CEQA, deregulated housing bills, Politics, water

Iconic Calif. cannery bankruptcy leaves hundreds laid off and $550M in farm losses

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By Susan Guerrero : sfgate – excerpt (audio)

California peach farmers are expected to take a multimillion-dollar financial hit and lose vast quantities of crops after Del Monte Foods plans to permanently close two state plants.

Del Monte-owned plants in Modesto and Hughson will permanently close and leave hundreds of workers unemployed by April 7, according to a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification that was filed earlier and obtained by SFGATE. Hundreds of employees will lose their jobs, including 571 general laborers at the Modesto plant alone.

But the California farmers who grow fruit for the factory are also taking a financial blow. Farmers in the Central Valley, as well as Yuba and Sutter counties, face a $550 million revenue loss from 20-year contracts to grow peaches with Del Monte, according to the Sacramento Bee. Many farmers haven’t made substantial profits from the orchards that Del Monte asked them to plant just a few years ago. Now, about 75,000 tons of peaches will likely go to waste, lcoathe outlet added.

“Two-thirds of the growers are going to be, basically, just left out to dry,” Sarb Johl, a farmer in Yuba County, told the Sacramento Bee… (more)

If you failed to notice the negative effects of re-zoning all of California yet, this may catch your attention. Food shortages may be coming as farmers leave their farms. If re-zoning farmland and raising taxes on farmers to get them to leave their farms for AI power production and housing concerns you, please make that an important conversation to have with your state and federal representatives and the candidates who are running to replace them. NOW IS THE TIME TO ACT !

Pending 2026 bills: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/
Find yorr state representatives:
California State Senators: https://www.senate.ca.gov/senators
California State  Assemblymembers:
https://www.assembly.ca.gov/

deregulated housing bills, Housing, Politics

Proposed waterfront tower could test California’s power to override S.F. height restrictions

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By J.K. Dineen : sfchronicle – excerpt (includes audio track)

A rendered aerial view of the proposed development that would stand 23 stories tall, or more than twice the city’s height limit, on San Francisco’s Embarcadero.

In 2014 San Francisco voters delivered a strong message at the ballot box: No tall buildings on the waterfront without our approval.

The “no wall on the waterfront” Proposition B referendum, which came on the heels of voters’ rejection of a contentious housing project at 8 Washington St., required developments on Port of San Francisco property to get the voters’ approval if they exceed existing height limits. It won with 59% of the vote.

But now, a dozen years later, in a political landscape dominated by YIMBY-backed laws aimed at forcing cities to build more housing, a proposed apartment complex on the Embarcadero is emerging as a test case of whether the powerful state “density bonus” legislation preempts the local voter-approved regulations…

Strada Investment Group is proposing to build 619 units at 555 Beale St., a port-owned parking lot about four blocks north of Oracle Park that in recent years has been used as a homeless navigation center. While the majority of the complex would adhere to the parcel’s 110-foot height limit, a tower on the northern part of the site would stand 23 stories, more than twice the current limit…

But the idea that SB330 gives developers carte blanche to ignore the will of the voters is not sitting well with the San Francisco Waterfront Alliance, a small group of nearby condo owners who argue that Strada should either go to the ballot to win approval for the project or redesign it to be consistent with existing zoning...

In February, Scott Emblidge, the group’s attorney, wrote a letter to City Attorney David Chiu and Port General Counsel Michelle Sexton arguing that the city should “respect the will of the voters.”

“When San Francisco’s voters enact local legislation, they are entitled to have the City Attorney respect and defend that legislation,” he said. “If a developer wants to erect a height-limit-busting tower on waterfront property, the developer can do so if, and only if, the developer asks the voters for permission.”

In a response, Chiu said his office “will continue to defend the legality of ordinances approved by the voters or the Board of Supervisors.”

“When the State Legislature adopts statutes that purport to preempt local ordinances, we provide confidential advice to city policymakers about the implications of those statutes,” Chiu wrote. “We identify legally defensible options to address the conflicts between state and local law.” … (more)

Politics

Fixing SB 79

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Produced by Residents 4 Localized Affordable Neighborhood Development

Needed Cleanup Legislation to Avoid Unintended Impacts and Ensure Affordable Housing – Needed Cleanup Legislation to Avoid Unintended Impacts and Ensure Affordable Housing.

