By Ray Burns : lostcoastoutpost – excerpt

The State of California wants in on the City of Eureka’s fight against the Security National-funded Citizens for a Better Eureka.

The Office of Attorney General Rob Bonta today submitted a request to file amicus curiae or “friend of the court” briefs in support of the City of Eureka and the Eureka City Council, and it says the court should reject the Citizens for a Better Eureka’s efforts to thwart affordable housing developments downtown.

Last month, Citizens for a Better Eureka filed a series of motions seeking preliminary injunctions that would immediately block the city and its partners, including Linc Housing and the Wiyot Tribe’s Dishgamu Humboldt Community Land Trust, from breaking ground on affordable housing and transportation projects slated for development on municipal parking lots downtown.

The motions – five, in all – allege violations of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), arguing that the city failed to conduct legally required environmental review not only for the elimination of public parking spaces but also for the various planned redevelopment projects, which the group says will impact traffic and air quality…(more)

RELATED:

Eureka Planning Commission Chair Jeff Ragan Abruptly Resigns, Citing ‘Grave Concerns’ Over City’s Approval of Housing Projects on Three City-Owned Parking Lots

We keep warning the Democrats that they are risking losing support in communities that are barely on their side to begin with and these efforts to reign them is is stupid and irresponsible. They stand the possibly of losing seats in the House if they continue to attack the less urban communities. Where are the jobs and where is the need for housing in Eureka? Must contact them regarding ourneighborhoodvoices.com and other state organizations who are fighting their battles with them.

By Kate Talerico : mercurynews – excerpt (includes audio)

After missing deadline, city provides blueprint to build 62,200 homes in next decade

One year late and three drafts in, San Jose has finally earned state regulators’ approval of its housing plan, a blueprint for how the city plans to add 62,200 homes over the next decade.

The state’s certification brings an end to the threat of penalties San Jose faced from falling out of compliance — including the “builder’s remedy” provision that allowed developers to ignore local zoning codes if they proposed low- or middle-income housing. The city is also eligible once more for millions in state grants for affordable housing and transit.

“We’re going to go party hard because this is a huge milestone,” said San Jose Deputy Planning Director Michael Brilliot. “It’s never been this challenging.”…

Of the Bay Area’s 109 cities, just 14 met the state’s cutoff for submitting a housing element, after many of them confused the deadline, which was Jan. 31, 2023. San Jose is the last of the three major Bay Area cities to earn the state’s blessings, after the state OK’d San Francisco’s plan in December, and Oakland’s in February…

During the time it was out of compliance, several developers used the “builder’s remedy” in an unexpected way — not to propose taller, denser towers than might otherwise be allowed, but to scale back housing proposals. A third of the 29 builder’s remedy projects submitted to the city amend a previously proposed project to decrease the number of units. The developer of the much-vaunted Berryessa BART Urban Village at the San Jose Flea Market site plans to reduce the project to 940 housing units from the 3,500 previously approved by the city.

Whether these builder’s remedy projects will move forward now that the city is in compliance remains to be seen. Chris Burton, who heads San Jose’s planning department, told this news organization in November that the city would process each of the builder’s-remedy applications “on an individual basis.”… (more)

By Calmatters – excerpt

It’s put-up-or-shut-up time for dozens of cities across the San Francisco Bay Area.

Last January, local governments across the region were required to submit Housing Elements to state regulators—future development blueprints that spell out how each jurisdiction intends to make room for its share of the more than 2.5 million new homes the Newsom administration wants to see built across California by the end of the decade.

One year later, on Jan. 31, many of those same jurisdictions are now required to turn key components of those blueprints into law. That means re-inking their zoning maps, converting thousands of suburban-style tracts into apartment-ready parcels and proving to the state that they are, in fact, going to do what they said they would do to address California’s chronic housing shortage…

The Bay Area zoning crunch is just the latest inflection point in a yearslong tussle between California’s housing agency and local governments over how many new homes California needs to plan for and where this anticipated influx of development ought to go. The Bay Area’s end-of-month due date is the first big one in a series of rolling regional deadlines. Next up: Santa Barbara County on Feb. 15… (more)

RELATED:

San Francisco Relaxed Its Housing Laws. But Don’t Expect a Building Boom

By Jordan Parker

Kelly-Moore Paints, a paint supply giant founded in the Bay Area 78 years ago, said Friday it will cease operations immediately, citing financial constraints stemming from asbestos settlements and other financial hardships.

According to its website, 61 out of its 157 stores are in the Bay Area.

For more than three decades, the paint company has grappled with thousands of asbestos litigation claims due to asbestos in cement and texture products, officials said. Although the practice was discontinued in 1981, the company has paid out about $600 million over the past 20 years and could face more than $170 million in future liabilities, according to Kelly-Moore officials.

