Category Archives: Housing

deregulated housing bills, Housing, Planning, Politics

Housing Bond Issue Draws Fire

By:  independentnews – excerpt (includes audio track)
Housing Bond Issue Draws Fire

Housing Bond Issue Draws Fire

TRI-VALLEY — Thirteen Bay Area residents opposed to a $20 billion regional housing bond measure filed a lawsuit last week that alleges the question to be placed on November ballots as Regional Measure 4 (RM4) is slanted to prejudice voters to approve it.

The group contends the official name of the measure, “Bay Area Affordable Plan,” is deceptive and the ballot question voters will consider contains a series of phrases that are not found in the language of the measure. The residents’ group is asking the court to rename the measure to “Bay Area Affordable Housing Bond,” because they contend it will cost residents more in property taxes.

“This lawsuit is all about the 75 words maximum that will be in the Regional Measure 4 ballot question,” said Jason Bezis, an attorney for the residents, a list of electors for the Nov. 5 election, members of county taxpayers’ associations, and a former San Jose City Council member.

Bezis’ office filed a petition in Santa Clara Superior Court on Aug. 8, demanding it be rewritten. The filing came six days after sending a “pre-litigation” letter to the Bay Area Housing Finance Authority (BAHFA), which placed the measure on the ballot.The lawsuit targets BAHFA and election officials in Alameda, Santa Clara, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Mateo, Solano, and Sonoma counties, along with the city and county of San Francisco… (more)

CEQA, Housing, Planning, Politics

Housing Accountability Unit’s Efforts Lead to San Francisco’s Progress in Removing Barriers to Housing Production

Housing Accountability Unit’s Efforts Lead to San Francisco’s Progress in Removing Barriers to Housing Production

San Francisco Has Implemented Key Actions Required by HCD’s Housing Policy and Practice Review

In response to last year’s release of the California Department of Housing and Community Development’s (HCD) San Francisco Housing Policy and Practice Review (PPR), San Francisco has implemented significant reforms that will make it easier to build housing at all income levels.

The PPR – a first of its kind investigation into a local government’s barriers to housing production – required San Francisco to implement 18 required actions beginning immediately and through 2026 that resolve inconsistencies with state law, accelerate housing production, and reduce barriers beyond the strong commitments already being made through San Francisco’s 6th Cycle Housing Element.

Since the release of the PPR, HCD has continuously monitored San Francisco’s progress. As a result of this technical assistance from HCD and San Francisco’s actions, they are currently up to date on required actions and, in some cases, implementing actions ahead of schedule. The PPR accelerated the passage of reforms already underway and supported the early completion of several actions proposed in San Francisco’s Housing Element.

These policy and practice changes can now begin to translate into real impact and results for development in San Francisco.

Some of the most significant reforms San Francisco has made to address their required actions include:

  • Approving the Constraints Reduction Ordinance, which was proposed shortly after the adoption of the Housing Element and was passed following HCD technical assistance
  • Prohibiting subjectivity in planning approval
  • Reforming CEQA processes to give a clear determination within 30 days of a complete application
  • Increasing objectivity and transparency in the construction permittingprocess
  • Restructuring processes so that developments that already received planning approval cannot be subject to subsequent building permit appeals
  • Reducing procedural hurdles for code-compliant projects
  • Removing hearing requirements for most State Density Bonus Law requests.

Together, these actions help cut red tape and uncertainty, clarify opaque processes, and ensure compliance with state housing laws. For a more detailed summary of these actions, click here.

These changes represent important steps in the right direction and reflect a commitment to achieving a new status quo in San Francisco. Nevertheless, to ensure full implementation of the actions in both the PPR and the housing element – and to achieve housing production in San Francisco that truly meets the need – HCD will continue to provide ongoing support and monitor San Francisco’s progress on their 6 remaining PPR actions as they come due.

By staying on track with these remaining items, San Francisco will continue to demonstrate its commitment to facilitating housing production at all income levels and ensure compliance with its obligations.

Questions? Email PPR@hcd.ca.gov.

