News

By Mckenzie Locke : cp-dr – excerpt

Group Pursues Ballot Measure to Overturn SB 9 “Duplex Law”
Californians for Community Planning is organizing to launch a ballot measure against SB 9, which Gov. Gavin Newsom just signed into law and is set to take effect January 1, 2022. The organization argues that SB 9, SB 10, and AB 1401 could have damaging impacts by eliminating minimum parking standards near transit stops and will accelerate gentrification because there are no affordable housing requirements. The measure’s proponents include Mayor Bill Brand of Redondo Beach, Mayor Peggy Huang of Yorba Linda, City Council member Jovita Mendoza of Brentwood, attorney John Heath, and Dennis Richards, a former San Francisco planning commissioner. The group’s overall agenda is to put an end to existing centralized zoning policies and advocate for local zoning control. They have completed step one — submitting the CCPI to Attorney General Rob Bonta — to allow residents to vote on their ballot measure on the November 7, 2022 ballot. (See related CP&DR coverage.)…

SB 10 Housing Streamlining Law Immediately Draws Lawsuit
Now that Gov. Gavin Newsom signed SB 10 into law, the bill is catching some heat from the Los Angeles-based AIDS Healthcare Foundation, who is suing the state of California to stop its implementation…

Study Finds Mismatch Between Zoning & Building in Bay Area
The median Bay Area city will likely approve housing projects on less than 10% of the sites listed and approved in its housing plan, according to a study published by the UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies published a study titled “What Gets Built on Sites That Cities ‘Make Available’ for Housing?”…

California Cities Fare Poorly on Quality of Life “Ranking”
The US News and World Report released its 2021-2022 “Best Places to Live in the US” rankings, and no California cities made the top of the list…

CP&DR Coverage: Ruling Strengthens Housing Accountability Act
In an important new ruling, the Second District Court of Appeal has concluded that the City of San Mateo’s design guidelines are not “objective” under the Housing Accountability Act and has ordered San Mateo to reconsider its denial of a four-story 10-unit apartment buildings…
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Press Release announcing the filing of a ballot initiative to gather signatures for a state constitutional amendment:

https://www.communitiesforchoice.org/2021/08/27/ballot-initiative-filed/

Download the Press release here.

For Immediate Release
August 25, 2021

www.communitiesforchoice.org

Californians for Community Planning Initiative
for immediate release

Redondo Beach, CA —

August 25, 2021

Today, a bipartisan group of proponents from Northern and Southern California have filed the Californians for Community Planning Initiative to protect local control of zoning, land-use and development. The initiative was filed for title and summary with the State Attorney General, starting the process to place the Initiative on the ballot for the General Election on November 8, 2022…(more)

A few people asked about the intuitive ballot date. So that date is now understood to be November 8, 2022.

by Tim Redmond : 48hills – excerpt

Plus: Private electric-car charging in neighborhood curbsides? And a key vote on housing in the Tenderloin.

Even the Chron is now reporting that it’s likely that Assemblymember David Chiu will be the next city attorney. The incumbent, Dennis Herrera, has negotiated a contract worth almost $400,000 a year to take over the SF Public Utilities Commission; the state legislative session is done for the year.

Mayor London Breed has made no announcement, but Chiu is an ally of hers, wants the job—and it would make sense for her in a whole lot of ways.

Let’s look at what the next year would look like if Chiu got that job…

It’s possible that Mayor Breed could wind up appointing a city attorney, a district attorney, a supervisor, and three members of the School Board within less than a year.

Even Willie Brown, who managed at one point to appoint a majority of the Board of Supervisors, appointments, never got that much power in that short a period of time…

The SFMTA is apparently thinking about letting private companies install for-profit electric-car charging stations in curbside parking spaces in neighborhoods…(more)

Anybody who has not figured that City Hall plans to enact more controls over our lives had better take note of this week’s actions. If you just want your life back, you are going to have to fight for that right soon because that is not what the plan appears to be.

By Gabrielle Lurie : sfchronicle– excerpt

Longtime San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera is likely to be approved to lead the city’s Public Utilities Commission next week, an appointment that could lead to a flurry of changes within City Hall.

The commission plans to vote on Herrera’s $395,000-a-year employment contract at Tuesday’s meeting, according to an agenda posted online. If approved, Herrera will then step down as head of the City Attorney’s Office, a position he’s held since 2001.

Then comes a number of potential changes on the city — and possibly state — level...(more)

Continue reading “San Francisco politics could see a major shake-up next week. Here’s why”

By Joe Eskenazi : misisonlocal – excerpt

Follow the dark money.

President of DBI’s commission admits he has private builders edit, redraft official DBI materials

Because this is San Francisco, this story starts with a party.

It was May 2015, and Mayor Ed Lee had just turned 63. The city’s Residential Builders Association, the politically significant group of largely Irish immigrant builders, threw him a fantastic soiree. A cavalcade of elected officials, politicos, movers and shakers descended upon a spacious and elegant Forest Hill home for cake, Irish dancing, drinks and an all-around good time.

