Housing

Hands Off the Houses: Can We Stop Speculative Land Grabs?

By Corey McDonald : shelterforce – excerpt (includes audio track)

What began in earnest during the 2008 financial crisis has been exacerbated by COVID-19: large companies, often backed by powerful private equity firms, swept into the single- and multi-family housing market hoping for a big return on their investment. More than a decade later, they’re not only reaping the rewards — they’re increasing their market share.

“They just bought in bulk,” says Oscar Valdés Viera, a research manager at Americans for Financial Reform. “As people were losing their homes, they were taking advantage of that, and they’re doing that again — they’ve expanded during the pandemic.”…

Two laws specifically address auction sales of distressed properties, or properties that are risk of or have gone through foreclosure. California Senate Bill 1079, which was signed into law in September 2020, modifies the foreclosure auction process to give owner-occupants, tenants, local governments, and housing nonprofits the first right to purchase after a foreclosure sale.

Another bill, the foreclosure intervention housing preservation program, or FIHPP, provides funding in the form of loans or grants for nonprofits, community land trusts, and other eligible buyers to purchase properties available through SB 1079, as well as properties that are delinquent on their mortgage and have gone through a short sale…

The FIHPP process is still being worked out by California’s Department of Housing and Community Development…(more)

I might be nice to have someone less developer-friendly representing us in Washington to take advantage of federal opportunities to protect homeowners and potential purchasers. Who might that be?

Uncategorized

Redondo Beach Mega-Project; San Diego Co. Rural Emissions; Housing Bills Advance; and More

By Mckenzie Locke, CP&DR News Briefs : : cp-dr – excerpt

Three Key Housing Bills to Reach Newsom’s Desk
Three bills considered game-changers by housing advocates have been approved by both houses of the legislature and are headed to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk. Lawmakers reached an agreement with labor leaders on AB 2011 and SB 6, two housing bills that would make commercial real estate available for residential construction…Meanwhile, AB 2097, which effectively eliminates parking requirements within a half-mile of major transit stops, also passed the senate…

HCD Calls for Review of San Francisco’s Downsizing of Proposed Residential Project
The Department of Housing and Community Development has, for a second time, notified San Francisco that it may have violated state housing law for a medium-density project. In the newest case, a proposed six-story project in the Mission District, state housing officials wrote to voice their concern about the city’s decision to downsize an affordable housing project. The Planning Commission and the developer agreed to reduce the height of the project by about 10 feet, down to five stories. The height reduction would not change the number of available units, but the state argues that limiting height is a conflict in the fight to increase density. The state wrote that, under the state density bonus law, the city cannot downzone projects that contain enough affordable housing to be eligible for density increases. Officials are requesting that the city communicate its justification…(more)

This is where we are expected to let go of all reason and walk through the looking glass. What is the purpose of increasing height in a building if not to satisfy the need for more units? What is the point in forcing extra stories on a building at considerable costs to the owner and discomfort to the neighbors, if the architects have been able to design the designated number of units without an additional story?

What is the purpose of up-zoning and density if not to build housing units? Adding floors is not the only way to add density. One may eliminate other uses and or use of the many options to reduce open space to extend the footprint of the building and reduce the building height. This project sounds with a reasonable solution was reached that all parties agreed to. The owner probably wanted to reduce the cost of the projects and may realize a greater profit due to those reduced cost. Reducing cost during an inflationary period makes sense and may have been the deciding factor.

What is HCD trying to do? Force the developer to spend more money?

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San Francisco Ambulance Stolen in ‘Stake From a Tree’ Attack. Taken For Joy Ride Around Best Buy Par king Lot

By Joe Burn : sfstandard – excerpt

San Francisco Fire Department paramedics were left shaken after their ambulance was stolen by a man wielding a “stake from a tree” Monday morning, officials said.

The pair of Local 798 paramedics escaped unharmed after the incident at 6:50 a.m., which saw a male suspect break the windows of the ambulance at the 1700 block of Harrison Street, according to the police and fire departments…

The Mid-Market-based fire department union has now demanded that District Attorney Brooke Jenkins and Mayor London Breed take action…(more)

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At Pro-Housing Debate, Supervisor Candidates Compete To Out-YIMBY Each Other

By Mike Ege : sfstandard – excerpt

District 6 Supervisor Matt Dorsey and main election challenger Honey Mahogany touted their records on housing—and exchanged occasional barbs—at an Aug. 22 forum sponsored by SF YIMBY, the housing advocacy group.

As in previous debates, Dorsey and Mahogany were largely aligned on policy questions, with both enthusiastically supporting housing reforms. But with SF YIMBY’s endorsement meetings fast approaching, the candidates also dragged out policy skeletons in the hopes of sowing doubts about their opponent’s pro-housing bona fides…

Bummed to report that the [DCCC]@SFDemocrats
went with the anti-housing measure. Here is the unofficial vote count…(more)
[DCCC]

See the list of DCCC Democrats who voted YES AHPA (anti-housing) as far as YIMBY is concerned. Has YIMBY logic gone too far into fantasy land for most Democrats? Note who votes yes on both. Ting, Mar, Haney. Guess they can’t get enough housing, or they may be confused? Haven’t read the bills? Anything that say housing is good?

from twitter:

Image
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?

