Category: Land Use

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California Cities Rethink the Single-Family Neighborhood

By Erin Baldassari :kqed – excerpt

More than a century ago, Berkeley pioneered rules prohibiting affordable, multifamily housing from certain areas, and with it, created a new class of neighborhoods reserved exclusively for single-family homes.

Now it’s one of a handful of cities in the country, and the latest in California, to challenge those rules as it seeks to tackle its housing affordability crisis and address decades of racial segregation in housing.

But housing researchers and advocates for low-income residents warn that just allowing more housing in single-family neighborhoods is no panacea. To achieve truly inclusive communities, they say zoning changes have to be coupled with strong renter protections and increased funding for affordable housing.

Berkeley Vice Mayor Lori Droste introduced the legislation earlier this month to change the city’s zoning rules, and make it easier to build fourplexes throughout the city.

The Sacramento City Council last month unanimously approved a draft plan to allow fourplexes throughout the city, becoming the first city in the state to begin the process of removing barriers to small, multifamily housing in all of its residential neighborhoods. Officials in San Francisco and San Jose are considering their own proposals…

But it could soon be a policy that touches the entire state. Senate Pro Tem Toni Atkins, D-San Diego, introduced a bill last year to allow up to two duplexes in most single-family neighborhoods. It passed both houses of the Legislature, but literally ran out of time before getting the final vote it needed to head to the governor’s desk. It’s back this year as Senate Bill 9…(more)

Rumor has it that the State Senate, lead by Atkins and Wiener, have suspended the constitution to get their draconian housing bills passed after failing last year. They cut the time the public has to respond to the bills, not that they listen the pubic anyway.

Taking advantage of the pandemic to declare an emergency and suspend the constitutional rights of citizens to weigh in on the future of housing in the state may not sit well with citizens live in single family homes. This action will almost certainly be challenged in the courts.

The racial argument will fall on deaf ears for the many people of color who have built equity in their homes for generations.  They ability to pass their home on to their children was cut, and now the Democratic state legislature threatens to take their path of building security by building equity away from them.

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70 Hotels Could House the Homeless, if San Francisco Buys

by : sfpublicpress – excerpt

Dozens of hotels could be sold to the city to house the homeless, advocates say. The recently renovated Minna Hotel in SoMa, with 72 rooms, is one of them.

More than 70 hotel owners have indicated they are willing to sell their properties to San Francisco, and now is the perfect time to buy some of them, homelessness activists said Wednesday.

News broke this month that San Francisco would receive a full reimbursement for its shelter-in-place hotels from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, dating back to January 2020. Previously, FEMA funded 75% of the costs. The city has requested $84.4 million in reimbursements from FEMA for 2020, the controller’s office said in an email.

Applying FEMA reimbursements toward hotel purchases offers a relatively quick and simple way to expand San Francisco’s stock of permanent supportive housing, advocates say… (more)

 

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SPUR, Yimbys say stealth state laws can force more housing

By Zelda Bronstein : 48hills – excerpt

But what happens if developers don’t want to build anything but luxury condos — and maybe not even those?

On Friday, February 12, SPUR hosted a webinar entitled “Can Cities Use State Law to Overcome Housing Resistance?” The four panelists, all of the Yimby/Wiener persuasion, answered that question with a resounding Yes.

To anyone who’s depended on the mainstream media for an understanding of the current battle over California housing policy, that response must to be mind-boggling. The establishment press has claimed ad nauseam that the state has done little if anything to address California’s housing crisis.

Reporters have repeatedly memorialized the defeats of state Sen. Scott Wiener’s SB 827 (d. 2018) and SB 50 (d. 2019 and again in 2020) and the midnight-hour death of Assemblymember Toni Atkins’ SB 1120 in 2020, leaving the impression that these were the only housing bills or at least the only ones that mattered.

At Friday’s forum, the panelists told a different story. Since 2017, the state Legislature has enacted a slew of housing laws that, as former director of the Department of Housing and Community Development Ben Metcalf put it, “buil[t] out the power of the state” to overrule local land-use authority…(more)

The developer bills that force density on single family homes may be the governor’s downfall, as more people learn about his efforts to overthrow local jurisdiction and remove single family zoning all over he state. All it will take is a candidate who listens to what the voters want and, hopefully knows how to make it happen. Governor Newsom is really pushing his luck. He intends to included a new Housing Accountability Unit (HAU) in his proposed budget, to fund enforcement of the forced density bills.
See details on the bill and actions you may take to fight back. https://www.livablecalifornia.org/governor-newsoms-latest-executive-overreach-a-housing-accountability-unit-in-hcd/

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Sick City

via email from Livable California

Salesforce towers above the towering empty office spaces gracing the San Francisco landscape

Vancouver’s high-profile professor, planner and author, Patrick Condon, told more than 160 California community leaders at the Livable California Teleconference on Feb. 6, 2021 that “upzoning” of neighborhoods drives up housing costs and cannot create affordable housing…

Prof. Condon’s latest book is Sick City, which addresses why upzoning doesn’t work, and is free to download here...

