Category Archives: deregulated housing bills

deregulated housing bills, Housing

The SoMa project that created a furor in the Assembly race is back again

By Tim Redmond : 48hills – excerpt

Planning is trying again on 469 Stevenson, but the EIR appeal didn’t delay a project that isn’t going to be built any time soon anyway. Oh, and Yimby Law just lost.

The 469 Stevenson Project, which has created huge controversy, played a big role in Matt Haney’s election to the State Assembly, and spurred a lawsuit by Yimby Law, is back before the San Francisco Planning Commission.

The commission is going to begin to review a new Environmental Impact Report on the project December 8. That means, despite all the whining from the Yimbys and the likes of Haney, that the Board of Supes never “killed” or “took a wrecking ball” to the project. The supes just said the EIR wasn’t adequate and sent it back for revisions…

At the same time, a judge October 21 essentially tossed out the entire Yimby Law case against the city, ruling that the suit had no merit. Judge Cynthia Ming-mei Lee approved a demurrer motion, saying that Yimby Law had no case because the supes have every right to decide whether a project has an adequate EIR.

That’s an important decision, limiting the impact of the new state laws that seek to override environmental review of housing development…(more)

deregulated housing bills, Housing

Marc Benioff Calls To ‘Restructure’ SF Downtown, Adding More Housing

By Kevin Truong : sfstandard – excerpt

The walk up to the Moscone Center on Day 1 of Dreamforce had a sentimental air, with winding registration lines of techies in Allbirds or t-shirts advertising their favorite enterprise software under Patagonia vests…

The 20th iteration of Dreamforce tried to create a feeling of a return, underscored by the keynote presentation theme of “The Great Reunion” delivered by Salesforce co-CEOs Marc Benioff and Bret Taylor. As usual, Benioff played a starring role in the day’s events and used the stage to tout his commitments to the city and its recovery.

“This needs to go well so we attract more business back to San Francisco. This will be a key way of reopening downtown, reopening these areas and giving everybody a big boost,” Benioff said in an interview. “We invested a lot in Moscone, and this is the first time Moscone’s really being used. Everything is open for the first time so let’s see if this can be a great convention city.”…

Benioff said that as he traveled the country and observed the economic recovery in major business centers, San Francisco’s downtown stood out for its overwhelming reliance on office space…

“If you go to a city like Philadelphia it looks like it’s a lot more open. Why is that? Because you have office, residential, university, arts, all these things mixed in the downtown,” Benioff said, calling for “a lot more housing” in San Francisco’s downtown. “You have to rebalance, restructure, refill your downtown if you want it to feel alive.”…

And return-to-office mandates are not on the horizon: Benioff said recently at an event in New York City that “office mandates are never going to work” …(more)

RELATED

Benioff Speaks  about a number of subjects during Dreamforce week.

Being as he is one of the only tech titans standing who holds much sway in San Francisco since the out of office exit turned the downtown into a deserted nightmare of streets and sidewalks with a threat on every corner, he is one of the few people who may be able to knock some sense into City Hall. We will share a few pearls of wisdom that he handed out from a number of media sources.

““There’s no finish line when it comes to security and social engineering,” He was commenting on Uber hack and the social engineering is puzzling but, perhaps it lack context.

“Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff on quiet quitting: Do what makes you happy”

Benioff Says San Francisco homelessness is improving as City’s performance scorecard shows 3.5% decline. He backed Prop C to fund homeless projects by taxing gross receipts on corporate revenue above $50 million.

The market ‘doesn’t fully appreciate how committed we are to growth and margins’, which means acquisitions of other tech companies are on the horizon.

Marc is inspired by Patagonia founder’s giving away his company. will he do something similar?

 

 

deregulated housing bills, Housing

Are yimbys the new progressives? Only in a bizarre Wonderland

By Calvin Welch : 48hills – excerpt

The supporters of the ‘build-at-all-costs’ position ignore a half-century of history and the realities of the modern housing market

“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

–The Queen of Hearts, in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

San Francisco yimbys have now declared themselves “as progressive as it gets” in the welcoming pages of the San Francisco Chronicle.  Claiming Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as one of their own, they are now, the article claims, engaged in “fighting inequality to protect the most vulnerable.”

Well, not really, actually, fighting but certainly “advancing progressive …policy goals.” The piece, by Bilal Mahmood, who ran for state Assembly in 2022 and lost, explains that in the future will protect the most vulnerable that remain.