Help Residents for Localized Affordable Neighborhood Development (R-Land) lobby for sensible fixes to SB 79 so that this new law works for, rather than against the provision of affordable housing, doesn’t bankrupt cities, and doesn’t foster higher density development in Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zones, thus increasing safety hazards. SB 79 sounds good, but will have horrible real world consequences and needs major fixes. This video provides suggestions for legislative fixes to avoid the unintentional consequences of SB 79. Call your State Legislator and ask them to sponsor and support legislation to:

  1. Exempt cities with Certified Housing Elements since they have already planned where to put needed housing and how to meet affordability targets.
  2. Close the luxury loophole and actually promote affordable housing development by requiring that any SB 79 buildings meet the affordability targets cities are required to meet in their Housing Elements. If the State says 40% of new units in a city should be affordable then 40% of the all units in any SB 79 building in that city should be required to be affordable, otherwise SB 79 undercuts the ability of cities to promote the production of affordable housing.
  3. Exempt high fire hazard areas from SB 79. Increased density in high fire areas is a disaster waiting to happen.
  4. Provide funding for the infrastructure SB 79 will require as a result of SB 79 densification of single-family neighborhoods, rather than in areas cities have identified as best able to handle increased density.
Politics

Adaptive Reuse

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planning.lacity.gov – excerpt

The Los Angeles City Council recently adopted a Citywide Adaptive Reuse Ordinance (No. 188,793) that establishes zoning incentives and streamlined procedures for the conversion of existing commercial buildings and structures resulting in the creation of five or more residential units. The original Adaptive Reuse Ordinance, first adopted in 1999, only applied to buildings built before 1974 and located in or near Downtown Los Angeles (DTLA). The provisions of the original ARO were expanded in 2003 to include four small areas of the city, now defined as Adaptive Reuse Subareas.

The updated Citywide Adaptive Reuse Ordinance (ARO) expands eligibility beyond DTLA to all neighborhoods within Los Angeles city limits. Under the new ARO, all buildings that are at least 15 years old are now eligible, if they are located in Multifamily Residential, Commercial, Parking or Public Facilities Zones1. Parking structures or parking areas within an existing building that are at least five years old are also eligible, as is any existing building of this age, subject to Zoning Administrator approval (Sections 12.24 X.1 and 13B.2.1 of the Code).

The intent of the updated ARO is to remove most Zoning Code barriers to the reuse of existing buildings, allowing many more applicants to apply directly to the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety (LADBS) to obtain their building permit. A few of the more significant incentives that have been added include:

  • More flexibility in how interior spaces may be reconfigured without counting as new floor area, either by adding floor levels or new additions to replace any space removed to create light wells, courtyards or other open space within the existing building
  • Unified Adaptive Reuse Projects that provide affordable housing are eligible for unlimited density in the new construction portion of the project.
  • Unified Adaptive Reuse Projects that provide affordable housing may add up to two new residential floors above an existing building
  • Minimum unit size requirements have been eliminated; units can now be as small as allowed by Building Code standards
  • A new rooftop story may be added, without counting towards a project’s building height or floor area, to provide new shared amenities or open space for residents… (more)
Housing, Planning, Politics

The numbers don’t lie: The housing crisis is not caused by a supply shortage

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By Niko Block : policyalternatives – excerpt

Art by sfbluecomics

Financialization, not demographics, caused the cost of housing to explode

Solving the housing crisis has been a central plank of the Liberal party during their decade in power, but progress has been elusive. Despite recognition of housing as a “fundamental human right” and pledges of tens of billions of dollars to housing programs, homelessness has risen and affordability has worsened.

Rising property values have impacted every corner of the market. As home prices have surged, the rate of homeownership has declined across the country, while buyers remain in debt for longer periods of time. Tenants pay higher rental costs, and building social housing is more difficult because of the cost of land.

Policymakers and economists blame high housing prices for a severe supply shortage. This line of thinking led the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) to call to double the rate of construction, to build 4.3 million new homes by 2035.

The CMHC’s proposal would increase Canada’s housing stock by 25 per cent over a decade, even though they anticipate population growth of only eight per cent, leading to “abnormally high levels of unoccupied housing units,” as the Parliamentary Budget Office observed. The CMHC’s projected payoff is surprisingly modest: they anticipate real housing prices would only decline to pre-pandemic levels.

These issues point toward a more fundamental question: What is the evidence that a supply shortage has created the housing crisis to begin with?…(more)

Politics

Rural California is seeing its craziest election in years. Can a progressive win it?

The Guardian – excerpt
Audrey Denney at a campaign event. Photograph: Trevor Claverie/Courtesy of Audrey Denney

Audrey Denney is trying to win a House seat twice – first in a special election, and then again after the district is redrawn.
Districts 1 and 2 were re-aligned so now Chico is in District 1. Audrey Denny is running in District 1. https://audreyforcongress.com/

Inside an old Craftsman on the northern end of California’s Sacramento valley, Audrey Denney is spending the day on the phone – calling constituent after constituent to discuss rising healthcare costs, wildfire insurance premiums and cuts to benefits – and to solicit donations.

