All posts by discowk7

CEQA, Housing, Planning

Wiener and Alvarez attack the Pacific Coastline

Petition to stop SB 951: There is a bill in the State Senate, SB 951, authorized by Scott Wiener, sponsored by Mayor Breed, to streamline housing development near Ocean Beach by slicing off a piece of San Francisco from the jurisdiction of the California Coastal Commission (CCC). Critics say that, at best, it pushes a solution looking for a problem and, at worst, it benefits developers and the real estate sector, and it  sets a bad precedent that could undermine future environmental protections that have been in place for about 50 years. Petition to stop SB 951:  Share the link!
https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/no-on-sb-951-keep-california-coastline-open-and-accessible-2

THE SAN FRANCISCO BOARD OF SUPERVISORS AND THE CALIFORNIA COASTAL COMMISSION TAKE IMMEDIATE ACTIONS TO STOP THIS ATTACK!

Please let everyone know about this.

Senator Scott Wiener is also going after the California Coastal Commission’s  jurisdiction over what is left of a small strip of San Francisco’s Pacific coastline with another gem, SB 951.  Mayor Breed is a sponsor of this bill.  The Coastal Commission and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors took immediate action to stop the bill that many feel threatens the entire Pacific Coast with unlimited development by Passing Peskin’s Resolution # 240065 opposing SB 951 – Opposing California State Senate Bill No. 951 (Wiener) Unless Amended and Expressing Support for the California Coastal Act and Recognizing the Authority of the California Coastal Commission.

Please support the opposition to this bill. SB951 is scheduled for a hearing on April 9 in the Senate Natural Resources  and Water Committee.  Letters need to be submitted to the committee by 5:00 p.m. on Thursday, March 28.

SIGN THE PETITION TO STOP SB 951 AND ALL BILLS THAT PROTECT OUR CALIFORNIA COASTLINE! CON SIDER WHICH MAYORAL CANDIDATE WILL SUPPORT THIS RESOLUITON!

Assemblymember Alvarez of San Diego has extended the threat of development to the entire Coast of California with AB 2560. Senator Wiener, SPUR and the Bay Area Council are sponsors of this bill. 

AND: We now have SB 1037 – the “Make the NIMBYS pay Act!” 
and Planning and Zoning: housing element: enforcement.
Another Scott Wiener Bill as if we need another reason to boot him out of office. As if we needed another one! Calmatters explains it here:
https://digitaldemocracy.calmatters.org/bills/ca_202320240sb1037?slug=CA_202320240SB1037

Another site that is fighting the anti-car bills: https://ww2.motorists.org/ca/

Lawmakers also took on affordable housing. CalMatters housing reporter Ben Christopher writes that Attorney General Rob Bonta and San Francisco Sen. Scott Wiener, both Democrats, rolled out a new bill Wednesday that would put the financial squeeze on cities found by a court to have violated state housing law.

Supporters might call it the “Make NIMBYs Pay” Act.

Sponsored by Bonta’s office and introduced by Wiener, the bill would require courts to slap scofflaw cities with a minimum fine of $10,000 per month. The cities would begin racking up legal debt starting on the day they stop following the law.

Currently courts can only start tacking on monetary penalties after giving cities at least 60 days to come into compliance. Wiener, on social media: “Cities thus have no incentive to avoid a lawsuit by following the law. Worst case, they get sued, lose & comply. SB 1037 creates actual incentives to comply with the law.”

All About Senator Weiner: https://digitaldemocracy.calmatters.org/legislators/scott-wiener-100936

 

CEQA, Housing, Planning, Politics

SENATOR WIENER ATTACKS SF

For some reason, State Senator Scott Wiener has chosen to go after his constituents in a way that is somewhat astonishing. Does he believe that we are masochists and appreciate being punished or is he so sure that he can win by buying the loyalty of deep pockets who can convince the voters that he is on their side?

In 2023  Senator Wiener started to write legislation targeted directly at  San Francisco: In a last-minute amendment to SB 423 Scott injected annual reviews of San Francisco’s progress on housing—making it the only jurisdiction in the state receiving elevated scrutiny. All others have four year reviews.  See article in SF Standard about SB 423. 