The company was founded in San Carlos in 1946 by William Kelly and William Moore and rose to become the leading independent paint company in the U.S., according to its website…(more)

Could a paint shortage slow down construction even more? Or are there enough other manufacturers ready to pick up the slack by increasing production?

By Nico Savidge : berkeleyside – excerpt

The stunning decision will leave Robinson’s Southside district, which includes People’s Park, without a representative on the City Council until a special election later this year.

Berkeley mayoral candidate and Councilmember Rigel Robinson will resign from office and end his campaign this week, he told Berkeleyside on Tuesday, citing “harassment, stalking and threats” that he says have made continuing his political career untenable.

The resignation will leave Robinson’s Southside district — a dense area near UC Berkeley that was thrust into a national spotlight last week as the university cleared and walled off People’s Park ahead of a planned housing development, which he supported — without a representative on the City Council until a special election to fill the seat later this year.

The move, which Robinson described as a “retirement,” also reshapes the race for Berkeley mayor, and is a stunning turn for a young elected official who seemed to be eyeing an ascent through the ranks of East Bay politics.

Robinson became the youngest council member ever elected in Berkeley when he won the seat representing the student-centric district months after graduating from UC Berkeley in 2018, then cruised to re-election in 2022 without an opponent on the ballot. The mayoral campaign he launched last year counted endorsements from three of his City Council colleagues, along with influential advocacy groups such as the Housing Action Coalition and East Bay YIMBY, and a long list of politicians from around the region and state, including Attorney General Rob Bonta…(more)

RELATED:

Opinion: Why I am stepping down from the Berkeley City Council

It’s time for me to prioritize my well-being and my family. By Rigel Robinson

YIMBY leaving office.

By Paul Rogers : mercurynews – excerpt (includes audio)

Sea levels are rising, and what to do about homes and beaches in harm’s way is becoming a major flashpoint

Raging storms brought major damage to California’s coastline last winter. They washed out West Cliff Drive in Santa Cruz, smashed the Capitola Wharf, burst levees on the Pajaro River in Watsonville, flooded the Santa Barbara airport, and sent two tornadoes barreling into Los Angeles.

Most of the destruction is largely repaired now, or at least under construction. But at the end of a quiet residential street in Half Moon Bay, a different kind of coastal upheaval is gaining momentum — one that could decide the fate of billions of dollars of property and affect hundreds of public beaches from San Diego to the Oregon border as rising seas pose a growing threat to the state’s beloved 1,100-mile coastline.

In 2016, a severe storm caused 20 feet of bluffs to collapse into the ocean in front of Casa Mira, a complex of 10 townhouses that sits on Mirada Road about two miles north of downtown Half Moon Bay. Worried their homes were in imminent danger, the owners obtained an emergency permit from the California Coastal Commission to put down boulders, called riprap, along the crumbling shoreline to block the waves from causing more damage…

The Coastal Commission staff recommended the project be approved. Even though the agency has been granting fewer sea wall permits in recent years, saying that they can cause erosion on public beaches, the $5 million sea wall would protect a section of the popular California Coastal Trail and a sewer line, the staff said. And the homeowners agreed to pay for park benches, signs and bicycle racks on the trail, along with a staircase to the beach to improve public access.

In July 2019, they drove four hours each way to the Coastal Commission meeting in San Luis Obispo, then waited nine hours for their item to come up on the agenda.

To their shock, the commissioners said no.

Delia Bense-Kang, an advocate with the Surfrider Foundation environmental group, testified that the project would “set a terrible precedent” and that “managed retreat,” a technique where homes are either moved back or removed entirely, was a better option. The commissioners agreed…(more)

It is one thing for citizens to expect the government to pay for mitigation but another to not be allowed to protect their homes. How is this different from living in a flood or fire zone? Is the government going to stop allowing people to protect their property under new “managed retreat” protocols? This looks like a supreme court case, in my opinion.

By Joe Garfoli : sfchronicle – excerpt

The thing to remember about Thursday’s protests seeking to save Berkeley’s People’s Park is that they’re not really just about saving People’s Park.

They’re more about saving an ideal. And here, the dwindling number of park preservationists has lost the plot. In all ways.

They refuse to acknowledge that Californians have become YIMBYs. Yes, even in Berkeley, long known as NIMBY central. Now, even “the man” in the last half-century of this saga — aka UC Berkeley — is on the side of the people. California desperately needs to build more housing. Scores of UC Berkeley students live in their cars or couch surf because of a lack of student housing. People’s Park is a place where the university plans to build housing for 1,100 students and supportive dwellings for roughly 100 homeless people, perhaps many of those who live there now… (more)

This guy is not a journalist. He is a plant. You can see what is the most flagrant use of media space to make blandly false statements. Almost as bad as the SFMTA PR hacks lying about a report they put out in September that shows a decrease in bikes and pedestricans on Valencia that was reported by two of their supporters. Now they claim there is a 50% increase and are berating their supporters!

What a two ring ciruse we have running our streets into the ground.