No amount of opening zoning or allowing for development will cause prices to go down. We’ve seen no evidence of that at all. It’s not the NIMBYs that are the problem – it’s the global increase in land value in urban areas that is the problem.”

Watch the video of Prof. Condon’s Presentation to Livable California HERE…

Download the Slides he presented on Saturday HERE … (great graphics)

Good timing after the recent announcement by Salesforce that they are going to a remote workforce and declaring the end of the office tech era.

 

 

 

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SF moved people onto Treasure Island despite serious toxic dangers

By Tim Redmond : 48hills – excerpt

Navy and its contractors gave inaccurate info on chemicals and radiation as development of housing moved forward, data at hearing shows.

For more than ten years, the US Navy provided inaccurate, incomplete or false data on the risks of chemical and radiological contamination at Treasure Island – while the city was moving more than 1,000 mostly low-income people into housing on the island.

That’s what a state official testified today in what Sup. Aaron Peskin called profound information. “You are the first person in a decade and a half to tell the truth,” Peskin said to Anthony Chu, the director of radiation safety at the state Department of Public Health…(more)

Stay tuned as more hearings are on the way.

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Environmental turnaround — 8 issues that will pivot in California’s favor under Biden

By Kurtis Alexander : sfchronicle – excerpt

As wildfires, heat waves, water scarcity and threats to wildlife intensify in the West, California’s effort to confront these environmental crises now has support in Washington, a stark change from the past four years.

Even as former President Donald Trump spent his final days in office on the sidelines, lamenting his election loss, his administration continued to roll back environmental conservation and gut climate regulations…

The following are eight changes the new president has begun to initiate — or is expected to soon — that are likely to strengthen California’s environmental protections and climate programs…

Reduce pumping in the delta: Last week Biden directed federal agencies to review a list of policies that includes pumping operations in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, the hub of California’s water supply and an estuary that’s struggling with too little water…(more)

This has been a huge concern for many as the governor has considered building a new single tunnel to suck more water out of the delta. Perhaps that plan can be shelved after all.

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SB 9 Would Allow 8 Units on All Single-Family Lots in California: SB 9 Fact Sheet

By Nick Waranoff : livablecalifornia

SB 9 would allow 8 units where there is now one parcel (one lot). A city, however, would not be required to approve more than 6 units.  Here is how this would happen.

1. SB 9 would add Govt Code section 65852.21 (allowing 2 units on a single parcel in a single family residential zone [the so-called “duplex” provision but in reality a “two separate houses on one parcel” provision]) and Govt Code 66411.7 (the lot split provision). 

a.)  The two separate houses on one parcel provision authorizes two separate houses on a single parcel in a single-family residential zone.

b.)  The lot split provision authorizes a single lot to be split into two lots of equal size.

c.)  An application to do either or both of these is processed ministerially, by right.

d.)  There is no requirement for affordable housing and no CEQA review.

2. Under existing law, there is a right to one Accessory Dwelling Unit and one Junior Accessory Dwelling Unit per parcel (Govt Code 65852.2).

a.)  An Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) can be attached, or detached from an existing home, or a conversion of an existing space such as a garage. A local agency is prohibited from establishing a maximum size of an ADU of less than 850 square feet, or 1,000 square feet if the ADU contains more than one bedroom. When ADUs are created through the conversion of a garage, carport or covered parking structure, replacement off-street parking spaces cannot be required by the local agency (Gov. Code 65852.2, subd. (a)(1)(D)(xi)).

b.)  A Junior Accessory Dwelling Unit (JADU) is allowed to be created within the walls of a proposed or existing single-family residence or garage and shall contain no more than 500 square feet.

c.)  A local agency can limit the places within its jurisdiction where ADUs can be located, only be based on the adequacy of water and sewer service, and the impacts on traffic flow and public safety, if the agency chooses to pass an ordinance.

d.)  “Although cities and counties are mandated to permit ADUs and JADUs, they are not required to adopt ADU and JADU ordinances. However, any city/county that does adopt an ADU ordinance, must submit the ordinance to HCD within 60 days.”

e.) There is no requirement that an ADU or a JADU be limited to any category of affordable housing.

f.)  Here is link to the HCD website. https://hcd.ca.gov/policy-research/accessorydwellingunits.shtml

g.) Here is a link to the HCD Handbook. https://hcd.ca.gov/policy-research/docs/adu-ta-handbook-final.pdf

3. Under SB 9, there are three scenarios that illustrate how many units could be built on one existing parcel:

a.) Scenario One:  The “two free-standing houses” provision of SB 9 (sometimes mistakenly called the “duplex” provision, even though not limited to “duplexes”) is invoked but not the lot split provision: One parcel now has two free-standing houses. An ADU and a JADU are allowed as of right on the parcel. Total of 4 units: two free-standing houses plus an ADU and a JADU on the single parcel.

b.) Scenario Two:  The lot split provision of SB 9 is invoked but not the “two free-standing houses” provision: one parcel becomes two. Each parcel can have a free-standing house plus an ADU and a JADU. Three housing units on each parcel for a total of 6 units.

c.) Scenario Three:  Both the lot split provision and the two free-standing houses provision are invoked. Two parcels. Each parcel has two houses, PLUS each parcel is entitled to an ADU and a JADU. Four housing units per parcel, for a total of 8 units.

