Category Archives: deregulated housing bills

deregulated housing bills, Housing, Politics

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

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)

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)

 

 

CEQA, deregulated housing bills, Housing, Politics

Robert Rivas Announces First-Of-Its-Kind ‘Outcomes Review’ Legislative Oversight Tool to Enhance Impac t of Laws

Press Release

Set for launch in 2026, this new approach empowers lawmakers, staff and the public, underscores the Speaker’s ongoing commitment to listening to Californians, and refines solutions for greater impact

SACRAMENTO — On Thursday, Speaker Robert Rivas announced a first-of-its-kind legislative oversight tool that empowers Assembly members to assess, review and improve implementation of enacted laws that they’ve authored or championed — aiming for elevated community engagement, better outcomes, and lasting benefits for Californians.

Set to launch in January, this new approach underscores the Speaker’s ongoing commitment to strong accountability and transparency in government.

What Speaker Robert Rivas Says – “Passing laws is only the first step. The real test is ensuring they work. Gone are the days when laws can be signed and forgotten. The Outcomes Review tool empowers Assembly members to evaluate real-world outcomes, engage directly with residents, and refine our solutions for greater impact. It’s a forward-looking approach to oversight that every 21st century Legislature should adopt.”

‘Outcomes Reviews’ Continue Assembly Commitment to Oversight – Under Speaker Rivas’ leadership, the Assembly has consistently prioritized impact, oversight and accountability.

From the formation of new committees that make sure taxpayer dollars are implemented effectively and efficiently to special affordability-focused hearings on energy prices and the top cost drivers for working families, the Assembly has prioritized robust oversight of state spending and new legislation with real impact — especially in lowering the cost of living in California.

In 2025, Speaker Rivas also lowered the number of bills legislators can introduce from 50 to 35, so that every leader in the Assembly has the greatest possible bandwidth to focus on making sure California’s laws uplift prosperity.

Now in 2026, the Speaker is empowering members to emphasize collaborative review of enacted legislation by introducing an “Outcomes Review” oversight tool, which government policy author Jennifer Pahlka described as a “bold” and “intentional, structured process for evaluating whether the laws lawmakers pass actually do what they’re supposed to do” on her Eating Policy Substack.

With this work, Members will undergo three key steps, including:

  1. Announce laws to evaluate and review as part of an Outcomes Review, in coordination with policy committees, and identify partners for collaboration at the start of the legislative session
  2. Work with policy staff and stakeholders to host Outcomes Review-related committee hearings and community meetings starting in the spring, empowering Californians directly impacted by enacted laws to have a strong voice in this public process
  3. At the end of the legislative year, highlight Outcomes Review findings, actions and solutions that will improve implementation of laws

Speaker Rivas Invites Members to Utilize ‘Outcomes Review’ Oversight Tool – The Speaker’s office is working with Members and inviting lawmakers to participate in the new “Outcomes Review” legislative tool. In January, a first cohort of Assembly members will be announced. So far, the following lawmakers are already scheduled to begin Outcomes Review work at the start of 2026:

  • Assembly Majority Leader Cecilia Aguiar-Curry will continue her work on health care access for California families by reviewing implementation of Assembly Bill 744, which was enacted into law in 2019 and delivers telehealth solutions that improve care for all residents
  • Assembly Bill 2011 by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, also known as the Middle Class Housing Act. It was enacted in 2022 to make it easier to build affordable and mixed-income housing projects in cities and metro areas where shops or offices are already allowed. Assembly member Wicks will review the enacted law to make sure it is having a meaningful impact.
  • Assemblymember Jacqui Irwin enacted Assembly Bill 488 in 2021 to make sure charitable donations have their intended impact. She will look closely at how this law is being implemented and the experience of victims of the Los Angeles firestorms.
  • Assembly Bill 457 by Assemblymember Esmeralda Soria was enacted in 2025 with the goal of building more affordable farmworker housing within 15 miles of farm or grazing land in the Central Valley. The Assembly member will take a close look at outcomes and review whether the law is resulting in more homes for California’s farmworkers.

What Assembly Members are Saying About Outcomes Reviews…(more)

Rivas District Map: https://speaker.asmdc.org/district-map

CEQA, deregulated housing bills, Housing, Planning, Politics

From John Crabtree, who read the entire Upzoning Plan

Read The Fine Print
Upzoning & Ocean Beach
True Clarity on page 818

https://crabtreej.substack.com/p/readthefineprint?utm_medium=email

…I read it [The Mayor’s Upzoning Plan] Mayor Lurie. And now my readers are going to read about it too. With any luck they will share this with others as others have shared it with me. The jig, as they say Mayor Lurie, is definitely up.

There are manifold examples of horrible development and redevelopment concepts in Mayor Lurie’s Upzoning Plan, too many to detail in one essay. So, I will focus on the one that is most steeped in deception and betrayal — the Western Shoreline Area Plan amendments.