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Breed’s new Planning Commission nominee has little in the way of a political record

By Tim Redmond : 48hills – excerpt

Mayor names an East Bay consultant who hasn’t been involved in local activism on land-use issues.

Mayor London Breed has nominated for a crucial Planning Commission seat an economic consultant who works in the East Bay and has, as far as I can tell, no record of engagement or activism on any local planning or land-use issue.

In fact, it’s surprising how little information is available about Derek Braun…

Braun, according to his resume and LinkedIn account and the resume he submitted to the Board of Supes, is a principal at Strategic Economics, a Berkeley outfit that does studies for local government. He has a master’s degree in planning from the University of Southern California…

On his resume, he lists two “affiliations:” The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition and SPUR. The coalition has more than 12,000 members, and he’s not on the board. SPUR also has a large membership, and he’s not on the board or any committees…

In fact, it’s very unusual for the mayor to nominate someone to such a powerful body who has no clear record in local politics, no way for the supes to judge what type of perspective he would bring to the panel…(more)

He doesn’t need to talk to the media or the supervisors because he meets all the requirements Breed needs by being affiliated with SF Bicycle Coalition and SPUR and his firm probably contracts with the city.

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San Francisco Plans To Invest in ‘Social Housing.’ What Exactly Is That?

by Sarah Wright : sfstandard – excerpt

Late last month, as part of budget negotiations, Mayor London Breed agreed to spend $112 million on affordable housing, calling to use money from debt financing to pay for new housing projects and fund repairs to existing buildings.

It was part of a late-night budget deal that preserved most of the mayor’s priorities, but also added money originally requested by Supervisor Dean Preston as part of a “social housing” package, and in line with recommendations from the Housing Stability Fund Oversight Board. That board was formed to help figure out how to spend revenue coming from Proposition I, a real estate transfer tax that feeds into the city’s general fund.

So what does social housing actually mean? Let’s break it down.

What is social housing? Social housing, a type of public housing used in parts of Europe where government plays a larger role in providing social programs, aims to use private money to subsidize government-run housing where rents are capped for tenants based on their income level…It must be permanently affordable, and the average income across all tenants must not exceed 80% of the local median income…

How is it different from public housing? Public housing is state-run housing that caps housing costs to 30% of a resident’s income, and is only available to low-income renters who make less than 80% of the median income in the city. Social housing would institute a similar income-based rent cap but would not use income levels to restrict who can live there…

The major difference between the two concepts is where the subsidy for lower rents is coming from, Hyatt said. In public housing, it’s 100% from the government, while social housing would also use high-income rents or taxes to make up the rent gap for lower-income tenants.

Housing

‘Rotten to the Core’: San Francisco Could Get Sued Over Housing Gridlock, Says Legislator

by Annie Gaus : sfstandard – excerpt

San Francisco’s inability to agree on housing policy is nothing new. But with a state mandate looming, the city’s parochial squabbles over new housing development may do more than just frustrate pro-housing activists. They could also land the city in legal trouble.

That’s according to State Sen. Scott Wiener, who called the Board of Supervisors’ recent actions on housing policy “frustrating.” In June, the board passed a fourplex bill so laden with caveats that Mayor London Breed vetoed it on grounds that it could actually hurt, not help housing development. Last week, the board voted to send a charter amendment to the ballot that Wiener described as a “Trojan horse”—designed to confuse voters and sabotage another, more viable plan to build housing…(more)

If SF is sued by the state, we might consider joining the lawsuit against SB9 that eliminated single family housing, making home ownership more difficult and the state less family friendly.

Senator Wiener admits there is nothing illegal about the four-plex law. He claims SF is not doing what it needs to do to get things built. What does he expect them to do when selling entitlements is more profitable than building? Given the high cost of construction and financing, and the flight from cities, now is not a good time to invest in an overpriced city.

If our state representatives really want to house people they should figure out how to balance salaries with the cost of housing. Suing cities is a good way to anger the SF voters who are in a recall mood right now.

Housing

The Case for Suburbia

Urban Reform Institute on Youtube

A conversation with Joel Kotkin, Wendell Cox, Judge Glock, and Jennifer Hernandez moderated by Manhattan Institute’s Brandon Fuller. The panel was sponsored by The Cicero Institute, The Breakthrough Institute, and Urban Reform Institute.
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With One Fourplex Bill Dead, Another Rises From the Ashes

by Kevin Truong : sfstandard – excerpt

In a statement, Mandelman said he would continue to work with his colleagues on housing initiatives, including a new version of his fourplex legislation that may return later this year. But he “strongly rejected” the notion that the state should dictate the city’s zoning.

“Relying on State laws like SB 9 to solve our housing crisis is a complete abdication of our obligations as local leaders, and sends the sad message to San Franciscans that City Hall simply cannot come together to get things done for the people who sent us here,” he said…(more)