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."
SF News Bay Area Home Prices Actually Dropping; Cities Here Dominate the ‘Fastest-Cooling Housing Markets’ List Realtors are popping a little less Champagne, and buyers are no longer offering hundreds of thousands over asking price, as home prices are dropping notably in SF, Oakland, and especially San Jose.
SF News $2 Billion Potrero Power Station Redevelopment Project Finally Gets Underway Hoping to transform “an industrial wasteland” into the “next hot neighborhood of San Francisco,” there’s a $2 billion redevelopment underway at the Potrero Power Plant by Pier 70, with housing, hotels, hotels and office space.
SF Politics Peskin Seeks to Expand Rent Control to New Construction In SF Via Charter Amendment The SF Board of Supervisors will be seeing two proposed amendments to the city charter introduced at their Tuesday meeting, both of which set up fights between the progressive bloc of supervisors and Mayor London Breed over housing.
SF News Report: Hundreds of Below-Market-Rate Units Sit Empty, Despite Waiting List of More Than 20,000 A new City Hall report shows more than 300 below-market-rate housing units are sitting empty, thanks to red tape and a pandemic market where market-rate housing has gotten cheaper.
SF News City Hall Is Haggling Over an Ambitious Housing Plan, Hoping the State Doesn’t Yank Billions of Dollars The SF Planning Commission spent Thursday afternoon debating a “housing element” plan on which billions in state aid is contingent, but so far, state authorities have rejected 97% of other cities’ housing plans.
SF News Famed LGBT Rights Icon Cleve Jones Facing Displacement After New Building Owner Doubles Rent It's a tale at least as old as the first dot-com boom in SF, as elderly renters face displacement or eviction due to the real estate pressures that make rent control precarious. And now one of the Castro's elder statesmen has fallen victim as well.
SF News Gen Z Moving To San Francisco More Than Any Other Group People in the Gen Z age group moved to San Francisco more than any other city in the United States last year.
SF News In More Fourplex Legislation Drama, SF May Un-Streamline the New Streamlined Approval Process Supervisor Rafael Mandelman’s fourplex legislation is not a done deal yet, and the expedited review process could still be yanked from the recent SB-9 legislation
SF News After Winning UC Berkeley Enrollment Cap, Neighborhood Group Now Playing Games and Offering New Terms The NIMBY group Save Berkeley’s Neighborhoods won a court battle and trimmed UC Berkeley’s enrollment by 3,000. Now they’re offering a new deal to cut it by only 2,000, but the school says ‘No thanks, we’ll keep fighting you.’
SF News Day Around the Bay: Asking Rents Tick Up, SF Apartment Listings Back to Pre-Pandemic Levels An Oakland suspect in an allegedly stolen van died in a fire following a police helicopter pursuit, a former UFC champ is charged with attempted murder in the South Bay, and asking rents continue to tick up in SF as the number of apartment listings returns to pre-pandemic levels.
SF Politics An ‘Empty Homes Tax’ Could Be Coming to Your November Ballot Amidst a recent uproar that nearly 10% of San Francisco housing stock is just sitting vacant, supervisors Dean Preston kicked off a campaign to get a vacancy tax on this November’s ballot.
SF News Billionaire Enclave Woodside Claims It Can’t Build More Housing Because It’s a Mountain Lion Habitat The fur is flying in the fashionable tech billionaire quarters of Woodside, where the mansion-dwellers argue they can’t comply with a new state housing law because it’s a mountain lion habitat.
SF News Report: 10% of San Francisco’s Housing Stock Is Just Sitting Vacant and Empty A bombshell report from the city’s Budget and Legislative Analyst’s Office confirms what many have suspected for years — that tens of thousands of San Francisco apartments are just cold sitting empty in the midst of a housing crisis.