In 2024 Scott is continuing to attack San Francisco:   He introduced SB1227 to exempt downtown projects from the California Environmental Quality Act, or CEQA, for a decade. The 1970 landmark law requires studies of a project’s expected impact on air, water, noise and other areas.  Wiener’s excuse is that the city has used CEQA to slow down or kill infill development near public transit  and that no environment  damage can be done to a concrete jungle.  See article in SF Standard about SB 1227

page link

CEQA, Housing

‘Terrified’: Latest billionaire acquisition in Carmel sets off alarm bells

By Andrew Pridgen : sfgate – excerpt

You haven’t heard about AB 2560 yet!!! It will allow density bonus projects (think Sloat) in our coastal zones!!! For the entire state.  Carmel’s coastal zone goes 1 mile in from the beach. Holy holy holy. Attached is the SB 951 letter sent to all local electeds on the coast. Next is my draft of the next one that includes AB2560. WAKE UP!! I’ll have to reach out to Carmel directly. I met some of them at the League meeting last year and they 100% were supporting ONV.

Carmel-by-the-Sea is being quickly bought up by Monaco billionaire who reportedly wants to ‘crush everyone’

On the surface, the La Rambla building in Carmel checks the box of nearly every ideal associated with the tiny village by the sea: It’s a two-story Spanish-style stucco building built in 1929, with space for retail on the ground floor and a pair of apartments on the second level, both featuring Juliet balconies facing the street.

Located on the corner of Lincoln Street and Ocean Avenue in the heart of the village’s main commercial corridor, the building’s defining feature is a courtyard, a little hideaway from the street that is decorated with a variety of tiles and hand-carved stone urns.

The building’s seemingly innocuous January sale for $7.5 million — the property was originally listed by local real estate agent Tim Allen for $9 million in 2020 — has stirred some into action here. Why? Because it was yet another cherished spot scooped up by Patrice Pastor, the Monaco billionaire who has quietly been accumulating more than a dozen such favored properties in Carmel, including the L’Auberge Carmel Hotel, the Brown-Spaulding Building and the Eastwood Building, over the past nine years…(more)

This looks like another addition to the coastline under threat by the Wiener anti-SF bill SB 951. You can line them up down the California coast and see the Miami towers coming unless some actions to stop it are taken soon. Wonder how much the owners donated to Scott’s lobbying efforts support SB 951, through a PR firm no doubt.

deregulated housing bills, Housing

Developer wants to ‘supersize’ S.F. project under new state housing law — while it ’s being built

By Laura Waxmann : sfchronicle – excerpt

Oakland developer oWow is the latest builder planning to “supersize” a previously approved project in San Francisco due to a recent change in state law.

An application filed with the city’s Planning Department on Wednesday proposes updates to the design of 960 Howard St. in the Central SoMa neighborhood, which, in recent years, was approved for redevelopment into a three-story creative office building with a 9-story, 113-unit residential addition.

Developer oWow purchased the site, that was long home to a small industrial building, in 2019 and has nearly completed the three-story office component of the plan. It is now seeking to add a total of 16 stories of high density housing.

“The approved 113 units will not achieve a product that meets the returns that anybody would want to invest in today to get that project started,” said Danny Haber, oWow’s CEO and co-founder. “It is not financially feasible.”

The new plan proposes a total of 274 rental units. If approved and constructed as currently designed, the project would provide 158 studio apartments and 116 two-bedroom apartments. Out of the total proposed apartments, 42 units would be designated as affordable housing while the remaining units would be rented at market rates.

Per the application filed Thursday, the approved three-story office building would serve as the base of the residential tower — in total, the project would rise 19 stories.

The Central SoMa District limits building heights in the area to 85 feet, but OWow has proposed using the State Density Bonus law, which provides a density boost of up to 50% in exchange for greater affordability for very low income households, to waive that cap.

And, as a result of Assembly Bill 1287, a new state law that became effective this year, that 50% density bonus can be doubled so long as 15% of a qualifying project’s residential units are set aside for “middle income” households earning up to 120% of the Area Median Income, or AMI. …(more)

Uncategorized

Most voters say California is on the wrong track, new poll finds

By George Kelly : sfstandard – excerpt

Only a third of registered voters think California is moving in the right direction, while 57% think the state is off on the wrong track, according to a new poll by the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California Berkeley.

A statement released with the poll results last week described the findings as “a somewhat more negative assessment than voters have given in measures taken over the past eleven years” of consistent and regular mood assessments by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies, the state’s oldest public policy research center. The poll was co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times.

Still, the pollsters added that the voters surveyed were not nearly as negative as they were during the nationwide economic crisis from 2008 to 2011, when 69% to 80% of state voters described California as headed in the wrong direction.

