By Christian Leonard : sfchronicle – excerpt

The community is already highly vulnerable to storm-related flooding, and rising sea levels caused by climate change could destroy or damage hundreds of homes.

Since the start of the millennium, home values in one small, coastal Marin County community have surged at the fastest rate in the Bay Area, all while local officials are trying to figure out how to avoid losing parts of it to the sea.

The typical home in Stinson Beach, a tiny enclave of about 500 people along Bolinas Bay, was valued at an estimated $3.7 million in May 2024, according to data from real estate company Zillow. That’s more than five times the typical value in May 2000, about $688,000…(more)

By Kevin V. Nguyen : sfstandard – excerpt

California’s housing laws aren’t enforced unless someone forces the issue in the courts

With its proximity to major freeways and an expanding roster of restaurants and brand-name stores, San Mateo’s Bridgepointe Shopping Center isn’t likely to go anywhere anytime soon.

Yet, the city claims that most of the outdoor mall’s 12-acre parking lot could be redeveloped into hundreds of apartments over the next seven years.

San Mateo lists several sites like Bridgepointe that are still actively utilized by commercial tenants as critical parts of its latest housing element—a blueprint detailing how it will achieve its state-mandated housing goals. But despite skepticism from critics that those sites will transform into housing, elected officials voted last week to adopt the plan anyway…

Their celebration was short-lived. Less than 24 hours later, the city was sued in the San Mateo County Superior Court by a pro-housing activist group that accused San Mateo of skirting its duty to produce housing by forecasting construction in places that are not viable…

This lawsuit—and similar actions taken across California—have opened a new legal front in the state’s increasingly contentious housing war.

Previously, state officials have used the threat of yanking local control of development to force cities to submit their housing plans on time. Now, YIMBYs are arguing that it’s time to take accountability one step further and ensure the devised plans can feasibly lead to new homes. If the state can’t enforce follow-through—the thinking goes—then maybe the courts can…(more)

YIMBY laws and lawsuits are tearing the state apart and are forcing more communities to take drastic measures of their own. Cities are firing back with their own lawsuits and work on a citizens ballot initiative to override the state’e attack on CEQA and local jurisdiction over development decisions is under way.

Something has to change, if the Democrats continue on the path the are on, they could lose some seats in Sacramento where politicians have driven the cost of living into the stratosphere through inflationary taxes and over-spending. Newsom’s appointees at the California Public Utility Commission (CPUC) killed the solar industry. Legislators trying not revive it have so far been stymied and CPUC is forcing ratepayers to pay to revive the nuclear reactor that was being phased out, while the governor brags about his green credentials.

By Eliyahu Kamisher, Josh Eidelson and Andrew Oxford : yahoo – excerpt

(Bloomberg) — For two decades, a California law has helped workers sue the world’s biggest companies. Drivers for Uber Technologies Inc. won a $20 million settlement, Google employees secured $27 million over complaints of free-speech violations, and Walmart Inc. agreed to pay $65 million for allegedly not providing seating to their cashiers…

Now, Governor Gavin Newsom is quietly overseeing talks about changing that law after prodding from some of California’s largest business interests, who say a cascade of progressive policy wins in the state – like raising the minimum wage for fast-food workers to $20 an hour and increasing paid sick days — are eating away at their bottom lines.

Newsom’s office has brought together the state’s powerful California Chamber of Commerce with the California Labor Federation to hash out a compromise over the Private Attorneys General Act, or PAGA, people familiar with the negotiations said. The law has cost big and small businesses $10 billion over the past ten years, according to one study, and is viewed by labor advocates as a model of worker protection.

The negotiators are in a race against time: June 27 is the deadline to strike a measure from Californians’ November ballot that would give voters the opportunity to repeal the law. The Chamber of Commerce is negotiating on behalf of a broad alliance, which includes the billionaire owner of the Wonderful Company, Stewart Resnick, car dealership owners, Walmart and McDonald’s Corp., along with small businesses across the state. The business coalition committed more than $31 million to entities backing the ballot measure, including the signature-gathering effort and an advertising blitz…(more)

By Chris Legras, Jaime Page : westsidecurrent – excerpt (include audio track)

In the latest installment of the Current’s investigation into failures in our city and state’s approach to the homelessness crisis, we explore Governor Gavin Newsom’s “Largest Mobilization of Small Homes”

LOS ANGELES – One of the great challenges in understanding the failures of the City and County of Los Angeles and the State of California to effectively address the homelessness crisis is identifying the full panoply of funding state, county and city agencies have brought to bear, and the myriad public agencies involved.

In the Westside Current’s ongoing investigation into these failures, particularly the thousands of unoccupied homeless housing units, we look at a signature program from Governor Gavin Newsom. In two rounds of funding from a state program called the Homeless Housing, Assistance and Prevention (HHAP) initiative, the state allocated two rounds of funding, each amounting to $1 billion. Within these allocations, the City of Los Angeles was granted approximately $144 million to address homelessness.

In March 2023, the governor announced the release of an additional $1 billion through a fourth round of HHAP. The money was intended to help cities rapidly provide transitional housing for thousands, including the deployment of 1,200 units of “tiny homes” statewide. LA received an additional $86.5 million in this round, mostly to purchase and install 500 tiny homes throughout the city.

Under the strategy, the State would purchase the homes and the California National Guard would assist in preparing and delivering them to cities, “free of charge and ready for occupancy.”

Despite the enthusiastic announcement and an emergency order from the Mayor at the time, tangible progress on the tiny home initiative has been elusive. As of the end of May, not a single home has been constructed. The only tangible progress the city has made is submitting a list of potential locations for the housing units to the state.…(more)

By Linda Perez : laprogressive – excerpt

When it comes to housing, healthcare, and workers’ rights, Milei has pushed a radical agenda that goes against communities, endangering the very fabric of democracy in Argentina…

Why is a California organization called the Bay Area Council bringing the far-right president of Argentina to our state? Javier Milei, in just six months in office, has sparked nationwide protests for attacking inclusion policies, removing gun restrictions, and threatening affordable housing, all of which the Council says it supports. Welcoming him to the Pacific Summit 2024 in San Jose this week raises disturbing questions about the Council and its own legislative agenda.

The Bay Area Council promotes itself as a champion for housing, transportation, and public safety. Yet its chosen headliner conflicts with the Council’s purported goals and reveals the increasingly illiberal, pro-corporate, and anti-democratic shift by the Council itself.

In recent months, the Council has sponsored four bills—SB 1092, SB 951, SB 1077, and AB 2560—that masquerade as tools for coastal housing access. In reality, they would extend some perks to developers and neuter the California Coastal Commission’s power…(more)