit agency just said it needs to front as much as $100 million extra for the project to get off the ground. (SFPlanning)

The city’s cash-strapped transit agency says it will pay some of the developer’s costs, up to $100 million, then hope to recoup the money through a complicated buyback plan.

Earlier this year, The Frisc reported that the project’s 465 homes could shrink to about 100 homes – a Plan B if funding didn’t come through. Now the only way to keep the project moving, homes or no homes, is through an unusual twist: the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency is going to pay all infrastructure costs upfront instead of splitting them with the developer… (more)

One reason why the voters are not supporting more money for Muni through taxes and or bonds if they can stop it. What happened to the original goal of running a first rate transit system? When did SFMTA decide to branch out into other risky businesses? What rose do the voters and citizens of SF have in this scheme, other than being an ATM machine for MTA?

by Jose Fermoso : Oaklandside – except

Ward 3 Director Sarah Syed said other board directors approved the agreement in a closed session to avoid public scrutiny.

AC Transit Ward 3 Director Sarah Syed, speaking at the agency’s monthly board meeting on Wednesday, accused her fellow directors of approving an expensive “sweetheart” settlement deal for the outgoing general manager, Michael Hursh.

Syed said the agreement has Hursh staying on as a senior adviser with a complete “executive CEO” salary and benefits but no work expectations.

According to Transparent California, the state’s public pay and pension database, Hursh made $556,045 in 2022, the last year his information is available.

“The deal allows the General Manager to seek and accept other employment without restriction,” Syed wrote in her statement, which she read in full at the board meeting “At a time when we should be earning the public’s trust to save our agency from the fiscal cliff, this sweetheart deal is a colossal misjudgment.”

Syed accused other directors of violating the state’s Brown Act, a law mandating open government meetings, by voting for this agreement in a closed session from which she was excluded. … (more)