The latest poll found that voters are split on the question of whether Gov. Gavin Newsom is doing a good job leading the nation’s most populous state, with 46% approving of the governor’s performance and 47% disapproving. However, a third of voters said they strongly disapproved of Newsom’s performance, while just 17% said they strongly approved…(more)

Uncategorized

Mayor Breed pushes for S.F. homeless housing with a new requirement: Sobriety

By J.D. Morris : sfchronicle – excerpt

Sandwiched between a hair salon and a dim sum restaurant just across Kearny Street from San Francisco’s iconic Sentinel Building, the Hotel North Beach doesn’t look like much from the outside.

But the unassuming 150-unit hotel is poised to become a new — and contested — front in Mayor London Breed’s efforts to show progress on fighting the worsening drug epidemic that caused record overdose deaths in the city last year and has frustrated the public with persistent open-air drug scenes.

Breed’s administration wants to turn the hotel at 935 Kearny St. into a sober living facility for formerly homeless people this spring. Officials say it will be a novel addition to San Francisco’s supply of permanent supportive housing, providing a previously unavailable option for people exiting homelessness who struggle with addiction and want to live in a building that’s free of drugs and alcohol…(more)

RELATED:

S.F.’s largest drug treatment provider investigated by state after two overdose deaths

California officials are investigating the recent deaths of two men who fatally overdosed while seeking drug treatment at Walden House, a longtime San Francisco facility for those struggling with addiction.

HealthRight 360, which operates Walden House and is the city’s largest provider of drug treatment, reported the deaths — one which occurred Tuesday and another three weeks ago — to the California Department of Health Care Services and San Francisco Department of Public Health, as regulations require…(more)

Not quite sure how this will work with Wiener’s plans to sell open alcohol on the streets of SF till 4 in the morning. Or how legal it is to try to control alcohol consumption, but, I guess we shall see. We expect a lot of pushback on both efforts. What is going to happen to the current residents of the hotel who are not a part of the program if they end up living in a sober housing project?

Uncategorized

California officials take a rare stance against YIMBYs, side with Bay Area city

By J. K. Dineen : sfchronicle – excerpt

For the past year, cities throughout California have grown accustomed to bad news from the state agency charged with enforcing an ever-growing list of laws aimed at increasing housing production.

But this week the small San Mateo County city of Brisbane actually got some good news from the California Department of Housing and Community Development, known as HCD.

The agency ruled that Brisbane, which has fewer than 5,000 residents, did not violate state housing element laws by missing a deadline related to the massive redevelopment of the Baylands, the 660-acre railyard and former landfill planned for 4,000 housing units.

Two pro-housing groups filed a complaint over the delay, but after an investigation, HCD sided with the city, not the YIMBYs, an unusual turn of events.

HCD had required that Brisbane include a detailed timeline of when project milestones would be completed because the project is expected to deliver 90% of the homes mandated by the state in the next 8 years. That timeline said the city would publish an environmental study by October, but the city failed to do so.

But HCD determined that the city still has time to publish an environmental study on the project. While the city missed the October “milestone” it has until January of 2026 to complete all the approvals and changes needed to make the Baylands a reality, HDC said…(more)

Uncategorized

‘Battle Royale’ looming for housing development on Marin County waterfront

By J.K. Dineen : sfchronicle – excerpt

A proposed condo complex in the heart of Sausalito’s historic waterfront district is set to ignite a political and legal battle that could determine whether the Marin County city will preserve its historic status as a development no-go zone or open itself up to a new generation of housing production.

This week, property owner Linda Fotsch submitted an application to redevelop a half-acre site at 605-613 Bridgeway, now home to four storefronts. The project, marketed as Waterstreet, would consist of 41 market-rate condos as well as six “very low income” affordable units, Fotsch said.

The facades of the four existing retail spaces, part of the city’s downtown historic district, would be preserved while five stories of new condos with wraparound balconies would step back from Bridgeway. Most of the half-acre complex would be built on a parking lot that lies behind the four buildings, which house a deli, an ice cream parlor and a wine bar…

But the Waterstreet project, and the broader implementation of the housing element, will face both legal and political obstacles. The condo development is in conflict with Ordinance 1022, a 1985 voter-approved “Fair Traffic Initiative” that broadly forbids development in much of the city…(more)

This is one of those iconic tourist friendly views and waterfront promenades that will be forever changed if anything happens here. For those who have no taste or sense of history or enjoy visiting such places, losing it will be meaningless, but, for those of us who spent many warm sunny days walking along these shores it will mean there is nothing left to return to. Probably what they have in mind. Killing off the friendly passage through the village, because Sausalito is a village, to build a few tacky housing units. And of course removing as many parking spaces as they can because who needs car to get up to those steep hillsides that are only accessible via the windy hilly lanes. No doubt they will finally take out the houseboats and small slips in the harbor to make room for the over-size yachts that will soon be lining up to replace them.