Apr 20, 2025 | Housing, Environment, Litigation
By Kate Talerico
April 20, 2025
For years, this lot just south of the West Oakland BART station has sat vacant. This was supposed to be housing — a 222-unit tower with 16 apartments set aside for low-income renters. But soon after Oakland’s planning commission signed off on the project, the decision was appealed. A coalition of trade unions, using the California Environmental Quality Act, demanded that the developer conduct more studies to assess the soil’s contamination levels — a process that could hold up construction for months.
Apr 20, 2025 | Housing, Meetings
By Dave Fratello
Apr 20, 2025
Statistically speaking, there must be some people in Manhattan Beach who support a series of large new residential development projects currently under consideration by the city.
But at a forum hosted by city officials April 9, no such voices were in evidence, and opposition seemed to be universal from a boisterous, overflow crowd at the Joslyn Center.
Apr 17, 2025 | Housing
By Dick Platkin
April 17, 2025
Are your lying eyes still deceiving you? Do you see vacancy signs on unrented apartments and houses in your neighborhood, yet you are repeatedly told that Los Angeles has so much homelessness and overcrowding because of a housing shortage? No, your eyes are not deceiving you; those vacancy signs are for real, and the claims of a general housing shortage are fabricated. They are a ruse because the homeless and overcrowded do not have enough money to rent or buy vacant apartments or houses.
Apr 11, 2025 | Litigation, Housing
By STEPHANIE LAM
April 11, 2025
Pro-housing group YIMBY Law has filed two lawsuits against Cupertino this week, claiming the city violated state laws by denying multiple housing proposals that would have added dozens of new homes.
The organization alleges that two preliminary proposals submitted under the builder’s remedy provision — Vista Heights and Schofield Drive — faced numerous roadblocks in their application process.
Apr 3, 2025 | Housing, Litigation
By NOLLYANNE DELACRUZ
April 3, 2025
Los Gatos is asking for a judge to weigh in on a conflicting interpretation regarding builder’s remedy applications.
The town filed a lawsuit last week at the Santa Clara County Superior Court for clarification regarding the application process for builder’s remedy housing projects. Builder’s remedy is a controversial provision that allows developers to build a project of whatever height and size wherever they would like in cities that don’t have a state-certified housing element.
Mar 27, 2025 | Housing, Opinion
By Tim Redmond
March 27, 2025
Constraints on development, including zoning and environmental rules, have little or no impact on housing prices in the United States, a new study from economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco shows.
The study, also connected to the National Bureau of Economic Research, directly contradicts the fundamental economic thesis that has driven housing policy in the state for years: That development constraints have created high housing prices.