Housing, Politics

Canada’s CMHC Internal Messages Show Housing Supply Narrative Is BS

By Stephen Punwasi : betterdwelling – excerpt

Everyone in Canada will soon be able to afford a home. We just need investors to build more and rates to be cut, right? Anyone that can do basic math has probably been skeptical of that narrative and with good reason—even the people making those statements don’t believe it. Internal messages from the CMHC make very brief but important notes that challenge the exact narrative its leadership has been publicly spinning. More supply won’t bring down home prices, and lower rates won’t make them more affordable. Higher prices will make more supply feasible and lower rates will help boost prices.

CMHC Internal Chats Claim Higher Prices Will Improve Supply: The public is frequently told that housing is expensive because of a shortage. People will often say, “it’s simple supply and demand.” Messages shared between the agency’s communications staff and economists in 2021 show the circumstances are a little more complicated.

“Higher price level will improve development feasibility, so starts will remain elevated over the forecast horizon,” read a suggested point discussing a released forecast…

Central Banks Lower Rates To Raise Prices, Not Improve Affordabilty: Understanding how interest rates work also provides a little more context in this area. The Bank of Canada (BoC) is in charge of maintaining an ideal decay in the value of money (i.e. inflation). Their primary and most important tool to do this are interest rates…

CMHC Attributes Higher Prices To Cheap Mortgages In Passing: Higher prices are often blamed on population growth, especially in Canada with its recent record surge since 2022. Home prices made a record move in January 2022, but 2021 was the lowest annual population growth for the country going back to at least the 1970s. That was also the year Canada was completing 18 homes per person the population grew by. …(more)

Stephen Punwasi: Co-Founder and chief data nerd at Better Dwelling. Named a top influencer in finance and risk by Thomson-Reuters.

The more we hear about YIMBY economic theories they more evidence we find that they do not pan out as promised.

CEQA, Housing, Politics

The Appeal on AB 9

By Ella Morner-Ritt and Alexandra Friedman : cp-dr – excerpt

CP&DR News Briefs: https://cp-dr.com/articles/cpdr-news-briefs-july-16-2024

CP&DR News Briefs July 16, 2024: AB 9 Appeal; Land Use Ballot Propositions; SB 423 Streamlining; and More

By Ella Morner-Ritt and Alexandra Friedman

July 16, 2024

Bonta Appeals Ruling Exempting Charter Cities from SB 9
Attorney General Rob Bonta is appealing a Superior Court decision that halted the enforcement of Senate Bill 9 in charter cities. SB 9 took effect in 2023, allowing subdivision of parcels traditionally zoned for single-family homes into configurations accommodating duplexes and fourplexes. The law faced opposition five charter cities asserting it improperly overrides local zoning in charter cities, though supporters argue it’s crucial for addressing the statewide housing crisis. Del Mar, along with four Los Angeles County cities, challenged SB 9 in court, contending it violates the state constitution by not effectively promoting affordable housing without interfering excessively with local government. The judge’s ruling sided with this argument on April 22, prompting Bonta’s appeal, aiming to clarify the law’s applicability across all of California’s charter cities. Bonta emphasized SB 9’s constitutionality and its role in enhancing housing availability and affordability statewide, highlighting ongoing efforts to defend legislative housing initiatives in court. “We firmly believe that SB 9 is constitutional as to every city in the state,” said Bonta, in a statement. “As the California Second District Court of Appeal recently held, ensuring housing availability and affordability in California is a matter of statewide importance.”

