By Ben Metcalf :sfchronicle – excerpt (audio track)

Rebuilding after the Los Angeles fires is going to be time-consuming and expensive. Accordingly, much attention has been given to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s recent executive actions to speed up the process and cut red tape, including by waiving environmental reviews, sidestepping Coastal Commission oversight and providing additional state resources to city and county planning and building officials

However, a different and little-noticed idea from the governor, included as part of his budget proposal to the Legislature early in January, also has the potential to be impactful. A small paragraph teases a big vision for housing: a new California housing and homelessness agency.

This proposed agency — which would replace the Business, Consumer Services and Housing Agency that oversees a kitchen sink of other state functions (such as horse racing and cannabis regulation) — promises instead a “more integrated and effective” administrative framework for addressing the state’s housing and homelessness challenges. It would oversee all of the existing housing entities and be tasked with leading the state’s response on aligning housing policies with transportation, climate and community planning… (more)

We need to look into the process for creating and dissolving state agencies because that is what Newsom is suggesting. What happens to the staff? We might want to talk to them.

What is the connection between an agency that oversees Business, Consumer Services and Housing and one that oversees Housing and Homelessness issues. Are they eliminating state oversight of Business and Consumer Services, combing them with other agency, or setting up a new oversight agency?

The new agency just adds climate and community planning to housing and transportation. How does combining “housing policies with transportation, climate and community planning” solve homelessness? Is this a ploy to circumvent CEQA more than they already have?

This makes no sense unless it is a power play. Once again the state wants to force change on us and is eliminating some basic services and oversight we need in the process.

Once again our state representatives are trying to control us while eliminating the basic services and oversight we need.

By Woody LaBounty: sfheritage – excerpt

Work first began on identifying and designating a North Beach historic district in the early 1980s. Some of the most accomplished architectural historians in San Francisco have put in hours on the project over 40 years, including Michael Corbett and the late Anne Bloomfield. They knew that the neighborhood between Telegraph and Russian hills along the spine of Columbus Avenue was particularly special. Every San Franciscan and every visitor knows.

Not only does North Beach possess stylistic uniformity and an intact architectural integrity dating from just after San Francisco’s 1906 earthquake and fire, but its social and ethnic associations are highly significant: Italian-American and Chinese-American history, Bohemian artists, Beat writers, early LGBTQIA+ spaces.

After city adoption of a highly praised 269-page North Beach Historic Context Statement in 2022, and with funding from the Northeast San Francisco Conservancy, architectural historian Katherine Petrin (who is also a board member of San Francisco Heritage) completed the long-anticipated historic district nomination in 2024. It was submitted in June to the California Office of Historic Preservation for review. After consideration and possible recommendation by the State Historical Resources Commission (SHRC), which meets quarterly, the nomination’s ultimate arbiter would be the Keeper of the National Register in Washington, D.C.

The North Beach National Register Historic District was included on the SHRC agenda for its February 7, 2025 meeting. On January 27, the last day possible to pull the item, new San Francisco mayor Daniel Lurie requested it be removed to allow more time for his office to conduct “due diligence.”… (more)

There are so many places in North Beach that deserve recognition that it is hard to choose one to illustrate this story. We will come back with a number of photos and invite the readers to share what they have as well. It you can write letter and express you feelings about the importance of capturing a bit of history that matter most to you. What part of San Francisco do you want to keep?

By Cape Canneday : sfgate – excerpt

Columnist Cade Cannedy argues that everyone is missing the real power player in housing: DWIMBYs

YIMBYs and NIMBYs, a tale far less old and far more annoying than Cain and Abel, is a perfect fit for a post-pandemic, cyberurbanized California.

For those unaware, a NIMBY is an aging white couple in a coastal community using racially coded arguments to oppose an affordable housing project that threatens to bring in “ruckus.” A YIMBY, on the other hand, is someone on Twitter yelling indecipherably about how legalizing 5-over-1 single staircases is the only way your children will avoid homelessness in California.

The thing they have in common: You’ve never really met either.

Surely, cartoonishly racist NIMBYs exist, as do YIMBYs who would tolerate a firing range in their backyard if it kept them feeling smugly superior to their narrow-minded neighbors. But in reality, the vast majority of people fall somewhere in between, in a category called the DWIMBY: Depends What’s in My Backyard.

While DWIMBY decidedly lacks panache, it is the most accurate way to describe approximately 80% of people yelling about Bay Area housing on Twitter. Take the notorious Sunset-dwelling NIMBY: The very neighbors disgusted by the Sloat Tower, a 50-story phallus built over reclaimed sand dunes in a veritable transit desert, were the same folks who came together two years ago to support 135 units of affordable teacher housing, just a few blocks away…(more)

It is a rare day when a writer understand the complexities that go into making up the housing attitudes in a meaningful way. Cape gets it and does a great job of explaining it to just about anyone who can read. People consider housing in terms of their personal needs and experiences, and that translates into many shades of gray. All housing is not created equally in all neighborhoods.

There is a huge difference between the 50-story Sloat Tower and the 135 units of affordable teacher housing. No amount of lipstick on a Tower on the beach is going to make it as palatable as affordable teacher housing.

Looking at the maps that were developed to express the election results around the city, it is easy to see which neighborhoods accept change more easily that others. Those neighborhoods that have seen the least change and up-zoning voted overwhelmingly against prop K and for a more responsive government. They look at the effects of the changes in the downtown and other up-zoned areas with trepidation.