It’s the mundane way in which an epic, and uphill, battle for control of the US Congress is being fought.

Denney, a 41-year-old Democrat who has pledged not to take any money from corporate Pacs, is trying to win a region comfortably held by Republicans for nearly half a century. She’s trying to win it not just once, but twice, in what can rightly be described as one of the most chaotic and confusing election years in this rural corner of the state.

Last year, California’s first congressional district, which extends from the almond orchards and rice fields of the Sacramento valley to the forested and fire-prone foothills of the Sierra Nevada and Cascades, was thrust at the center of a political firestorm.

The district was one of several remade under a bold redistricting proposal that redrew the state’s voting map to favor Democrats. Its new boundaries include counties to the west and south, making it competitive for Democrats for the first time in years. Doug LaMalfa, the Republican who had long held the district’s seat, was readying for a long-shot bid for re-election. Denney saw her opening.

Then, on 6 January, LaMalfa suddenly died…(more) scroll down the page for the link to the article

RELATED:

In his radically redrawn new district, a Marin congressman gets thrown to the wolves.

By Joe Garofali : sfchronicle – excerpt

Representative Jared Huff Man

ALTURAS (Modoc County) — The Supreme Court has not yet signed off on California’s Proposition 50, which redrew the state’s congressional boundaries in order to boost the number of Democrats in Congress. But  is not waiting. He’s already started visiting the most remote parts of his radically redrawn district, which is now set to include one of the most conservative corners of the state.

At times, it felt like a scene from a sitcom: A progressive congressman from Marin County trying to woo Trump-loving locals in California’s MAGA-iest corner. A place so right-leaning that the Democratic Party doesn’t even have a local chapter… 

During a two-day barnstorm of the region that included stops to meet with a local Indivisible chapter, a native tribe and at a biofuel mini power plant.

Huffman, clad in a fleece U.S. Congress vest, assured Indivisible club members that he understands them…

Huffman spent the tour emphasizing that he’s fished on rivers here for years and that he’s not going to be pushing culture war issues. That may be more of a challenge in the future… (more)

Continue reading Rural California is seeing its craziest election in years. Can a progressive win it? →

Politics

‘No clue, no heads up’: Newsom shocked by CCA’s abrupt closure after $20M state grant

By Sam Mantros : sfstandard – excerpt

State lawmakers criticized the governor for earmarking millions for the private art school amid a budget deficit.

Students and faculty of California College of the Arts weren’t the only ones shocked by the abrupt announcement Tuesday that San Francisco’s oldest art school would be closing and its campus taken over by Vanderbilt University.

Gov. Gavin Newsom, who caught flak from the press and lawmakers last year after securing $20 million in the state budget for CCA, was also caught off guard.

In text messages reviewed by The Standard, Newsom wrote that he “Had no clue” and was given “no heads up” about the 119-year-old CCA’s dissolution, which was announced in an email to students and faculty by CCA president David Howse…

In an interview Wednesday, The Standard asked Howse if he had notified the governor about the closure.

“We have been in touch with the governor’s office, and we’ll continue to keep in conversation with him as we go through this transition,” Howse said, adding that he had not spoken directly with Newsom.

A spokesperson for CCA said Howse notified the governor’s office of the closure Monday, the day before the news was announced publicly, and has a meeting scheduled with Newsom’s office next week…

All four Democrats on an education finance budget subcommittee voted against the governor’s request. Sen. Scott Wiener backed Newsom’s proposal.

Shortly after Newsom proposed the $20 million grant, $45 million in donations came in — half from the Jen-Hsun & Lori Huang Foundation and the rest matched by private donors. The contribution by the Nvidia CEO’s foundation was the largest donation in the school’s history by $5 million…(more)

More bad news for Newsom at a bad time for Newsom.

Politics

Trump Announces Plan to Bar Large Firms From Buying Single-Family Homes

Amelia Benavides-Colón : applenews – excerpt

Trump to the rescue?

The president said he would roll out a new affordable housing agenda during a planned speech in Davos, Switzerland, later this month.

President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that he wants to bar large corporations from purchasing single-family housing stock as part of his new affordable housing agenda.

“I am immediately taking steps to ban large institutional investors from buying more single-family homes, and I will be calling on Congress to codify it,” Trump said in a lengthy Truth Social post on Wednesday. “People live in homes, not corporations.”…

Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno , a member of the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs committee, wasted no time in announcing his plans to introduce legislation in response to the Trump administration’s proposal.

“Millions of young Americans have been locked out of the American Dream, @realDonaldTrump is finally fighting back,” Moreno posted to X in response to Trump’s post. “I will introduce legislation in the Senate to codify this into law.”