November Statewide Ballot to Feature Four Land Use Propositions
California voters will face four statewide ballot propositions related to land use this November, covering issues from infrastructure funding to rent control. The ballot will feature ten propositions in total. Proposition 2 proposes a $10 billion bond primarily allocated for school construction and upgrades. Proposition 4 proposes a $10 billion bond to fund climate and environmental projects, aiming to mitigate impacts of climate change and bolster water and wildfire defenses. Proposition 5 seeks to ease voter approval requirements for local housing and infrastructure bonds to encourage borrowing for low-income and affordable housing projects. Proposition 33 proposes granting local governments authority to enforce rent control measures; it’s the latest in a string of thus-far unsuccessful rent control measures sponsored by Los Angeles-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation. AB1657 — which proposed issuing $10 billion in general obligation bonds to fund affordable rental housing programs for lower-income families, supportive housing for the homeless and other critical housing initiatives — will not appear on the ballot; concerned about the state’s borrowing capacity, the legislature opted instead for Proposition 2, a $10 billion school facilities bond measure… (more)

deregulated housing bills, Housing, Politics

‘Everything rests on this’: Will taxpayers loan Bay Area counties $20B to fix housing?

By Kevin V. Nguyen : sfstandard – excerpt

They want us to pay for our own displacement is they plow down our homes to make room for the millions they claim need housing, in spite of the loss of population in the state.

Voters will decide on this massive new IOU in this upcoming November election

With state and federal funds drying up, banks lending less, and more cities facing budget deficits, tens of thousands of newly proposed affordable homes have been stuck in limbo, unable to get off the ground.

So come this November, Bay Area voters will not only be weighing in on the next U.S. President, but also, whether or not they should step in and loan the nine-county region a total of $20 billion to move those efforts along.

Last week, the commissioners of the Bay Area Housing Finance Authority—a first-of-its kind agency created in 2020—voted unanimously to put the bond measure on ballots to fund new subsidized housing projects, buy up existing homes to make or keep them affordable, and support housing-related infrastructure…

The bond would be funded by property tax increases, with an estimated tax of $19 per $100,000 of assessed value, which shakes out to about $190 per year for a home assessed at $1 million.

If voters approve this IOU, each city would receive a cut of the proceeds based on how much its jurisdiction pays in taxes. San Francisco, for example, would get about $2.4 billion to invest, while the city of Oakland would get over $720 million. The funds would be dispersed in the form of low-cost loans.

BAHFA estimates that paying off the loan would add up to nearly $50 billion after interest. The mayors of San Francisco, San Jose and Oakland all expressed support for the bond measure. …(more)

The MTC who can’t make the trains run on time and splurges on a multi billion dollar building in San Francisco, a the tax payers expense, not wants to sell us on a housing plan that is wants to charge us for by raising property taxes. At a time when property values are receding like yesterday’s tide.

Already people who bought into the ADU concept are shocked by their higher taxes, due to the recent rise in valuation of their property. How many property owners are willing to eat the higher taxes without passing their onto their tenants? Seriously? We are going to trust the MTC with more money when they are refusing to listen to us?

These are the people who removed single family housing from the state, killed the solar industry, want to remove our private vehicles and replace gas stoves with electric that will run on nuclear power and whatever else Big Energy can find to burn. MTC is trying to force us back into the lifestyle we just pulled ourselves out of. They want us to live in tiny homes and commute to tiny office cubicles to keep their computer vehicles working. They call this backward plan their vision of the future?

This is the anti-farm pro-housing gang that seeks to plow over our farms and ranch to build more housing. Who needs fresh food when you can live in tight close quarters and eat who knows what and look cool toting your life in a bag on the Muni on your way to the Mayor’s latest rave?

Newsom is moving this family to Marin but, they will not be living in one of those little units next to the 101 Smart Train station in San Rafael. They will be living on acreage and saving for their children’s future by building equity in their homes. What will we get? Another day older and a another month’s rent.

deregulated housing bills, Housing, Politics

YIMBY Want to Raise Your Rent

By Marc Salomon : counterpunch – excerpt

Over the past decade, a new political formation has arisen in the US, the YIMBY which stands for “Yes In My Backyard.” YIMBY posit themselves as the antithesis of the NIMBY, “Not In My Backyard,” a constructed political bogey person, who YIMBY claim are responsible for the high cost of housing in the US. Starting in the Bay Area, the YIMBY movement has rapidly expanded to cities nationwide and attracted more funding.