People want to retain the stable lifestyles they enjoy. Understanding this could go along way toward uniting the city around housing and transportation goals. Safety and security in our city is dependent on understandting the dynamics of the neighborhoods and allowing them to construct their own paths into the future…(more)

By OSCAR PALMA : missionlocal – excerpt

Last week Jackie Fielder was sworn in as the supervisor for District 9 — which includes the Mission, Portola, and Bernal Heights. At 30 years old, Fielder is one of the youngest people elected to the Board of Supervisors — as well as one of the few democratic socialists.

Fielder is, political experts told Mission Local in November, the perfect fit for the district — she won with a 19-point lead over her closest contender.

As an activist and politician, Fielder has big ideals but grassroots goals — she’s promised to introduce legislation supporting working families, immigrant communities and small businesses…

OP: What is the most pressing issue that you would like to focus on and introduce to the board?

JF: We’re figuring that out. I would love to do something around Sanctuary City. The thing with the vending ban, and in general with a lot of these priorities, is sometimes they don’t require legislation. Sometimes they require coordination with the different departments — facilitating meetings between different departments, asking questions, asking for data. A lot of our job is oversight.

I think there is this perception that one coming into the legislative branch is supposed to be introducing legislation on day one. That may very well happen. But at the same time, there are already so many laws on the books.

Right now, I’m figuring out why things are the way that they are. I share the same frustrations about why can’t we have a trash can on this corner? Why can’t we get this pothole filled? Why can’t we have officers walking the beat all throughout the three neighborhoods? Questions of that sort that have a lot to do with implementation than going in and changing policy immediately…

I think it’s also the hunger for an outsider perspective. I was a SFLAFCo Commissioner for a couple of years before running for this office. I still have that sense of, “Why are things the way that they are?”…

JF: I think a couple years ago — seeing my role as city commissioner and having a taste for what it would be like to be in city government. I’m someone who really wants to see results quite immediately after I take action. And that’s not been my experience in my endeavors. Like the public bank is a long term project that I’ll continue to pick up as supervisor, and definitely want to take over the finish line… (more)

By Zelda Bronstein : 48hills – excerpt

In a climate crisis, is it really a good idea to build more and denser housing in high-severity fire zones?

“California will force Malibu and other towns to add housing. Here’s why that’s not nearly enough.”…So reads the headline on an op-ed published by the Los Angeles Times on May 5, 2024. The authors are Paavo Monkkonen, a professor of urban planning and public policy at UCLA, and Aaron Barrall, a housing data analyst at the UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies. Monkkonen is one of the most vocal advocates of the Yimby build-baby-build agenda… (more)

By Hayley Smith : latimes – excerpt

A bill that sought to overhaul California’s system for wildfire hazard mapping has died in the state Assembly.

Senate Bill 610, introduced in June by Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), sparked heated debate over its plan to eliminate the decades-old system of ranking state and local lands as “moderate,” “high” or “very high” fire hazard severity zones — designations that influence development patterns and building safety standards based on an area’s probability of burning.

The plan instead would have empowered California’s state fire marshal, Daniel Berlant, to create a single “wildfire mitigation area” classification for California, which supporters said would simplify the system and create a uniform set of standards for wildfire preparation and mitigation.

The bill was held in the Assembly Appropriations Committee on Thursday…

Rose said he viewed Thursday’s decision as a victory for the more than 150 organizations that weighed in against the bill in a series of open letters to Gov. Gavin Newsom and state legislators… (more)

By Joe Eskenazi : missionlocal – excerpt

Watching the Board of Supervisors elect its president often feels a bit like observing a live-action game of three-card monte. There’s ever so much twirling about and, until the cup is lifted, you don’t know where the votes are going to be.

Today, however, the political legerdemain took place off-camera. After several furious days of votes being whipped and deals being brokered, District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman ended up being the sole nominee for the position. And, lo, he won.

There’s a lot of cachet in being board president, because it’s a position that has great possibilities. If Mayor Daniel Lurie is hit by a meteor, or runs off and joins the French Foreign Legion, for instance, Mandelman will be your new mayor. And it could happen: In just 2017, Mayor Ed Lee was felled by a heart attack while in the frozen-foods section of the city’s worst Safeway, and Board President London Breed was the next woman up…

So, Mandelman is board president, having been the sole nominee. But expect Melgar to oversee the County Transportation Authority and its billions of dollars in transit monies. Expect Melgar to also accept the mixed blessing of helming the land-use committee.

Why did this happen? Mandelman is perceived by his colleagues as more predictable than Melgar in his votes, for good or ill, and more willing to make deals. The bloc of left-leaning supervisors is counting on it; it will be lost on nobody that he is in this position because of their votes. Expect Connie Chan, who successfully lobbied her colleagues for Mandelman, to remain budget chair…(more)

By Heather Vogel : propublica – excerpt (audio track)

Federal prosecutors allege that the landlords have used RealPage pricing software to collude and artificially raise rents. The legal action is the latest development stemming from a 2022 ProPublica investigation.

The Department of Justice on Tuesday sued six of the nation’s largest landlords, accusing them of using a pricing algorithm to improperly work together to raise rents across the country.

The lawsuit expands an antitrust complaint the department filed in August that accused property management software-maker RealPage of engaging in illegal price-fixing to reduce competition among landlords so prices — and profits — would soar. Officials conducted a two-year investigation into the scheme following a 2022 ProPublica story that showed how RealPage was helping landlords set rents across the country in a way that legal experts said could result in cartel-like behavior… (more)