What are these yimby “policy goals” and just how progressive are they?..(more)

The more you look under the covers the more obvious it becomes that the entire YIMBY plot traces its linage to the deepest darkest least transparent source of deceptive promulgation of untruths, baked into an insidious plot to spin a web of confusion around the facts. We have the documentation to prove it, but, who wants to see?

deregulated housing bills, Housing

The State’s RHNA Housing Quota days are numbered

By Bob Silvestri : marinpost – excerpt

The State’s unrealistic, dysfunctional housing regulations demand that cities and counties “build” more housing, even though 98% of California’s cities and counties don’t build any housing: never have/never will. But, for all the anti-NIMBY, gavel pounding, and stomping of feet the state’s “trickle-down-the market will solve everything” approach has been an utter failure.

Let me repeat that. The state’s approach to increasing affordable housing has been an utter failure.

New ideas have been suggested but the state continues to double down on failure. A day of reckoning is approaching.

Over the past 15 years that the state has added regulations on top of regulations, penalties on top of penalties, and even resorted to having a special task force suing municipalities for Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) compliance, California housing production today (about 1 new house for every 656 people with a population of 39.4 million) is worse, on a per capita basis, than it was when all this started with the passage of SB 375 in 2008 (about 1 new home built for every 610 people in 2008 with a population of 36.3 million). And it’s a lot less than we were building 40 years ago (about 1 new home per 265 people with a population 23.8 million).

In other words, we’re building less housing today than 40 years ago…(more)

deregulated housing bills, Housing

Court upholds density bonus law

By Bob Egelko Court Reporter : sfchronicle – excerpt

Court upholds density bonus law that exempts certain housing projects from local restrictions

A state appeals court says developers who agree to include affordable housing in their projects can be exempted from zoning rules, height limits and other local restrictions on neighborhood construction. The ruling, in a case from San Diego, has potential statewide impact as tensions over local control and the state’s housing crisis continue to escalate.

California’s 1979 density bonus law “incentivizes the construction of affordable housing,” the Fourth District Court of Appeal said in a decision it certified Wednesday as a precedent for future cases.

Once the developer commits to making a specified portion of the project affordable to lower-income households, “local government must allow increased building density, grant permits, and waive any conflicting local development standards unless certain limited exceptions apply,” Justice Judith Haller said in the 3-0 ruling.

Those exceptions include threats to public health or safety, harm to a historic resource, or conflicts with state or federal laws. None applied to the proposed 20-story project overlooking Balboa Park in San Diego, so it can be built despite opposition from some community organizations, Haller said… (more)

Continue reading Court upholds density bonus law →

deregulated housing bills, Housing

SB-9 Endangers Communities in High Fire Zones

By Sharon Rushton : TamAlmonte – excerpt (via email)

One of the major reasons we need to roll back state bills that override local controls over zoning and development decisions. ourneighborhoodvoices.com is collecting signatures to put a State Constitutuional Amendment on the ballot. Please support this effort to protect communities from state mandates.

SB-9 Endangers Communities in the Wildland Urban Interface, High Fire Hazard Zones, Very High Fire Hazard Zones, and Constrained Areas with inadequate access and evacuation routes

SB-9 endangers communities in the Wildland Urban Interface, High Fire Hazard Zones, Very High Fire Hazard Zone, and Constrained Areas with inadequate and unsafe access and evacuation routes in the event of a fire or other emergency. As housing density and population significantly increase, the access and evacuation routes of these hazardous neighborhoods will become even more congested. Dire consequences could result during an emergency when residents are unable to evacuate and fire trucks/paramedics are unable to reach their destinations.

Moreover, the bill makes it very difficult for local jurisdictions to protect these hazardous areas.

Numerous articles incorrectly claim that SB-9 exempts High and Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zones. However, the fine print tells a different story.

SB-9 does not directly protect fire hazard severity zones with inadequate and unsafe access and evacuation routes in the event of a fire or other emergency due to the below clause (in blue & bold) from Government Code Section 65913.4, which SB-9 incorporates.

Excerpt from the text of SB-9 (in blue):

“Section 1 (a) (2)

(2) The parcel satisfies the requirements specified in subparagraphs (B) to (K), inclusive, of paragraph (6) of subdivision (a) of Section 65913.4.”