 

That image is just the first 9 lines; it goes on after that and there are more specifics elsewhere in Mayor Lurie’s Upzoning Plan. Honestly though, there is little reason to go any further than the page that I included above.

The Western Area Shoreline Plan policy objectives, as amended, would read — “ENSURE DEVELOPMENT IN THE COASTAL ZONE ADVANCES HOUSING AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT GOALS APPROPRIATE FOR THE LOCATION OF EACH PARCEL.”

I have already heard pushback from Mayor Lurie’s office saying, “no, no, that does not mean ‘ensure development,’ that is not why that is in there.” Oh, really? Then why the hell is it in there? It fails every credibility test to say that this amending language will not actually change coastal protections. Opening the door to coastal zone development is unpopular, frighteningly so. I get why your wrecking-ball planning office would try to hide it on page 818.

Remember that Engardio kept telling us this was all, “Fake News!”

It is not “Fake News!” Moreover, now that it is no longer hidden, please do not insult me and, more importantly, do not insult my friends, my neighbors and my community by saying you want to make this change, but the change would have no impact. It is patently absurd to risk the political fallout from such a move if the underlying amendments lacked real-world impact, insultingly absurd.

Mayor Lurie, take out the changes to the Western Area Shoreline plan that begin on page 818 and all of the other amendment provisions that emanate from it.

While I am at it, here are some other line-in-the-sand issues for me and a lot of other people, in The Sunset and beyond:

  • Open The Great Highway, reinstate the compromise!
  • Protect the Coastal Zone and Western Shoreline from upzoning and development!
  • Infrastructure before density — utilities, sewer, transit, water, public safety & local schools.
  • Small business stability — preserve and encourage a diversity of retail spaces and other small businesses, including older and more affordable storefronts.
  • Stop with the blanket upzoning that look for all the world like someone took a highlighter to a map in the Western neighborhoods. Upzoning and redevelopment needs to look like it was done with a fine tip brush and not a paint roller.

Mayor Lurie, we can do better than this, we must do better than this… john

CEQA, deregulated housing bills, Housing, Politics

Guest Opinion: To build housing, we need to fix RHNA

Image

By Senator Josh Becker (D-Menlo Park) : paloaltoonline – excerpt

A case for reforming California’s housing allocation process

As my colleagues and I enter the final weeks of the legislative session, housing is rightly at the center of our attention. But as high-profile bills move across the floor, I keep returning to an elephant in the room: our broken Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA) process. It is the very mechanism meant to drive housing production, but it is too costly and confusing to do the job we ask of it.

RHNA is how the state tells cities how much and what kind of housing to plan for. In theory, it should be a pragmatic, data-driven way to match housing supply with demand. In practice it has become a logistical nightmare for many communities on the Peninsula. Smaller cities are being forced to overhaul complex land-use and zoning codes through consultant-driven processes that are expensive in both dollars and staff time.

Across my district, expenditures on consultants and related implementation work have run into the millions. Local governments here have spent roughly $25 million on the sixth RHNA cycle alone, and individual cities have diverted as much as 10–15% of constrained local budgets to compliance rather than construction. That’s money that could have gone to shovel-ready projects, infrastructure improvements, or the services residents rely on every day…. (more)

Continue reading Guest Opinion: To build housing, we need to fix RHNA →

deregulated housing bills, Housing, Planning, Politics

Van Ness Is ‘In Crisis.’ Revival Plans Hinge On Housing Towers and Chain Stores

By Adam Brinklow : thefrisc – excerpt

Empty on brand new condos on Van Ness, shot on July 11, 2-25

This main SF thoroughfare once had grand houses and auto palaces. Now there’s a great bus line, but empty storefronts. Can it again be a place to live and linger?

“ In its May letter, the Van Ness Corridor Neighborhood Coalition asked for drastic reductions of some maximum heights, especially along eight blocks that squeeze between Pacific Heights to the west and Russian Hill and Nob Hill to the east. On the five blocks between California Street and Pacific Avenue, they want to cap heights at 100 feet, down from 250 feet. (Every 10 feet is roughly one story.) On the three-block stretch between Pacific and Green Street, they want 120 feet maximum instead of 350.”… (more)
What is truly amazing abut this article, is that they admit the program they already applied is not working. Fast buses on the street are not conducive to stopping and shopping or “hanging out:” Tall buildings are not being filled with retail or residents. So what is their solution? MORE OF THE SAME THING THAT IS NOT WORKING NOW!
Do these people actually believe the snake oil they are tryin to sell the public? Are there any people who do not see the little guy behind the big mask on the screen? After all Alice did return from Wonderland back to her normal home, and Dorothy did return to Kansas after her dream ended. Not many people want to live on a fantasy AI gameboard 24/7.