Because this is San Francisco, it warrants mentioning that the permitting situation for the spacious and elegant home hosting this party is a bizarre amalgamation of confusing irregularities; the permit enabling the construction of the downstairs living space where revelers at the mayoral shindig sat on couches and mingled had never been signed off and was never inspected by Department of Building Inspection personnel – not even to this day…(more)

The backslapping crowd is at it again. No one finds themselves as deserving of praise as the “ City Family” departments and agencies. No one dose better job of cleaning cash than the appointees our elected officials choose to hire and promote.

By Susan Bender : archinect – excerpt

Global architecture, engineering, and consulting firm Stantec is an integrated design delivery partner—teamed with general contractor, Clark Construction— on the Block 34 Clinic Building facility, which has broken ground. The 182,800-square-foot, $335.8 million project is the newest addition to the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Medical Center on its Mission Bay campus. Stantec is providing architecture, medical planning, interior design, LEED consulting, building energy modeling, and landscape architecture services.

The facility will house a wide array of medical programs, including adult urgent care, a retail pharmacy offering prescriptions and refills for both patients and local residents, imaging, adult ambulatory surgery, and multispecialty clinics including: adult primary care, dermatology, outpatient rehabilitation, cardiovascular, urology, an otolaryngology head and neck clinic, gastroenterology, endocrine, and pain management…(more)

The UCSF machine is growing without their new hospital expansion. Suppose they will be importing labor to fill all those new empty condos with the singing sidewalks nearby. Maybe they should shore of the sidewalks and roads before they add more weight and bulk on top of the landfill that is probably sinking around the site.

By Melanie Woodrow : abc7news – excerpt (includes video)

SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — A drive along the Hunters Point Expressway perimeter of Candlestick State Park reveals hundreds of RVs. A closer look reveals trash, human waste and needles. Residents say in addition to being unsightly, much of this is a fire hazard…

The proposed plan would provide spaces for unhoused people living in RVs and cars.

“We want equity. That’s all we want is equity in the community, so we feel sorry for the unhoused, but we need to spread the unhoused and disenfranchised around the city,” said Moore…(more)

That comment about spreading the unhoused and disenfranchised around the city needs to be addresses by anyone who thinks there is any part of the city untouched by the problem, and in the process of putting together a plan.

By Frances Carrigan, UT-Letters : sandiegouniontribune – excerpt

Despite flex alerts, long-term drought, and a failing infrastructure (e.g. traffic) we are being told that neighborhoods can quadruple in size.

Re “Newsom signs law to allow up to four housing units to replace single-family lots” (Sept. 16): Assembly Bills 9 and 10 could now eliminate single-family neighborhoods. Gov. Newsom just signed the bills. This will allow a single-family home to be replaced by up to four units.

Also, Proposition 19 took away our childrens’ inheritance of our properties. They will now have to live in the inherited property or pay the market value tax. Our freedom of choice is slowly being taken away from us. I cannot understand why people are allowing this and not protesting…(more)

Announcement by the Justice Department – Northern District of California

Defendant Bribed Former SF DPW Director Mohammed Nuru with Money, Meals, And Gifts – Including A Tractor

SAN FRANCISCO – Alan Varela was sentenced today in federal court to 24 months in prison and ordered to pay a $127,000 fine for a seven year conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud by bribing a San Francisco public official, announced Acting United States Attorney Stephanie M. Hinds and Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent in Charge Craig D. Fair. The sentence was handed down by the Honorable William H. Orrick, United States District Judge.

A federal complaint filed September 17, 2020, charged Varela, 60, of Orinda, and William Gilmartin, 61, of San Mateo, with bribery of a public official. In 1991, Varela founded ProVen Management, a Bay Area civil engineering and construction firm that engaged in large scale infrastructure projects. Varela and Gilmartin acted as the firm’s president and vice-president, respectively, during the conspiracy time period. According to the complaint, Varela and Gilmartin provided a stream of benefits to Mohammed Nuru, then the Director of San Francisco’s Department of Public Works (DPW), in exchange for favorable treatment of their business interests, including non-public inside information…(more)

By Joe Eskenazi : missionlocal – excerpt

Second ex-DBI employee accused of taking a loan from a developer and then handling his projects — Mission Local tracks down his identity

The office of the Controller today released the seventh of nine eventual reports on city dysfunction and corruption — and, today, it was the Department of Building Inspection’s turn in the barrel.

The 56-page report tosses around terms like “nepotism,” “cronyism,” and “corruption — and that’s just on page 3. All told, the report read like a medley of the issues Mission Local has been focusing on, including the troubled projects at 555 Fulton and 2867 San Bruno, the saga of disgraced former senior inspector Bernie Curran — and the Department of Building Inspection’s disorganized electronic tracking system, which is rife with opportunities to alter or even delete files.

As the controller’s report put it today:

The department’s permitting and inspection system lacks system controls to ensure completed data is entered into the system and to prevent inappropriate after-the-fact changes to recorded inspection records…(more)