By Reina Tello : capitolweekly – excerpt

OPINION – Last week, AB 1633 passed the State Senate by a single vote despite a strong campaign by environmental justice advocates to stop the bill. Unless vetoed by the Governor, this bill will tip the scales in favor of powerful development and industry interests and against everyday Californians and vulnerable communities.

AB 1633 undermines the core purposes of CEQA in fundamental ways. First, it allows developers to sue a city if they disagree with the city’s decisions about environmental review for housing projects—and to recover their attorneys’ fees if they prevail in the suit. For example, a developer could sue a city for requiring an Environmental Impact Report when the developer claims the project is exempt from CEQA. Critically, such lawsuits can be filed before the city acts to approve or deny the project, and even before the public has had a meaningful opportunity to comment on its effect. Worse yet, the mere threat of these lawsuits is likely to cause cities to forego necessary environmental analysis, even for projects proposed in communities suffering from long-term pollution…

Second, the bill effectively bars community groups from recovering their attorneys’ fees in CEQA suits challenging housing even when meeting the stringent requirements for private attorneys general after a court rules in their favor on the merits. This new rule means that only monied interests can sue to enforce CEQA; environmental justice groups, who depend on attorneys taking cases on a contingent basis, cannot. This change is unprecedented and will rob vulnerable communities of their most effective tool for safeguarding the public health and safety.…(more)

We need to call the Governor’s office on AB 1633. Any bill that barely passed in the Senate must have a lot of public opposition. We need to magnify that opposition by shaming the Sacramento politicians who are engaged in reducing our rights to question every aspect of state decisions. There is nothing more dangerous to our society than a government that silences its people. California officials can hardly make a case against oppressive behavior in other states when our state government is taking repressive actions against us. They are playing a dangerous game with our country and putting the Democratic Party at risk of losing more votes in the House and Senate as more California voters shift their alliance to a non-party status. Some links to reps: https://discoveryink.wordpress.com/ca-legislative-process/

We need to contact our representatives in Washington to convince them to make the case for us as well. Start with the candidates for the Senate seat. We need their support to stop this slide into autocracy if they want to continue to control the Senate and take back the House. All this is not happening in a vacuum. The nation is watching. In California: Find your Senator / Find your House Representative

By John King : sfchronicle – excerpt

Most Bay Area residents only know Mountain House by what they glimpse when descending Altamont Pass into the San Joaquin Valley: row after row of close-packed houses stretching north from Interstate 205.

They haven’t visited the large orderly neighborhoods with blocks of faux-historic houses clustered around community parks and elementary schools, or the old-fashioned town hall and library next to, what else, Central Community Park. They almost certainly don’t recall the rhetoric when Mountain House was conceived decades ago — assurances that this would blossom as a self-contained place with housing and jobs in holistic harmony…

But if such rosy visions sound familiar, here’s why: They’re uncannily similar to the rhetoric being used for a proposed “new city” in Solano County by California Forever, a company that is backed by some of Silicon Valley’s wealthiest investors…

“When you lay these plans out, you have to remember you’re in the permission-seeking business,” said Gerry Kamilos, the developer of Mountain House’s College Park neighborhood. “Economic cycles, political cycles, cultural changes — they all affect how the plan evolves.”… (more)

By Tim Redmond : 48hills – excerpt

Board members asked for a modest delay to consider the mayor’s amendments to a complex housing bill. The Chron talks of “Nimbys.”

I should know better than to take seriously any analysis of the city’s housing crisis coming from the Office of State Sen. Scott Wiener and SPUR, and I would rather just ignore this Chronicle oped, which is headlined “Why SF NIMBYs are about to lose all their power to stop housing.”

Fact: SF Nimbys, such as they exist, are not stopping housing right now; the Federal Reserve and the preferences of speculative capital are. The city has approved tens of thousands of housing units that could break ground today, no Nimby opposition, no frivolous lawsuits … they have building permits.

But there’s not enough return on investment to make those units profitable, which is what developers care about.

There are also thousands of empty units so the market is not clamoring for more of the same overpriced, little units in the sky, with or without views.

Back to the point:

Annie Fryman, a former Wiener staffer who now works at SPUR, characterizes a hearing on Mayor London Breed’s recent housing bill as “dry policy” that was “sensationalized.”…

I watched every minute of the hearing. Her account is just wrong.

The supervisors weren’t “posturing.” They were doing what we elected them to do: Evaluating a piece of legislation that may have sounded “dry” but will actually have a significant impact on the local housing market—and is strongly opposed not by Nimbys (I didn’t see a single person who could be identified by that term at the hearing) but by every single tenant group in town and the broad Race and Equity in All Planning coalition…

Nobody from the Mayor’s Office showed up. A Planning Department staffer had no answers for many of the questions—but he did present a long list of new amendments that the supes hadn’t seen…

The reason I bother with this is because it’s important. As I predicted, the entirely reasonable response of the supes to this legislation is going to be a tool of the right-wing folks like Elon Musk and Michael Moritz who want to destroy progressive power in San Francisco.

They are using classic political strategies developed by the right over the years: Pick on one politician (it used to be Chesa Boudin, now it’s Dean Preston), and find one or two complex issues (crime, housing), simplify them to slogans (“public safety, Nimby”) and use that as a wedge to get people who are friendly to the billionaires into power.

There’s a reason that the neoliberal policies that have created the worse economic inequality in US history have succeeded. The people who profit from those policies have worked the Big Lies, and the news media has gone along.

And now, here we go again. …(more)

By Kurtis Alexander : sfchronicle – excerpt

​​Thousands of wildland firefighters in California, and thousands more across the West, may see pay cuts of up to 50% next month as lawmakers in Washington fail to agree on a plan to continue pay raises for federal fire employees.