Note re Scenario Three: Under SB 9, a city is not required to approve an ADU or a JADU where BOTH the lot split provision and two free-standing houses provision are invoked, so a city could limit this scenario to four housing units on what was formerly one parcel. See proposed section 65852.21(e), part of the “two free-standing houses” provision, that would provide, “Notwithstanding Section 65852.2 [the existing ADU law referenced above], a local agency shall not be required to permit an accessory dwelling unit on parcels that use both the authority contained within this section [the two free-standing houses section] and the authority contained in Section 66411.7 [the lot split section]” and proposed section 66411.7(h), part of the proposed lot split section, that would provide “Notwithstanding Section 65852.2 [the existing ADU law], a local agency shall not be required to permit an accessory dwelling unit on parcels that use both the authority contained within this section and the authority contained in Section 65852.21 [the two free-standing houses section].

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‘No Slums In The Sunset’: Backlash over affordable housing development intensifies in western S.F. neighborhood

By J. K. Dineen : sfchronicle – excerpt

In early January, anonymous attack posters were slipped into mailboxes and left on doorsteps in San Francisco’s Sunset District.

The poster read, “No Slums In The Sunset.” It informed residents that a “7-story, 100-unit high-rise slum” was planned for the neighborhood and predicted that within two years the property in question — at 26th Avenue and Irving Street — would “become the best place in San Francisco to buy heroin.”…

…A Mid-Sunset Neighborhood Association survey of 133 immediate neighbors found that 82% opposed the project, 15.7% supported it with modifications and just 2.1% supported it outright. About 80% said they were concerned about crime and safety, 70% about property devaluation, and 81% about lack of infrastructure, especially parking. Nearby public transit in that part of the Sunset consists of the Muni Metro N-Judah light rail, one of the system’s busiest lines, and the 29-Sunset bus line.
Opponents say a seven-story building would be out of scale with neighboring structures, which are mostly single-family homes. Several neighbors said they would welcome a three- or four-story building with 50 units and sufficient parking but not a 90- or 100-unit complex with only 11 parking spots. They say it would cast shadows on backyards, overcrowd Muni, and take street parking away from merchants and their customers…
It’s not the nature of the people who would live there we are against, it’s the nature of the building.”…(more)
This looks like too much too soon. A gradual approach to change might be the best solution. Also consider building more larger family style units instead of small crowded units. Someone needs to look into the actual density of people in the family units compared to the density of the microunits. 3 kitchen and bathrooms instead of a shared kitchen and 1.5 baths should cost less to build as the plumbing is the most expensive part of the job. Less bathrooms in a larger, more flexible living space may be a better fit for humans and cost less to produce.
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Renderings Revealed for 321 Florida Street, Mission District, San Francisco

New building permits have been filed for a nine-story mixed-use building at 321 Florida Street in the Mission District, San Francisco. Led by DM Development, the project will replace surface parking with 168 new apartments and ground-floor retail. 31 affordable units will be included thanks to the State Density Bonus program, first passed in 1979, with several amendments since. Construction is expected to cost $42 million, with DM Development in charge of the project…(more)

There were 7 stories, and then there were 9. Thanks to our Sacramento politicians for pushing the envelope every higher. We had a 7 story project that would have been a much better fit for the neighborhood, without imposing a nasty shadow over the block and the nearby park, but, now we have a proposal for another ugly tower that will impose a shadow over the entire block, including an existing solar power system.

Allowing this project to proceed is an affront to all independent solar power owners who may face similar threats if this matter is not addressed. The government has invested tax payer dollars, set up tax incentive programs and encouraged people to invest in alternative energy systems in an effort to reduce the use of fossil fuels. Now is the time to protect our investments, and our right to continue relying on the sun.

 

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Climate Change Is Turning Cities Into Ovens

By Matt Simon : wired – excerpt

A new model estimates that by 2100, cities across the world could warm as much as 4.4 degrees Celsius. It’s a deadly consequence of the heat-island effect.

Whichever side of the subjective city-versus-rural debate you’re on, the objective laws of thermodynamics dictate that cities lose on at least one front: They tend to get insufferably hotter, more so than surrounding rural areas. That’s thanks to the urban heat-island effect, in which buildings and roads readily absorb the sun’s energy and release it well into the night. The greenery of rural areas, by contrast, provides shade and cools the air by releasing water…

Climate change is making the urban heat-island effect all the more dire in cities across the world, and it’s only going to get worse. Like, way worse. An international team of researchers has used a new modeling technique to estimate that by the year 2100, the world’s cities could warm by as much as 4.4 degrees Celsius on average. For perspective, that figure obliterates the Paris agreement’s optimistic goal for a global average temperature rise of 1.5 degrees C from preindustrial levels. In fact, the team’s figure more than doubles the agreement’s hard goal of limiting that global rise to no more than 2 degrees C…(more)

If we needed another excuse to add to the long list of reasons to slow urban growth this may be the most viable yet. We need to preserve all the green plants on the planet, not just the jungles in South America.