May 17, 2025 | Current Bills, Housing, Legislation, Politics
By Jeremy B. White
May 15, 2025
In the space of two minutes, Gov. Gavin Newsom reordered a political standoff over California’s housing crisis. The governor on Wednesday threw his weight behind a push to turbocharge housing construction statewide by slashing local restrictions and environmental reviews. With divisions among legislative Democrats imperiling a package of bills, Newsom announced during a news conference that he would instead advance those policy changes through the budget, over which he has considerably more leverage.
May 4, 2025 | Housing
By KATE TALERICO
May 2, 2025
In April 2024, Priscilla Chan sat on a stage during the five-year anniversary celebration for a housing initiative that she and husband Mark Zuckerberg’s philanthropy had seeded with a $50 million commitment. A year later, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative has made a sharp reversal on its commitment to housing. CZI is quietly ending funding for a number of California housing organizations, telling many of the advocacy groups that it will not renew their grants going forward.
Apr 30, 2025 | Current Bills, Housing, Legislation
BY BEN CHRISTOPHER
APRIL 30, 2025
Two consecutive committee chairs getting overruled by their committee members signifies a growing rift among California Democrats about how to address the housing crisis. One of the most controversial housing bills of the year has lived to be voted upon another day, but only by surviving the Legislative equivalent of two back-to-back prison breaks.
Apr 23, 2025 | Housing
By David Wagner
Published Apr 23, 2025
Facing a nearly $1 billion deficit, the city of Los Angeles is set to finance much less affordable housing over the next year under a proposed budget released this week by Mayor Karen Bass. The budget calls for a nearly 80% drop in city financing of new affordable housing units, declining from 770 homes in the current fiscal year to 160 homes in the next fiscal year. Speaking with reporters Tuesday, Bass said economic conditions are increasingly unfavorable to housing development.
Apr 22, 2025 | Housing, Legislation, Opinion
By Ann Duwe
Apr 22, 2025
When Governor Gavin Newsom declared he wanted 2.5 million new housing units in California, he failed to see how his “aspirational goal” would transform the Golden State into a matrix for high-rise, rental development. Newsom’s number became the basis for the 6th-cycle RHNA (Regional Housing Needs Allocation) numbers, the outsized housing demands now at the heart of every city’s housing element.
Apr 22, 2025 | Legislation, Environment, Housing
Adhiti Bandlamudi
Apr 22, 2025
A bill to exempt some housing projects from a controversial California law that pro-building activists blame for slowing down development cleared its first legislative hurdle this week.
On Monday, the State Assembly’s Natural Resources Committee approved AB 609, introduced by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Berkeley), which would exempt infill housing projects built within existing cities from review under the California Environmental Quality Act.
