SF Politics YIMBY Law Set to Sue Sausalito Over Allegedly Out-of-Compliance Housing Element The YIMBY crowd is unleashing their lawsuits on cities whose housing elements are not yet approved by the state, and in the case of an impending Marin County lawsuit, claiming that some proposed housing sites are literally “in the water.”
SF News Los Altos Hills Homeowner Is Giving the ‘Builder’s Remedy’ a Go, Submits Plans to Build 20-Unit Complex On His Property In what appears to be the first Bay Area attempt at the “builder’s remedy” for a town without an approved housing element, a Los Altos Hills property owner is trying to subdivide his home into 20 units. Though he admits that if the scheme works, he’s just going to sell the property and move.
SF News SF Mayor London Breed Begins Laying Out Plan to Build 82,000 New Homes, and the City's West Side Better Brace Itself "With our Housing Element approved by the state, we have the plan," Mayor London Breed said on Tuesday. "Now we need to put it into action."
SF Politics Dozens of Bay Area Cities Are Late In Getting Housing Elements Certified, and YIMBY Groups Plan to Sue Today, February 1, is the state's deadline for cities to have their Housing Elements — the planning documents that dictate overall housing construction goals which serve as contracts with the state — certified. And guess what! Hundreds of towns and cities have blown the deadline.
SF News Supervisors Pass Ambitious Housing Element Plan to Build 82,000 New Units By 2031 A nearly year-long housing policy battle appears to have come to a surprisingly harmonious conclusion, as the SF Board of Supervisors just unanimously passed a state-mandated housing element, and in an unexpected surprise, the state says it will approve the plan.
SF Politics SF Supervisor Proposes New Legislation to Make More 'Gentle Density' Happen In Westside Neighborhoods Supervisor Myrna Melgar introduced legislation Tuesday to create a so-called "family housing opportunity special use district" on the westside that would make building triplexes and fourplexes easier on the sites of mostly vacant single-family homes.
SF News Compromise With NIMBYs Over Six-Story Building On 18th Street Near Dolores Park Rejected By State Housing Officials A multi-unit building that's become a cause célèbre for pro-housing activists after loud pushback from neighbors over its height and sunlight concerns may revert back to its original design, after state housing officials stepped in to scold SF over a compromise plan that is one story shorter.
SF News Activists Blast ‘Developer Dirty Bomb’ And Lack of Racial Equity In SF’s Housing Element Plan The phrase “developer dirty bomb” entered the chat surrounding the San Francisco Housing Element debate at Thursday’s Planning Commission meeting, as affordable housing activists argue the soon-to-be-final draft of the plan gives short shrift to racial equity.
SF News New Plan For That SoMa High-Rise On A Nordstrom Parking Lot Making Its Way Through City Hall The proposed 27-story residential tower that gained notoriety when the SF Board of Supervisors rejected it last year is back with a revised plan that went before the Planning Commission Thursday, and it generated shockingly little discussion or debate.
SF News Preston Calls for Hearing Into Supportive Housing Evictions Involving Formerly Homeless People SF Supervisor Dean Preston, who worked as an eviction defense attorney before he was elected to the Board of Supervisors, is putting that hat back on and calling for a hearing into the numbers and process of evictions involving formerly homeless people in city-funded supportive housing.
SF News Housing Element Drama Update: SF Still Set To Be 22,000 Units Short on State-Mandated Goal A looming state requirement that San Francisco present plans to build 82,000 housing units is starting to hit crunch time, and right now our best-case scenario is stuck at shy of 60,000 units.
SF Politics Supervisors Spend Five Hours Haranguing Over Mandated 82,000 New Housing Units, But We Might Actually Hit That Goal? It’s not surprising that the SF Board of Supervisors spent nearly five hours debating a state-mandated housing requirement that the city build 82,000 new housing units by 2031. What is surprising is that we might actually achieve the goal.