The pay reduction, which could come regardless of whether the U.S. government shuts down in the current budget battle, would leave many firefighters in California with the personal hardship of making less than minimum wage. It also could send employees packing for higher-paying jobs and exacerbate staffing shortages already plaguing federal firefighting ranks…

Without permanent funding for higher firefighter wages, efforts to maintain the current pay have gotten caught up in the larger budget debate playing out in Washington. Congress this week continued to feud over the appropriations bills needed to keep the federal government up and running in the coming fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1.

Short-term money to at least partially fund the government, which could include keeping firefighters whole at least temporarily, is being discussed. Some Republicans, particularly in the House, remain hesitant to move forward with funding out of concern about high levels of spending…(more)

by Astrid Kane : sfstandard – excerpt

A group of Berkeley landlords have chosen to celebrate the end of the East Bay city’s Covid-era eviction moratorium with a full-on cocktail party.

Members of the Berkeley Property Owners Association will gather Tuesday evening at local venue Freehouse, as first reported by Berkeleyside

“Come enjoy drinks, appetizers, and networking with other Berkeley rental housing providers,” the event invite reads. “We will celebrate the end of the Eviction Moratorium and talk about what’s upcoming through the end of the year.”…(more)

By Andrew Pridgen : sfgate – excerpt

Dee Borsella makes pajamas. She draws up patterns, cuts the fabric and sews her creations right in the back of her Carmel store. People come from all over to purchase her custom bedtime ensembles. She has her regulars from New York, LA and even London. But she likes it best when people are walking by and happen to spy a pretty set in the window. She loves to talk sleepwear. And that’s all she would ever talk about, if she had the chance.

But for the past six years, the first thing people say when they step through the threshold of Ruffle Me To Sleep is: “What’s with the hole in the ground?”

“It’s become …” she pauses mid-thought for a moment as she readies to close, “more than a distraction, a fixture? It’s, ‘What’s going on across the street? What’s going on across the street?’”…

Enter a billionaire heir from Monaco

The project proposal, unanimously approved on Aug. 9 by Carmel’s Planning Commission after three years of back-and-forth with the developer, includes 14 shops with more than 9,000 square feet of retail space, along with a dozen one- and two-bedroom apartments.

The buildings are designed to adhere to Carmel’s 30-foot height limit and to the architectural lineage of Carmel, as something of a greatest hits of the town’s traditional styles. The renderings feature a mishmash of Contemporary Craftsman, Spanish Colonial Revival and Tudor Revival styles. Final approvals and permits, along with a groundbreaking date, have not yet been set, but according to developer Esperanza Carmel’s website, “We are now able to proceed to the next stage of the planning process.”…(more)

TRD staff : therealdeal – excerpt

Developer adds AB 2011 application to two lawsuits over project in Outer Sunset

The developer behind a failed plan to build a 50-story condominium tower in San Francisco’s Outer Sunset has pulled another arrow from its quiver: a new law to fast-track affordable homes.

Reno-based CH Planning, led by John and Raelynn Hickey, has added Assembly Bill 2011 to two lawsuits attempting to overturn the rejected project at 2700 Sloat Boulevard, the San Francisco Business Times reported.

The couple are seeking streamlined approval under the law that went into effect July 1 to redevelop the Sloat Garden Center, creating a controversial highrise over low-lying homes and businesses, a few blocks from the beach.

AB 2011, known as the Affordable Housing and High Road Jobs Act, fast-tracks housing on commercial properties by allowing ministerial approval if certain housing and labor standards are met… (more)

Let’s see Buffy and Wierner worm their way out of this one. What would happen if they declared Sloat Blvd. a SLOW STREET? Would that make it a non High Road Jobs Act Street immune from application of AB 2011? Could refusal of insurance companies to cover the project become a factor in making it less desirable? Could the coastal commission take meaningful action or would they, considering the plan is to not protect the coastal area from rising tides? How creative can we be?

By kqed staff : kqed – excerpt

UC Berkeley could be one step closer to breaking ground on its fiercely contested student housing project in historic People’s Park if the governor signs a bill scrapping certain building regulations.

AB 1307, introduced by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland), whose district includes Berkeley, would amend California’s sweeping Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) by exempting proposed housing developments from first having to study potential noise levels generated by future tenants.

The bill also eliminates the need for universities to prepare an environmental impact report that considers alternative housing sites for a residential or mixed-use housing project if certain requirements are met…(more)

Megan Fan Munce, Shira Stein : sfchronical – excerpt

The investors behind a mysterious company buying up thousands of acres in Solano County have been revealed to be a group of Silicon Valley power players.

Flannery Associates caught the attention of both local politicians and several federal government agencies after it spent more than $800 million buying up 140 properties in Solano County over the past five years, purportedly to build an entirely new city.

But until Friday, where exactly the money was coming from was unclear.

Citing three unnamed people familiar with the plan, the New York Times reported Thursday that the company’s investors included Laurene Powell Jobs, owner of The Atlantic and widow of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, and Andreessen Horowitz, a Menlo Park-based venture capital firm that’s backed companies like Skype and Lyft, among a host of other prominent Silicon Valley power players.

The original man behind the idea was Jan Sramek, according to the Times, a former Goldman Sachs trader, according to his LinkedIn account.

Sramek’s goal was to build a new city between Fairfield and Rio Vista, according to both a poll sent to Solano County residents earlier this week and a 2017 pitch reviewed by the Times…(more)

Well, the mystery is solved. Silicon Valley wants to build a brand new city out of nothing. At least this plan will disrupt fewer settled people than bulldozing and gentrifying neighborhoods. I hope they can fill their dream cities with people who like their plans. Perhaps the investlors will even live there.