Hardly a spontaneous phenomenon, YIMBY are the latest in a long line of housing and real estate booster political operations that seek favorable regulatory consideration from local governments that have historically regulated land use. From the media campaigns to encourage families to move from the cities to suburban sprawl after WWII to local real estate funded booster organizations that pushed “Transit Oriented Development” in the 2000s, such operators have continually repped for developers. There has always been some background level of pro-development organizing in play…

YIMBY are different, however. As a product of the post-1999/2000 deregulation of Wall Street era, the marriage of funding liberated by deregulation plus a libertarian capitalist housing supply side dogmatism has produced a message that is appealing if only for its simplicity: upzone the cities, deregulate land use approvals, relieve developers of carrying their freight through impact fees and housing prices will fall…

CoreySmith, executive director of the longstanding residential developer booster organization, The Housing Action Coalition, showed YIMBY’s hand at a San Francisco Planning Commission meeting earlier this year:..[when he state] “One of the challenges we face in San Francisco is we need the rent to go back up.”.

It is so refreshing to hear YIMBYs say this stuff out loud. Private developers have no plan for building new housing when rents actually go down. [as they have lately]…

In truth, in order to spur more development, lenders need to see housing prices increase before taking the risk to commit capital to development. Housing production only occurs when housing prices rise. Housing prices only rise during the second half of the up phase of the business cycle when greed eclipses fear.

This shows that the YIMBY are but developer lobbyists who demand housing at all costs, costs which are to be extracted from tenants through higher rents…

There might be good reasons for desirable cities facing torrential demand to entitle some market rate housing. Adding supply to push down price is not one of them. Instead of responding to the flood of shit, YIMBY are best contested by community based grassroots organizing for self determination in comprehensive, not lobbyist directed, land use planning.

The antidote to the shitstorm is “YIMBY want to raise your rents.”

Marc Salomon is a co-founder of the San Francisco Community Land Trust…(more)

deregulated housing bills, Housing, Politics

URGENT — OPPOSE SB 7

This is an URGENT call to action. SB 7 is a terrible bill, and it needs to be opposed before it’s next heard on 6/26. Letters and calls should be in ASAP. Today if possible.  After a district court ruled against SB9 for Charter Cities, the density dogs have been working on a work around.

RELATED: COURT THROWS OUT PRO-DENSITY LAW SB9

What is the Problem with SB 7? This is a housing bill that makes HCD stronger and RHNA worse. SB7 takes recommendations from a 176 page report — “California’s Housing Future 2040: The Next Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA)” — sent to legislators just two months ago, and hastily tries to get them passed into law in the next few weeks.

Through a sneaky process called “gut and amend,” new language has been put into SB 7 — which already passed the Senate in another form — and is now working its way through the Assembly.

No underlying problems of 6th cycle RHNA are addressed. This bill relies on unsubstantiated claims about the state’s housing crisis to justify usurping local control.

The 6th cycle RHNA is not even mid-way through, and all cities are failing its metrics. The solid reasons why are heavily documented — to the point that a housing element audit was recently authorized to examine the process.

The HCD is doing an end run around the audit and any flaws it might uncover; the new language of SB 7 bolsters their powers for 7th cycle RHNA, and they want it done now.

WHAT HCD GETS WITH SB 7:

  • An increase in authority, zero oversight, no transparency
  • Heavier hand against cities, bolstered by new punitive legislation
  • Further control over local zoning control
  • Eliminates the right to appeal RHNA mandates
  • Allows unchecked lobbyist influence
  • Continue to disregard infrastructure costs and other impacts to cities
  • Continue to disregard actual data, including population projections that show California’s numbers flat through 2060
  • Inclusion of open space in their calculation for how much new development a jurisdiction can absorb
  • No requirement to base policy on robust economic theory
  • No requirement to base RHNA mandates on legitimate population projections
  • RHNA allocations will continue to increase market rate housing
  • RHNA will require — but not advance — affordability.
  • Unelected bureaucrats will continue creating policy with no accountability

THIS IS HAPPENING FAST:
SB7 is being rushed through without due diligence.
This “gut and amend” bill bypassed normal deadlines, and showed up at the last minute. In the Senate it was an innocuous bill about group housing.