SF News DMV Lot On Fell Street Floated As Affordable Housing Development Site The state's property at the tip of the Panhandle in SF, currently home to the city's busy DMV field office, is a prime development site that's been discussed before — and Supervisor Dean Preston says the state should step up and "partner" with the city to allow it to become affordable housing.
SF Politics Final Local Ballot Measures Called: Prop M Vacancy Tax Wins, Prop E Affordable Housing Measure Falls The dust appears settled on the final two undetermined SF ballot measures, and the vacant homes tax has passed, while both of the dueling affordable housing ballot measures are shot down.
SF News Power NIMBY Move: Marin Residents Give Selves Hefty Tax Hike to Block Housing Development Would you pay $335 a year, every year for 30 years, to block 43 lots of single-family homes? Some Marin County residents just did that by a decisive margin, rejecting a proposed large-scale development and instead voting make it a 110-acre public park.
SF News Infamous, Rejected Plan for 27-Story Residential Tower in Nordstrom’s Parking Lot Has New Plans Submitted Reports of the death of the 469 Stevenson high-rise were greatly exaggerated, as the developer has submitted a new plan with stronger retrofitting, and this new version is even one story taller.
SF News Several Bay Area Cities Using Highly Improbable, Silly Proposals To Meet State Housing Goals on Paper As a state deadline for robust housing plans looms in January, some cities are submitting plans that just don’t pass the smell test, with implausible features like building on top of churches and grocery stores whom they did not even ask about this first.
SF News Fourplex Legislation Finally Passes Board of Supervisors on Mandelman’s Third Try The third time was the charm for fourplexes, as Supervisor Rafael Mandelman’s third attempt to densify as many as four units onto all residential lots citywide, and six units on corner lots, overwhelmingly passed the Board of Supervisors Tuesday.
SF Politics This Winter and Spring Could Be a Chaotic Free-for-All For Developers If SF Can't Get Its Housing Element Approved A local housing activist just called San Francisco out on a rather alarming error — city officials and planners thought they had until May 31 to get the all-important revision to the general plan's Housing Element approved by the state, but the deadline is actually January 31.
SF News Caltrain Mulling Plans For a Huge Housing Development On What Is Currently 20 Acres of Often Empty Tracks Caltrain and property owner Prologis may resurrect an Ed Lee-era plan to turn 20 acres of SoMa and Mission Bay railyard into a “mixed-use development” full of housing, retail, and the new electrified Caltrain tracks.
SF News Historic Designation for Stonestown’s Old Movie Theater, Which Is Not Even Used Anymore, Could Alter Housing Plan The now-shuttered Regal UA Stonestown Twin movie theater apparently has some claim to a historic designation, which could throw a monkey wrench into a proposed 2,900-unit housing development.
SF News Former Hemlock Tavern Site, Now 54 Units of Empty Housing, Finally Moving Forward After Condo Conversion Compromise More than 50 units of housing have sat empty for two years on property that used to be the home of Hemlock Tavern, but they can now be occupied, as the Board of Appeals rules on a developer who said they were building apartments and then switched to condos.
SF News Huge New Housing Development With 45% Affordable Units Approved for Former Transit Hub Site In SoMa The block-sized property in SoMa that became home to the temporary Transbay Transit Center in the last decade will become a three-tower complex with the tallest tower around 40 stories.
SF Politics Despite Impassioned Speech By Mandelman, Board Upholds Breed's Veto of Fourplex Legislation — By Just One Vote Supervisor Rafael Mandelman gave a barnburner of a speech Tuesday criticizing the mayor’s veto and YIMBY darling law SB 9, and almost overrode the mayor’s veto of his fourplex legislation, but still fell one vote short.
SF Politics Breed Vetoes Fourplex Legislation, Says It Would ‘Set Back Housing Production’ Single-family zoning in San Francisco lives on, for now at least, as Mayor Breed vetoes Sup. Rafael Mandelman’s fourplex legislation, saying it would "make it even less likely for new housing to be built."
