Category: Update

By Tom Elias : yahoo – excerpt

We can save our Neighborhoods

Our Neighborhood Voices got it done! On the same early July day that California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta issued a stern warning to cities and counties around the state about alleged misuse of local ‘urgency’ zoning rules designed to frustrate the increased housing density laws Bonta loves to push, the rebellion against those very laws formally began… This happened when Bonta’s own office received a new initiative designed to make local governments ? not the state ? supreme in setting housing policies and patterns… the new initiative states its purpose is to ‘protect the ability of local communities to make land use planning and zoning decisions,’ that ‘one size does not fit all’ and that ‘local land use planning or zoning initiatives approved by voters shall not be nullified or superseded by state law…(more) ourneighborhoodvoices.com

 

By Joe Eskenazi : missionlocal – excerpt

An emphatic ruling from a state public employment board has eviscerated San Francisco’s half-century-old City Charter sections forbidding public employees from striking — and enabling the city to fire workers who do.

The California Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) on July 24 returned a resounding decision against the city and in favor of the Service Employees International Union 1021 and International Federation of Professional & Technical Engineers Local 21. This ruling affirms — and expands — a decision last year handed down by an administrative law judge and appealed to the PERB panel.

That state panel on Monday found the charter provisions enacted following chaotic 1970s-era public employee walkouts, and subsequently modified by voters over the course of the ensuing decades, to be wholly incompatible with California law. While the state panel does not have the power to rescind portions of the San Francisco City Charter, it can — and, now has — declared significant swaths to be “void and unenforceable.” …(more)

By Greg Wong : sfexaminer – excerpt

San Francisco wants to bolster its resilience to extreme heat by improving its notoriously outdated infrastructure.

Amid one of the worst heat wWhile the marine layer insulates The City from most extreme heat, San Francisco still contains hot spots — known as urban heat islands — that absorb and retain heat due to heavy concentration of infrastructure and limited green space. This includes neighborhoods such as South of Market, Bayview, Hunters Point and Chinatown, which are also some of The City’s poorest neighborhoods.

Wolff said that through this plan, The City hopes to reduce those heat islands, build weather resilience into existing buildings and work with community-based organizations to improve their emergency response to less resourced areas.aves to bake the West in recent history, The City announced this week its first-ever plan to boost protections for residents from the effects of an increasingly warming world...(more)

I’d like to know how they plan to remove heat islands when they are buildng concrete towers and pouring concrete all over the parks, cutting down mature trees and widening sidewlaks.

sfport – excerpt

Schedule

2016 Feasibility Study (complete) | 2019 Design & Permitting (complete) | 2021 Phase 1 Construction (complete) | 2024 Phase 2 Construction

Goals

• Provide a new ferry facility to enable regional water-based public transportation and emergency response
• Provide options for regional and trans-bay transit
• Support current and future transit demand and reduce vehicular trips in the Mission Bay and Central Waterfront area
• Provide transportation resiliency in the event of an earthquake, trans-bay connectivity failure or other unplanned events
• Engage the San Francisco community in the planning process for a working Central Waterfront..(more)

Board of Appeals [agenda]

• This normally sleepy body has a real live one this Wednesday. The infamous Sunset Skyscraper project is up for a decision, with the board hearing an appeal of the Planning Department’s rejection of the project.

  As we reported this month, there are some red flags with the project. It’s also become a major lightning rod in housing debates, both locally and statewide.

  Given the likelihood of impassioned commentary, the skyscraper hearing is at the end of the agenda. It’s also been delayed multiple times, at the request of the developer.

New information regarding the attorneys and the proponents of this case are turning this into quite a saga. We anticipate this hearing is the first of a few to come.

By Calmatters : ocregister – excerpt (includes audio track)

Losing income is the No. 1 reason Californians end up homeless – and the vast majority of them say a subsidy of as little as $300 a month could have kept them off the streets.

That’s according to a new study out of UC San Francisco that provides the most comprehensive look yet at California’s homeless crisis.

In the six months prior to becoming homeless, the Californians surveyed were making a median income of just $960 a month. The median rent for a two-bedroom apartment in California is nearly three times that, according to Zillow. And though survey participants listed a myriad of reasons why they lost their homes, more people cited a loss of, or reduction in, income than anything else.

The study’s authors say the findings highlight the idea that money, more than addiction, mental health, poor decisions or other factors, is the main cause of – and potential solution to – homelessness.

“I think it’s really important to note how desperately poor people are, and how much it is their poverty and the high housing costs that are leading to this crisis,” said Margot Kushel, a physician who directs the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative, which conducted the study.

Already the study – which the authors say is the most representative homelessness survey conducted in the U.S. since the mid-1990s – has drawn attention from high places…(more)

By Mike Ege : sfstandard – excerpt

Legislation to bring “gentle density” to many of San Francisco’s neighborhoods by allowing single-family homes to convert to smaller-scale apartments got a stiff arm from city lawmakers.

The bill, sponsored by Supervisor Myrna Melgar, was expected to clear the Board of Supervisors’ Land Use and Transportation Committee and be approved by the full board on Tuesday.

Instead, it was hit with last-minute amendments that postponed the recommendation of the bill for another week.

The delay and hostile public comments from neighborhood groups that followed illustrate how getting the city’s more affluent, suburban-flavored neighborhoods to accept more density is still an uphill battle, even after passage of legislation in Sacramento to boost construction…

Eric Brooks, an activist with Our City San Francisco, conceded that “this conversation sounds better than the ones we’ve had in the past,” but also said that “part of the reason folks are so on about this is that we do not trust anything the Planning Department staff would do.”…(more)

As I recall Calvin Welch described the difference between affordable housing that many fear will be demolished and rent controlled market rate housing, which he determined will be the results of passing Family Housing Opportunity Special Use District Ordinance #230026, as it is currently proposed. Because as we know, any housing we build today will never be as affordable as that we may be tearing down.

by Joe Eskenazi : Missionlocal – excerpt

Supervisor Ahsha Safaí, 50, is punctual, showing up at a west side cafe located conveniently near both the things one must do and people one must meet when one runs for mayor, and the places San Francisco parents need to be to pick up and drop off their kids during the summer months.

The second-term District 11 supervisor was the first serious contender to announce his intention to take on Mayor London Breed in 2024. While, as we’ve written in the recent past, it’s a good bet that most San Franciscans cannot spell “Ahsha Safaí,” that doesn’t necessarily mean they won’t vote for him: He narrowly edged the beleaguered incumbent in a June poll.

Mission Local met with the man who would be mayor on Friday, July 14. Safaí, sporting a salt-and-pepper beard and a Teamsters jacket — from a rally he’d attended that day alongside the mayor questioning the expansion of autonomous vehicles — spoke of his competition, his city, and what comes next…(more)

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By Maryann Jones Thompson & Liz Lindqwister : sfstandard – excerpt

“I still love this city but it’s so much worse than it used to be…”

As San Franciscans struggle to untangle their frustrations about homelessness, crime, housing and post-pandemic work and life, voters are angry at city leaders and increasingly support law-and-order policies.

In the charts, videos and stories below, the second San Francisco Standard Voter Poll explores the shifting mindsets and priorities of residents in the run-up to the November 2022 General Election.

Overview

Voters place the blame for the city’s complex and intertwined problems squarely on the shoulders of elected officials. READ MORE…

“San Francisco city leaders need to get their act together and start to make some real changes in the city because this is not a place that I’m proud to call home anymore.” (more)

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