June 10th: Amended in Assembly
June 18th: Passed Assembly Housing and Community Development Committee
June 26th: Up for a vote in the Local Government committee

your message can be this simple: I OPPOSE SB 7.
Contact for direct representatives are below, they also need to hear from us.

First Last Email Phone
Chair, D Juan Carrillo juan.carrillo (916) 319-2039
V-Chair, R Marie Waldron marie.waldron (916) 319-2075
R Bill Essayli bill.essayli (916) 319-2063
D Matt Haney matt.haney (916) 319-2017
D Ash Kalra ash.kalra (916) 319-2025
D Blanca Pacheco blanca.pacheco (916) 319-2064
D James Ramos james.ramos (916) 319-2045
D Chris Ward assemblymember.Ward (916) 319-2078
D Lori Wilson lori.wilson (916) 319-2011
Chief Cons. Angela Mapp angela.mapp (916) 319-3958

SB 7 Sample Verville letter

Oppose SB 7 or download the editable doc file: Oppose SB 7
Recipients: juan.carrillo@asm.ca.gov, marie.waldron@asm.ca.gov, bill.essayli@asm.ca.gov, matt.haney@asm.ca.gov, ash.kalra@asm.ca.gov,  blanca.pacheco@asm.ca.gov, james.ramos@asm.ca.gov, assemblymember.Ward@assembly.ca.gov, lori.wilson@asm.ca.gov, angela.mapp@asm.ca.gov

Housing, Politics

Could a $20 billion bond measure help solve the Bay Area’s affordable housing crisis?

By ETHAN VARIAN : eastbaytimes – excerpt (audio track)

Bay Area mayors gathered in San Francisco to rally support for the measure

This November, Bay Area voters could decide on an unprecedented bond measure to raise up to $20 billion for as many as 90,000 desperately needed affordable homes across the nine-county region.

Ahead of a crucial vote by a regional agency next week to put the measure on the ballot, the mayors of three of the Bay Area’s largest cities gathered in San Francisco on Thursday to rally support for the proposal.

“If you’re concerned about homelessness, this is the measure to support,” San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan said. “If you’re concerned about the high cost of housing and the high cost of living, this is the measure to support.”

San Francisco Mayor London Breed and Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguín were also at the event, held at an affordable housing complex near the Chase Center arena in San Francisco’s Mission Bay neighborhood.

Absent was Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao, who was a no-show after the FBI raided her home early Thursday morning.

Across the Bay Area, some 1.4 million residents — 23% of all renters — spend more than half their income on rent, according to regional officials. Meanwhile, an estimated 37,000 people in the region are homeless on any given night — more than the entire population of Menlo Park…

The bond would be funded by a new tax on businesses and homes. For a $20 billion bond, the tax would come to $19 per $100,000, or about $190 a year for a home with an assessed value of $1 million…

As it stands now, the bond measure would need a two-thirds majority of all Bay Area voters to pass. However, if a measure on the same November ballot to make it easier to pass tax measures is approved, the bond measure would need only 55% approval.

On Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court struck a separate measure from the ballot that could have mandated a two-thirds majority… (more)

If the bill passes inflationary the  spending spiral will go up another racket pushing all prices higher instead of allowing them to level off. Taxes will go into increased rents and so the circle will continues to spiral out of control.

CEQA, deregulated housing bills, Housing, Politics

OPINION: What the Judges and the LA Times Got Wrong About The Venice Median Project (and Why it Ain’t Over Till it’s Over)

Opinion By Charles Rosin : westsidecurrent – excerpt (includes audio)

VENICE – We seriously doubt whether the Op-Ed writers who penned last week’s editorial for the ideologically-driven LA Times praising Judge Richard Fruin’s dispiriting dismissal of our CEQA case have ever opted to spend a lazy Sunday afternoon in summer exploring what a recent poll in Travel and Leisure described as ‘America’s Favorite Beach.’

