CA, Politics

Governor Newsom Signs AB 1265

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by California Preservation Foundation

A Major Victory for Historic Preservation in California – Extending California’s Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credit Through 2031 
New law extends California’s Historic Rehabilitation Tax Credit through 2031 and strengthens a critical tool for adaptive reuse, housing, downtown revitalization, and reinvestment in historic places.

Preservation as a Tool for California’s Future

AB 1265 does more than continue an existing preservation program. It more closely connects historic rehabilitation with some of California’s most pressing housing and economic-development needs.

Historic rehabilitation projects frequently face financing gaps because of the added costs involved in adapting older buildings for contemporary use. By helping close those gaps, rehabilitation tax credits can make otherwise infeasible projects possible—creating housing through adaptive reuse, revitalizing downtowns and neighborhood commercial districts, supporting construction activity, and returning vacant or underused buildings to productive use… (more)

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CEQA, deregulated housing bills, Housing, Politics

There may be a buyer for the site of the proposed 39-story skyscraper

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By Norah Sheppards-Hutchins : padailypost – excerpt

There may be a potential buyer of the 80 Willow Road property in Men1o Park where a Russian billionaire wants to build a 39-story skyscraper, Councilman Drew Combs said Wednesday.

Over the last several weeks, Combs and Mayor Betsy Nash have been involved in discussions with the potential buyer, Combs said in an interview with the Post.

“They have presented themselves in their interactions with the city that it’s not an effort that looks to redevelop the property in the near term,” Combs said…

“They have indicated that their intended use of the campus could be accommodated with only minimal interior modifications,” Combs said… (more)

CEQA, deregulated housing bills, Politics

Silicon Valley congressman alleges major project is tied to Russian oligarch

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By Anabel Sosa : sfgate – excerpt

U.S. Rep Sam Liccardo, a Democrat whose district covers the city, asserted in a letter Wednesday to Department of the Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent that the development’s land is owned by Vitaly Yusufov, a Russian whom Liccardo says has been sanctioned by Ukraine and has acted on behalf of former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. He said the project’s location near tech companies raises national security concerns…(more)

Politics

Menlo Park rejects state’s demand to approve Sunset magazine high-rise as a new property buyer emerges

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by Arden Margulis and Hannah Bensen : almanacnews – excerpt (audio)

Current property owner has alleged Kremlin ties

The Menlo Park City Council is ready to fight the state to prevent a high-rise development on the former Sunset magazine campus, even if it means cutting local services to fund the effort, Mayor Betsy Nash announced on Sept. 29. Hours later, Councilmember Drew Combs dropped a bombshell in his newsletter: a “serious” buyer is interested in purchasing the property at 80 Willow Road from the Russian oligarch who reportedly owns it.

“The City Council believes it is important to get this right, even if there are financial consequences and service impacts for the city that may be triggered by our effort to vindicate our rights and protect the Menlo Park community,” said Nash at Tuesday’s City Council meeting. The read-out from closed session is the first report of the council’s closed-door meetings with legal counsel since the state attorney general’s office threatened Menlo Park with fines for its handling of the controversial development application in a July 29 letter…

While there may be interest in buying the property, it would require the current ownership to want to sell. A Sept. 23 letter from Rep. Sam Liccardo that calls for Yusufov to face economic sanctions may be a contributing factor. Liccardo sent a letter to U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent urging him to investigate the financial backing of 80 Willow and pursue sanctions in hopes of stopping the 80 Willow Road project… (more)

CEQA, deregulated housing bills, Housing, Planning, Politics

Has Wiener’s avalanche of housing bills actually led to more homes? Here’s what we know

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By Hannah Wiley, JD Morris : sfchronicle – excerpt

Marina Safeway Towers are only supported by Scott Wiener. Both Lurie and Supervisor Sherrill claim to oppose it. Neighbors hate it. Wiener has to bear the full responsibility for this project on his own along with the SF planning Department that hides behind him.

When one of state Sen. Scott Wiener’s first major housing bills died in its first committee hearing in 2018, the logical option would have been for the lawmaker to retreat after such a resounding loss. ..

It took Wiener seven years to finally pass legislation that cleared the way for more housing near transit hubs. Senate Bill 79, which went into effect in July, requires cities in a handful of counties, including San Francisco, to allow larger apartment buildings near train stations, ferry terminals and bus stops…

But it’s also true some of Wiener’s bills that once inspired major fights in the state Capitol have since created little to no housing. Meanwhile, San Francisco’s notorious housing crunch is getting worse — a point Wiener’s critics have seized on in his bid this year to represent the city in Congress. 

“If he’s such a champion of housing, why are we here?” Wiener’s opponent in the race, Supervisor Connie Chan, said in a recent interview with the Chronicle. She and Wiener have routinely been on opposing sides of San Francisco’s housing policy debates, and she has led some local efforts to resist state legislation he passed….

