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.

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?

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)

By Gaetan Lion : medium – excerpt (see graphics with projects on the source)
Executive Summary

MTC/ABAG’s Bay Area Population Projections Are Fundamentally Flawed This analysis examines the Plan Bay Area 2050+ population projections and concludes they are fundamentally unrealistic, built on demographic impossibilities and questionable economic assumptions. These projections were developed by the Metropolitan Transportation Commission(MTC) in conjunction with the Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG).

The Core Problem MTC/ABAG projects the Bay Area population will grow 24.1% from 2025 to 2050 — nearly 10 times faster than the rest of California (2.5%) — despite facing severe demographic headwinds. This projection requires reversing decades of trends and overcoming structural challenges that make such growth implausible.

Demographic Reality The Bay Area faces fundamental constraints making rapid population growth extraordinarily unlikely. With a median age of 41 years (compared to California’s 38.4), the region produces more deaths than births, yielding minimal or negative natural population change. Post-pandemic migration has turned consistently negative as remote work enables relocation to more affordable regions. Reflecting the impact of remote work, San Francisco now has the nation’s highest office vacancy rate at 35.4%, continuing to rise five years after the pandemic began…

Global demographic aging fundamentally constrains migration flows. UN projections show U.S. population growth from 2025–2050 will be 59% lower than 2000–2025, while major source countries like Mexico face 62% declines in such growth rates. Asian countries are experiencing rapid population contraction. Bipartisan convergence toward restrictive immigration policies further limits migration pathways.

Benchmarking Reveals Unrealistic Assumptions Two alternative benchmarks expose MTC/ABAG’s flawed projections. The California Department of Finance Demographic Research Unit (DRU) projects only 6.4% Bay Area growth from 2025 to 2050 — still unrealistically assuming the Bay Area will grow nearly three times faster than the rest of California (2.5%). An Alternate Scenario, adjusting for historical deceleration trends, projects just 1.9% growth, aligning with the remainder of the state’s 2.5% projection. MTC/ABAG’s forecast dramatically diverges from both benchmarks; its 24.1% projected growth for the Bay Area over the 2025–2050 period is nearly 10 times higher than DRU’s projection for the remainder of the state at 2.5%… (more)

Source: DRU, MTC/ABAG, author’s calculations. Note that 2020 and 2025 are Actuals. As noted MTC/ABAG has slightly different figures for these two periods.

Via email : from savoursausalito – excerpt

Thank You City Council & SOS Supporters

On Tuesday night (12/2), the City Council voted unanimously to keep Chapter 3: View Protection in Sausalito’s new Objective Design & Development Standards (ODDS). With strong turnout both in person and on Zoom — and more than 115 public comments submitted — the community’s support for protecting Sausalito’s views was clear.

This is a significant win for SOS supporters and all of Sausalito.

The unanimous vote shows the Council heard residents’ concerns, and it reflects the strength of Chapter 3, which was carefully developed by Sausalito volunteers over many months.

“If not for this effort by these volunteers and by the members of the city there wouldn’t be view protection.” – Mayor Joan Cox

What Was At Stake

Heading into the meeting, View Protection was at risk. Some Planning Commissioners had pushed to remove Chapter 3 and leave Sausalito without View Protection. Without this Chapter, a developer could get approval for a project and still block resident views.

Your advocacy helped ensure that did not happen.

Software Enabling Chapter 3: ViewSync

Chapter 3’s View Protection standards require a reliable, objective way to measure view impacts. The answer was a software tool called ViewSync which was created by talented Sausalito based software developers and other experts with input from SOS supporters. It provides a clear, consistent analysis that gives the City a fair enforcement tool and developers predictable standards. Without a software tool Chapter 3 could not be adopted.

“This software is brilliant, and it works.” – Vice Mayor Steven Woodside

How it works: ViewSync is built on a super-detailed specialized aerial map of Sausalito with elevation data recorded every six inches, capturing buildings, hillsides, trees, and terrain. These billions of data points create a precise digital “LEGO” model of the entire city.

Using that model, we can draw a straight line from any property to the water and see precisely what is in the way. Because the dataset is so large, the calculations run on Google’s cloud computers, giving us access to the same scale and high reliability that powers Google.

“This is a design tool that we architects really welcome.” – Michael Rex, Architect

Through a simple web app, developers can insert a proposed building and quickly see how it affects surrounding views. Developers will appreciate this benefit too: once they build a project, their own views will be protected under the same standards as everyone else’s.