This references the below Section 65913.4 in the Government Code regarding the specific prohibited sites:

Excerpt from CHAPTER 4.2 Housing Development Approvals: Government Code Section 65913.4 (in blue):

“(a) A development proponent may submit an application for a development that is subject to the streamlined, ministerial approval process provided by subdivision (c) and is not subject to a conditional use permit if the development complies with subdivision (b) and satisfies all of the following objective planning standards:

(6) The development is not located on a site that is any of the following: …

(D) Within a very high fire hazard severity zone, as determined by the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection pursuant to Section 51178, or within a high or very high fire hazard severity zone as indicated on maps adopted by the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection pursuant to Section 4202 of the Public Resources Code. This subparagraph does not apply to sites excluded from the specified hazard zones by a local agency, pursuant to subdivision (b) of Section 51179, or sites that have adopted fire hazard mitigation measures pursuant to existing building standards or state fire mitigation measures applicable to the development.”

Any new development would need to comply with fire hazard mitigation measures pursuant to existing building standards or state fire mitigation measures. Building standards don’t mandate off-street parking or improve street conditions. So, this section of the bill, which incorporates Government Code Section 65913.4, does nothing to protect hazardous communities with inadequate and unsafe emergency access and evacuation routes.

The only way a jurisdiction can possibly protect hazardous properties with inadequate and unsafe emergency access and evacuation routes is to comply with the following new section that was recently added to the bill.

Excerpt from the text of SB-9 (in blue):

“(d) Notwithstanding subdivision (a), a local agency may deny a proposed housing development project if the building official makes a written finding, based upon a preponderance of the evidence, that the proposed housing development project would have a specific, adverse impact, as defined and determined in paragraph (2) of subdivision (d) of Section 65589.5, upon public health and safety or the physical environment and for which there is no feasible method to satisfactorily mitigate or avoid the specific, adverse impact.”

So, for every single proposal to up-zone a single-family parcel to 4 units (via SB-9), a jurisdiction would have to make a written finding, based upon a preponderance of evidence, that the proposed housing development project would have a specific, adverse impact upon public health and safety or the physical environment and for which there is no feasible method to satisfactorily mitigate or avoid the specific, adverse impact. This could be very costly.

Moreover, the evaluation of just one single-family parcel (at which a single-family home would be converted into 4 units) at a time, won’t show the true adverse impacts of housing development per SB-9. Cumulative impacts would most likely be necessary. So, a jurisdiction would need to do some sort of environmental or safety assessment for all its single-family zones. Again, this type of broad assessment would be very time consuming and expensive.

Communities in the Wildland Urban Interface, High Fire Hazard Zones, Very High Fire Hazard Zones and Constrained Areas should be automatically exempt from SB-9 but they are not.

deregulated housing bills

Restore local control over land-use decisions

By Susan Shelley : dailybulletin – excerpt

Single-family zoning has been abolished in the state of California. The moment the recall election was behind him, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bills 9 and 10, and now low-density neighborhoods everywhere in the state could become construction sites as developers turn single-family homes into two homes plus two accessory dwelling units, also known as “granny flats.”

Senate Bill 9 requires city governments to approve these developments in any area that the state law allows them, which is virtually everywhere with a few exceptions, such as wetlands or protected habitat. Local officials can’t hold a public hearing to consider the projects. They can’t require studies of the projects’ impact on the environment or the community. They can’t require new multi-family developments to have off-street parking. They can’t impose fees on developers to help pay for water, sewer or power infrastructure, schools, street repair, sanitation or public safety services..

According to the new state laws, the only thing city officials can do is sign off.

However, according to the state constitution, the people of California have the power to change this with a citizens’ initiative. And a coalition of local officials is currently working on doing exactly that….

Anyone who would like to join the fight to reverse these laws and prevent future one-size-fits-all housing density laws can go online to StopSacramento.org and sign up to volunteer. If proponents can collect roughly 1 million signatures of registered voters to get the measure on the November 2022 ballot, the abolition of single-family zoning in California could be short-lived.

Susan Shelley is an editorial writer and columnist for the Southern California News Group. Susan@SusanShelley.com. Twitter: @Susan_Shelley....(more)

As Americans consider our future it is important to consider what made our country the envy of others, and how we may protect those elements of society that guaranteed our personal freedom. Neither party considers what the citizens want and neither are uniting the country. The name of the game has been divide and conquer. California has reverted to the gold rush mentality, where land is the gold.

The passage of bills like SB9 and SB10 are evidence that the government has no intentions of assuring sufficient resources and environmental protections for the population they intend to grow. This has angered lot of people and they are fighting back with the only tolls left. Lawsuits and State ballot initiatves.