In the House, Republican Rep. Riley Moore, a member of the Appropriations committee, praised the announcement. (more)

How will Wiener and Company and the Democrats compete with that? What will they say or do to stop this?

deregulated housing bills, Housing, Politics

Scott Wiener is a sick bastard

By Christopher LeGras : allaspectreport  – excerpt

One day before the anniversary of the 2025 Los Angeles firestorms, Wiener will re-introduce legislation making it easier for developers to profit off victims’ losses and trauma. Photo by Christopher LeGras. I

start this post with some reflection. This Wednesday marks the one year anniversary of the January 2025 wildfires that devastated swaths of the city and county of Los Angeles. As the world well knows, the communities of Pacific Palisades and Altadena were almost completely wiped off the map. The fires destroyed 18,189 structures including homes, local businesses, community centers, places of worship, schools and others. At least 31 people died as a direct result of the fires, to which researchers attribute an additional 409 excess deaths. Nearly a quarter of a million people were evacuated, and some 100,000 remain displaced to this day.

During two hellish weeks, Angelenos were glued to their TVs and to the Watch Duty app, which provided invaluable real time alerts of the fires’ progress, the ignition of new fires, evacuation orders and warnings and other critical information. Dozens of times a day the app’s distinctive whooshing tone sounded and millions of people picked up their phones to get the latest alert. That tone is etched into our collective memory.

For two hellish weeks, Angelenos were glued to the Watch Duty app.

We were also glued to our phones themselves, sending and receiving thousands of texts and making hundreds of phone calls to affected loved ones, friends and colleagues. Countless Angelenos from unaffected areas rose to the moment by volunteering or donating. Those who could — journalists, city and county staff, off duty first responders — shuttled residents back to the remains of their homes to sift through the rubble for whatever precious possessions that might have survived. Residents in neighborhoods bordering the burn zones formed watches to deter looters. A number of victims remained on their properties, camping out, protecting their neighborhoods and proving the essentialness of the Second Amendment. Unlikely bonds and friendships were forged in the flames and the aftermath…

You’ll be hard pressed, one year on, to find an Angeleno who doesn’t have direct memories of the fires, through personal experience, the experiences of family and friends, or both. Those 100,000 displaced people just celebrated their first holidays in new homes they never expected to occupy. Many will never be able to return.

Like the burn zones themselves, the psychological wounds will take years to heal. And while they ultimately will, the scar tissue will never look quite like the pre-fire physical and emotional landscapes. While a majority of Angelenos weren’t directly affected, their lives were changed, too. Their perceptions of the city they live in changed, from Santa Monica to Sunland-Tujunga, Malibu to Monrovia.

Faith shaken

Their perceptions of their city and county governments changed, too. In some cases, they changed for the better. CD 11 Councilwoman Traci Park secured her place in L.A. history as she fought tirelessly, relentlessly, for her devastated district and traumatized constituents. Out in the valley, while CD 7 Councilwoman Monica Rodriguez’s district was spared severe destruction, she nevertheless became an outspoken voice demanding accountability from city agencies…(more)

 

 

Politics

S.F.’s nonprofit housing market could be in trouble as longtime developer plans to sell buildings

By Laura Waxmann : sfchronicle – excerpt

For nearly four decades, the Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corp. has operated on a rare promise in San Francisco real estate: acquire or build affordable housing and hold it forever.

That covenant is now shifting.

For the first time in its history, the nonprofit housing developer and operator is planning to sell four buildings from its extensive Tenderloin housing portfolio, citing the need to shore up its long-term financial health. The decision marks a significant change in course for one of the city’s most influential nonprofit landlords, and could be a sign of trouble facing the nonprofit affordable housing sector…

Vacancy rates across the four properties range from 12% to 22%, compounding financial losses, the nonprofit said…

Deferred maintenance and aging building systems have added risk and expense, while outdated layouts — tiny rooms, shared bathrooms and limited kitchen access — have increased vacancy and turnover…

Meanwhile, new affordable housing construction is facing similar financing constraints: Thousands of units across 313 projects are currently stuck in San Francisco’s affordable housing pipeline. Katie Lamont, TNDC’s chief operating officer, said the organization is pausing work on two of its big projects: the 199-unit senior project at 1234 Great Highway and the 120-unit 149 Pennsylvania St…

“The city’s priority is ensuring that any changes involving these properties are tenant-centered and protect the long-term housing stability of residents: They must remain stably housed and continue to receive the supports they rely on,” representatives of the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development and the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing said in a joint statement to the Chronicle.

The departments said that they are “actively coordinating with partners to understand potential impacts and to ensure tenant protections remain central throughout this process.”…(more)