The magic of this system is that it also allows us to identify perfect places and forms for development that fit into the community.

“Congratulations. It’s really cool and innovative.” – Councilmember Ian Sobieski

Watch the presentation and discussion of view protection here >>

by Juan Pablo Perez Burgos : BenitoLink – excerpt

Toward the end of a process that began more than four years ago, the San Benito County Planning Commission voted on Nov. 19 to recommend that the San Benito County Board of Supervisors reject the Housing Element, one of California’s key housing requirements, and start over from scratch.

Without a state-approved housing plan, the county could face lawsuits, loss of state funding and unbridled development.

To earn state certification, the county must plan for more than 700 new units in its unincorporated areas and rezone specific parcels to accommodate them. That rezoning plan was approved by planning commissioners and supervisors six months ago, but several landowners whose properties are on the list now say they were never notified.

Commissioner Robert Gibson argued that those owners should have been informed more than two years ago, during the first public discussions of the Housing Element.

“I was under the assumption that these people were notified at the time that we started discussing these particular parcels because to me that’s basic decency,” he said. “At this point, I’m not comfortable going forward, and it’s unfortunate that we’re at the 11th hour and the 59th second, but it’s unacceptable.”

Today, San Benito County’s lack of a certified Housing Element has enabled the planning of more than 2,300 units on land designated as rural or agricultural, according to county planning records…(more)

State Senate District 17 From Santa Cruz to San Luis Obispo: John Laird – how did Lair vote on SB 79?
State Assembly is the Assembly Speaker Rivas. We know how he voted.

Looks as if the County officials approved the housing element.

By Jessica Roy : sfchronicle – excerpt (includes audio)

Wesley Yu had a plan to create multigenerational housing on his residential property in East Palo Alto. But after getting hit with a nearly $55,000 fee from the city, the small-scale project devolved into a legal fight — one that was eventually settled in his favor.
The case underscores a broader tension in California’s efforts to ease its severe housing crisis, and how it can wind up impacting homeowners…

Yu first submitted his proposal in January 2024, and the city approved it the following October. In May, the city sent an email acknowledging an oversight on its end: Because Yu was building more than one unit of housing (both the new home and the ADU), his project was subject to the city’s inclusionary zoning laws, which have been in place since 2019. According to the lawsuit, the ordinance mandated that he either charge below-market rates to rent out one of the units or pay an in-lieu fee, known as an exaction, of nearly $55,000.

Yu decided to fight the city in court, with help from the Pacific Legal Foundation, a Sacramento-based nonprofit organization that represents property owners and individuals facing what it considers to be government overreach. (“Suing the government since 1973,” its homepage declares.)…

In this case, Waisanen said, Yu was not building market-rate housing because he wasn’t planning to charge anyone to live there. He had no immediate plans to rent out either new unit, and no plans to charge family members or his own child for staying there. The city’s ordinance would have forced him to either pay the fee or become a landlord and subsidize his tenant by charging below-market rent, Waisanen said.

The city disputed that: According to its statement, Yu could have avoided the fee by agreeing to a deed restriction that he charge affordable rates only if he rented the unit out. If he never rented out the unit, no price restriction would have come into play. The statement said Yu refused to agree to that…

Last week, Yu’s attorneys announced the city had settled the lawsuit. The city of East Palo Alto did not admit fault or wrongdoing in the settlement. But the homeowner will be allowed to proceed without paying the $54,891 affordable housing fee, and East Palo Alto agreed to pay $5,000 in attorney fees. The city is also amending the inclusionary housing ordinance in its municipal code to exclude projects like Yu’s…

In a City Council special meeting agenda from Nov. 18 that City Attorney John Le provided to the Chronicle, it was noted that Section 18.37.40 of East Palo Alto’s municipal code would be amended to facilitate small-scale lot split projects by removing the in-lieu fees.

“In September 2025, as part of a larger effort to facilitate SB 9 lot splits, the City Council adopted an amendment to the City’s Inclusionary Housing Ordinance (Ordinance No. 06-2025) to exempt parcels that are given an approval under SB 9 from the Inclusionary Housing Ordinance. The amendment mooted Mr. Yu’s claims,” Le wrote in a Nov. 18 City Council staff report that he also provided to the Chronicle. “Although the City may vigorously defend its rights in a court of law, in the interest of conserving resources, the City Council has decided to settle this matter.”… (more)