HCD says 70% of draft elements don’t meet the state’s enhanced requirements.
Ballot Initiative Seeks to Override Recent State Housing Laws
An advocacy group led by municipal officials is seeking to put a measure on the ballot that would curtail almost all of Sacramento’s power to influence local planning, zoning, and housing production.
Cities Move Quickly to Regulate SB 9 Housing Units
Some cities are welcoming the units, but others appear to be adopting regulations designed to put up barriers.
Are Market-Rate Units Unwelcome In San Francisco?
San Francisco has become equally famous for rejecting projects, including, recently, everything from a branch of a locally beloved burrito restaurant to a 13-story, 316-unit building in the Tenderloin. The apartment building, at 469 Stevenson, met the same fate—for now—on a 8-3 vote in late October.
Housing Developers Look To Retail and Office Locations
One trend that is not new at all is California’s housing crisis. If anything, it only got worse during the pandemic. Now, cities, developers, and lawmakers are trying to figure out whether these three crises might have a common solution: Can excess office and retail space be used for housing?
Housing Developers Look To Retail and Office Locations
The pandemic accelerated the “retail apocalypse,” rendering storefronts and mall spaces vacant. And that raises the question of what will happen to all that excess retail space.
The Plex Paradox
CP&DR to discuss exactly what combination of art and science will be required for cities to undo single-family zoning
E-Commerce Boom Leads To Warehouse Moratoriums
Amid pressure from community groups, Inland Empire cities reconsider benefits of big warehouses.
California Cities Cut Parking Requirements
Cities across California are eliminating parking minimums in order to reduce automobile dependency and promote better urban design. The state legislature is getting in on the act too.
Surplus Land Act Upends Public Agency Development Plans
According to the Surplus Land Act (SLA), a relatively new state law whose implementing guidelines went into effect in January, all of these properties must be made available to affordable housing developers first. While state officials defend the guidelines, the landowning agencies say the law will undermine their vision for the property – and maybe even hinder their ability to build the affordable housing that the law seeks to create.
Updated Cal EnviroScreen Will Improve State’s EJ Efforts
In March, the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (OEHHA) released the draft of its fourth iteration of CalEnviroScreen (CES). First released in 2013, CES is a database of environmental hazards that forms the basis of myriad state and local efforts to limit human exposure and strive for environmental justice.
Proposed Legislation Would Give Cities Fewer Excuses for Blocking Housing
The California Legislature has come roaring back in 2021 with a whole new set of bills affecting planning and development
How Berkeley Will Move Away From Single-Family Zoning
The council vote was unanimous, but now comes the hard part: Implementing an upzoning in a city with strong homeowner advocacy and fire-prone hillside neighborhoods.
SCAG Shoots Down RHNA Appeals
Many housing advocates considered the assignment of 1.3 million new housing units to Southern California via 2019’s Regional Housing Needs Allocation process to be a serious win. It was followed up by an intra-regional allocation process that weighted units toward high-cost, high-demand coastal cities, for another win. Last month, they scored a few more wins — 50 to be exact.
The Rise of Zoomtowns
While many in the state do not have the means to pick and choose exactly where they want to live, the combination of remote work and pandemic ennui has prompted untold numbers of well-off urban Californians to retreat to suburbs and to exurban “Zoomtowns.”
SCAG Sees Revolt Against RHNA Allocations
60% of Orange County cities challenge their targets, which are much higher than last time around
Wildfire Danger, Housing Needs Collide on Urban Fringe
Already an epic-scale tragedy, California’s wildfires–consuming a record 4 million acres this year–are effectively shrinking the amount of land available for housing and prompting planners to make tough choices between growth and safety