Our leaders are willing to try anything other than going back to what used to work before they destroyed to improve it.
CEQA, deregulated housing bills, Housing, Planning, Politics

Sausage Making turns to Extortion over the Weekend, brought to you by the Wiener Newsom machine.

Breaking news!

Wiener’s plan to fold his bills into the budget was refused by the state parliamentarian. So… They went with option B.

Wiener pulled his bills  and is pushing them onto the state legislature while Newsom takes the strange position of threatening to withhold his signature from his own budget, if the Wiener anti-CEQA bills don’t pass if we believe the latest news.

 

 

CEQA, deregulated housing bills, Housing, Politics

Democracy Falls Apart When No One is Looking

First you have the sausage making in the backroom. The word is out that multiple bills to kill California Environmental Quality Act (CEPQ) are being withdrawn from floor votes and sent to the sausage factory in Sacramento. So far we hear rumors that some of the bills in question include components of: SB 306, 607, 609, and possibly SB 681..
Then you have the threat to hold the budget captive.  The finish line is in sight for lawmakers who reached a deal this week with the governor over California’s next budget. But one crucial component remains unresolved  — and Gavin Newsom says he won’t sign the budget without it… (more)
 
Are you live Washington? No we are in Sacramento. You are watching Newsom and Wiener at work. 
 
“ But tying hundreds of billions in state spending to one bill has raised the eyebrows of some lawmakers and legislative observers. “This is a unique provision that I am not aware has been in a bill before,” veteran lobbyist and legislative process hawk Chris Micheli wrote in an email about what he called a “reverse contingency provision.”
“It is the first time I’ve ever seen the entire budget bill contingent on being enacted on two policy bills about housing,” said Assemblymember Alex Lee, D-San Jose, during a Wednesday budget committee hearing.  “But that shows how serious we are about getting more housing built, and how dire the housing crisis is.”
Read the details in the Sacramento Bee 

Last-minute budget change brings California housing policy fight to a head

By Kate Wolffe and Nicole Nixon : sacbee – excerpt (audio)
 
Elements of California’s final budget deal are bringing to the forefront housing debates that have been simmering in the Legislature for years, forcing lawmakers to make big decisions before the new fiscal year begins July 1.
On Tuesday, Gov. Gavin Newsom, Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas and Senate pro tem Mike McGuire put out the main aspects of a three-party deal that made compromises on balancing a $321 billion budget with a $12 billion deficit.
 
However, the deal includes a few policy changes that are giving lawmakers pause. Deep in the bill outlining the budget agreement is this provision: “Notwithstanding any other law, if the Governor does not sign one of Assembly Bill 131 or Senate Bill 131 on June 30, 2025, the provisions of the Budget Act of 2025 …(read more here) 
CEQA, deregulated housing bills, Housing, Planning, Politics, Transportation

We need help stopping Senate Bill 79

If you need a visual to understand the impacts of Wiener’s SB 79
The above links to a visual explanation that illustrates the significance of the changes SB 79 could make in your neighborhood.

It took Wiener three rounds of voting to get SB 79 passed in the Senate. It’s amended and scheduled for hearings in the Assembly Housing, Local Government, and Natural Resources committees.
The Housing Committee hearing is in the first week of July;
letters are due June 25th.

If you are concerned about this, consider taking some actions:

See contact info below.  You may call or  leave a message on the phone asking the Assembly members to vote NO on S B 79.
A  spreadsheet of Assemblymembers with contact info

Or send a letter to the Assembly members listed below:

Assembly Members on the Committees 

Text version of a sample letter and speaking points.

I strongly oppose SB 79 as an assault on local control that disregards state-certified housing elements. At first glance, the amendments made by Senator Wiener might appear reasonable, but actually offer nothing of substance.

• The new “affordability” component merely reflects incentives already available.

• The new option for localities to write alternative plans are of no benefit. By requiring that the same number of units and floor area ratio be maintained, this provision is a false alternative, as it merely creates a complex balancing act.

The thrust of SB 79 remains ministerially approved market-rate density without regard to local conditions. Our housing elements have already indicated which sites best serve our communities as infill.

SB 79 is deeply flawed in both concept and consequence. It would inflict disproportionate harm on the most affordable neighborhoods in our cities.

I OPPOSE SB 79 for these reasons:

  • It undermines affordable housing goals
  • 81% of all development under new laws is already market rate
  • It encourages gentrification
  • It undermines the housing element process
  • It does not exempt fire hazard zones
  • Affordable housing near transit is the avowed goal of state policy, but it is not the goal of this bill.

Sincerely,

Individuals: Your name and address
Organizations: Your name, title, and signature; add logo at top

If you want to learn how to post to the portal, go here: https://discoveryink.wordpress.com/ca-legislative-process/ca-bills/posting-letters