In the 15 years since Wiener first started working on housing policy, stretching back to his time on the Board of Supervisors, home prices have only skyrocketed across the state. The trend is even more pronounced in San Francisco, where an AI boom has attracted a new wave of wealthy tech workers. Rents and evictions are way up, heightening concerns that the expensive city is becoming unaffordable to all but the uber wealthy…

But Wiener’s approach has lost him some friends along the way, chief among them various unions that represent construction workers…

Lorena Gonzalez, president of the California Federation of Labor Unions, which endorsed Chan, said she voted for at least one of Wiener’s housing bills when she served in the Assembly. At the time, Gonzalez said she exchanged her vote for a guarantee on certain labor terms.

“And then he just kept coming back and taking away more from organized labor,” Gonzalez said. “With every bill, everything got worse.” …

Wiener’s approach has similarly rankled environmentalists, tenants’ rights activists and neighborhood preservationists who feel he often disregards their concerns with climate harms or gentrification.

Shanti Singh, legislative and communications director for Tenants Together, said her organization has in the past had issues with Wiener’s rezoning bills. Singh said it often felt like Wiener and his YIMBY allies failed to consider how massive development might create a domino effect of displacement for low-income renters. …

Wiener promised to take his same boundary-pushing approach on housing to Congress, where he said he would push a plan to build 8 million homes in the next decade. Among his proposals: paying cities $10,000 for every home they build, standing up more mixed-income social housing programs and stabilizing the construction workforce so it isn’t as disrupted by the boom-and-bust housing cycles...(more)

A lot of people are going to vote him out and then demand their representatives ignore his future bills that are going no where…

CA, CEQA, deregulated housing bills, Economy, Housing, Politics, Transportation

The Fay: When Housing Policy Meets the Real World

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via email from wakeup

The Fay, 10 E Reed St, San Jose. Drone photo: Scott Keller, via C2K Architecture.

San Jose wanted to revitalize its downtown with more housing, and in 2022 the city waived nearly $9.9 million in taxes and fees for a fully market-rate development, The Fay. The concessions eliminated an $8.844 million affordable-housing obligation. The result was 336 market-rate apartments and no contribution of affordable units. The building opened to fanfare, but quickly proved a disappointment. Its studios leased out quickly, but the one- and two-bedroom units barely filled, leaving the building roughly 60% vacant.

With just 104 parking spaces for 336 apartments, city officials and renters both identified limited parking as a major factor that affected lease-up. The nearest garage was seven blocks away, and the only option was being continually ticketed for on-street parking. California housing laws have removed on-site parking requirements, both to reduce development costs and to encourage reliance on public transit. The Fay put that assumption to a real-world test. The policy removed the parking requirement. It did not remove the demand for parking, and transit did not make up the difference.

By January 2026, The Fay had gone through foreclosure and was valued at just $110 million. With 197 vacant units, the project was destabilized. San Jose stepped in to save it, committing $11.2 million from Measure E funds to master lease the 197 vacant units….

The city subsidized the 150 one-bedroom and 47 two-bedroom apartments, precisely the units that had failed to attract enough renters. The program serves middle-income tenants at 80% to 110% of Area Median Income — roughly $111,000 to $150,000 in annual earnings — with city workers bumped to the front of the applicant pool. It creates no low- or very-low-income units, and no permanently affordable units…

HOW THE CITY JUSTIFIES THE LIVE PROGRAM ON THEIR SITE

Continue reading The Fay: When Housing Policy Meets the Real World →

CA, CEQA, deregulated housing bills, Politics, Transportation

Calif. officials’ proposal sparks outrage over drive-on beach in Humboldt County

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By Olivia Harden : sfgate – excerpt

Residents of a small coastal town in Humboldt County are protesting plans that a state conservation agency says are necessary to save a piece of the North Coast.

On Wednesday, the California Coastal Commission unanimously approved a coastal development permit for Humboldt County to repair Centerville Road outside of Ferndale. The road, which sits next to Centerville Beach, is being eroded by the ocean, and the county plans to reconstruct a 900-foot segment of the road by raising and building a new parking lot.

But the decision came with a condition: The commission would issue the permit only if vehicle access to the beach is discontinued. That requirement has rankled local residents and government officials, including Humboldt County Planning Commissioner Iver Skavdal, who represents District 1, where the beach is located. Skavdal came to the meeting to express his frustration during public comment.

“The Coastal Commission has attached a totally unrelated condition shutting down beach vehicular access to the project,” Skavdal said at the meeting. “There has been no community discussion as to why this is necessary …

This just appears to be a backroom deal stuck into the project, holding the project, the residents and the county hostage simply because you can.”… (more)

Please be aware of the state-wide problems people are facing thanks to Scott Wiener and Gavin Newsom’s power grabs in Sacramento that are being are used to control local governments everywhere. This is one of many examples of problem that Humbolt County residents are dealing with.