How else can you explain the Op-Ed writers’ description of our area’s last parcel of open space– a large, 2.65-acre, parking lot designed to accommodate carloads of working-class families from Inglewood, DTLA, and other land-locked enclaves who flock to Venice Beach to make memories and find relief from the swelter– as “one of those rare open swaths of land that city officials dream of using for homeless and affordable-housing”.

Really? That’s what these people dream about? No vicarious images of little kids at the shore with a shovel and pail? Or proud grandparents pushing strollers down Ocean Front Walk? Or couples unloading their canoe for a romantic paddle down the Linnie Canal?

It makes us wonder if any of these city officials ever wake up in the middle of the night from a recurring nightmare; tracking what could happen when you build a massive (and massively expensive) 140-unit “affordable” housing project, on an environmentally-fraught juncture on The Venice Median, one half-block from the beach, predicted by the EPA to be particularly vulnerable to sea-level rise?

And while dreaming, do the city officials who enabled this project ever get swamped by visions of coastal flooding impacting their newly constructed Venice-Dell Community? (Ironically, designed as a fortress to be cut off from its surrounding communities which would provide “shelter from the storm”). …

And since The Times insists affordable housing is “desperately needed” in our part of town, how about assigning one of the few real reporters left on its staff to delve into how 1200 units of taxpayer-funded projects can sit empty in a city that is ostensibly “all-hands-on-deck”, as first reported in a stunning bit of investigative journalism provided by Chris LeGras and Jamie Page for the Westside Current…

As with its previous editorials, what passes these days as the Times’s Braintrust opted to give Venice Community Housing’s Executive Director, Becky Dennison, free-reign expressing her frustration with City-Attorney Hydee Soto Feldstein’s decision to halt all work on the project by the city’s Department of Transportation and its Bureau of Engineering until the two law suits we filed on behalf of The Coalition for Safe Coastal Development had been resolved, or settled in mediation…

Mayor Bass does not deserve to be attacked, but praised for her tireless commitment to work with numerous City Council Members, to reduce encampments on our streets, parks, and public spaces while transitioning the willing into shelters and other arrangements.

We here at Safe Coastal also have great admiration for Mayor Bass’s role as a prime supporter of a new and improved replacement to the state’s soon-to-expire and problematic CEQA exemption. AB785, which the Governor signed into law in 2023, includes many of the exemptions housing advocates want, while excluding construction within a mapped FEMA 100-year flood zone. (**)…(more)

 

 

 

Housing, Planning, Politics

Controversial proposed San Francisco tower is no more

By Kendra Smith : sfgate – excerpt

The developer has withdrawn permit applications for the hotly debated 50-story tower near SF’s Ocean Beach

A proposed 50-story tower in San Francisco that caused a stir when its permit applications were filed last year will not be built. According to an email sent on May 21 by a manager at developer CH Planning, LLC, to San Francisco Planning, which was obtained by SFGATE, the company is withdrawing all existing applications filed since December 2021 for its 2700 Sloat Blvd. property…

CH Planning had submitted several plans for residential buildings at the site over the years — but none were so controversial as the proposed 589-foot skyscraper in the city’s Outer Sunset neighborhood. The building would have been 316% taller than the area’s zoning regulations allow for, according to a response from city staff to the developer’s proposal. It also did not comply with the city’s planning code, and would have required rezoning in the area in order to be built.

But it wasn’t just the city that had words to share about the proposed tower. A group called Save our Neighborhoods San Francisco launched a petitionwith nearly 4,000 signatures asking the city to stop the development — even though it hadn’t yet been approved. The petition also asked the city to “create a vision and plan for SF that enhances our neighborhoods, and not allow randomly placed towering complexes.”…

The developer is selling the site to a nonprofit buyer that will build eight stories of affordable housing on the site, the San Francisco Chronicle reports… (more)

People want to know what the numbers are. Here are some numbers. 4,000 signatures get noticed. If it really important to pool our resources and support and to do the work to stop or support government plans for our lives. To that end, please review this site for actions you may take on causes you are “mad as hell” about: https://votersrevenge.wordpress.com/