CA, deregulated housing bills, Housing, Planning, Politics, Transportation

State housing officials offer an opinion about Los Altos ballot proposal

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BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT : padailypost – excerpt

State housing officials have weighed in on a ballot measure to preserve downtown parking lots in Los Altos.

Los Altos City Council would need to consider new places for housing if voters approve Measure D on Nov. 3, according to a letter from state housing official Brian Heaton…

“If voters adopt the ordinance, the city will be required to amend its Housing Element to analyze the ordinance as a potential governmental constraint on housing development, including, but not limited to, whether the parking plazas are still appropriate to include in the site inventory,” Heaton said in an Aug. 28 letter to Development Services Director Stephanie Williams.

Housing mandate

The Housing Element is a state-mandated plan for where more than 1,958 homes could be developed throughout the city by 2031…

Council members have warned that new housing could go in residential neighborhoods if downtown lots are no longer an option.

“In my conversations with residents, there’s very little enthusiasm for that solution,” Vice Mayor Larry Lang said at a meeting on July 24.

Lang said the city will also consider commercial areas like the Lucky supermarket at 2175 Grant Road or Andronico’s Community Markets at 690 Fremont Ave.

Residents want a say

Residents gathered over 2,600 signatures from registered voters in April to qualify Measure D for the November ballot…

“Residents and business owners are not opposed to thoughtful change. But we’re asking that the public have a meaningful say before public land is permanently altered,” resident Cindy Andrews said in a statement for the campaign.… (more)

CA, Economy, Jobs

California’s political hopefuls remain silent on state’s job losses, unemployment

BY DAN WALTERS : calmatters – excerpt

In two months California voters will elect a governor, fill several other statewide offices and choose a new class of state legislators and members of Congress.

The aspirants for those positions are making all sorts of promises to win voters’ approval. But few, if any, have mentioned a slow-motion menace affecting a fundamental facet of life: jobs.

The state has never fully recovered from the virtual shutdown of the economy during the COVID-19 pandemic. It still has more than a million unemployed workers. Its unemployment rate continues to be the highest, or nearly so, of any state. And its signature economic sectors, such as high tech and film production, have been shedding jobs for several years.

As ominous as those data points sound, a deeper dive into employment data reveals an even darker reality.

“California’s labor market is holding up, but its foundations remain troublingly narrow,” Justin Niakamal, research manager at Beacon Economics, said in a recent overview of the state’s economy. Healthcare is the only sector with strong employment gains, he noted…(more)

CA, Economy, Housing, Politics

The Bay Area is ‘exporting’ the housing crisis to the rest of the state, report finds

By Danielle Echeverria : sfchronicle – excerpt (audio)

California’s housing crisis is moving inland. 

A new report from the Public Policy Institute of California looks at political opinions across the state. Among the most striking findings: Concern about housing has risen most acutely for residents in the Central Valley and the Shasta regions, as well as, to a lesser extent, larger swaths along the Oregon and Nevada borders.

However, in coastal regions like the Bay Area — which have faced a dire housing crunch for decades — the sense that housing is a paramount problem is actually declining, the researchers found, as people who can afford the region’s high housing costs are increasingly the only ones left living here. 

“The Bay Area has been exporting the (housing) crisis to the interior,” said Eric McGhee, the report’s author.

To come to that conclusion, the researchers used data from their own previous statewide survey, collected from 2016 to 2019, and compared it with answers to the same question about housing asked from 2023 to early this year.

What it revealed is that the share of Bay Area residents who said that housing was a “big problem” declined by about 10 to 15 percentage points compared to nearly a decade ago. But in the Kern region as well as the North Central part of the state, that share increased by more than 20 percentage points.

The findings underscore how the Bay Area’s housing economics and politics have impacts far beyond the region. Those downstream effects are largely driven by people who were priced out of the Bay Area and moved into the more affordable, interior parts of the state, McGhee explained.

That migration in turn pushed prices up in those communities.

Many lower income people in those interior regions were already spending much of their earnings on housing; as Bay Area transplants moved in and further inflated prices, many have been left with little recourse. The areas where concern rose the most are some of the poorest in the state, McGhee said.

“If you’re poor and you’re housing stressed, what are you supposed to do?” he said. In order to avoid ending up on the street, some pile into homes with more people than can comfortably fit. Others simply leave the state…

A key difference is that on average, people currently able to afford living in the Bay Area are the least personally affected by the problem, McGhee explained. High housing costs already pushed people who couldn’t afford it out of the region years ago, leaving largely those that could absorb those costs.

According to Census data, renters in the Bay Area are among the least “cost-burdened” by housing, which is defined as spending more than 30% of one’s gross income on rent. In other words, Bay Area residents recognize that housing in the region is a big problem, but for the most part are still here because they can afford it…

“The interior can no longer consider itself immune” from the housing crisis, he said…

…(more)