By Bob Silvestri
October 19, 2024
This is a follow-on to my previous articles on housing affordability challenges.
Priscilla Almodovar, the chief executive of Fannie Mae is noted by Marketwatch to be one of the 50 most influential people in the country. You would think someone of her stature would be able to share some special insight into our housing affordability challenges, other than the tropes and platitudes rampant on social media. But, you would be wrong.
By KATY O’DONNELL
10/14/2024 02:00 PM EDT
Investors have purchased up to 30 percent of available homes at different points over the last few years, mostly turning them into rental housing. Most of the buyers are smaller investors, but Harris, Vance and other critics including Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) are focusing on larger entities — those such as private equity firms that buy 100 homes or more — arguing that they’re freezing homebuyers out of the market and jacking up rents.
By Amy Kalish
October 9, 2024
A recent Marin County Planning Commission agenda item to finalize the Corcoran v. County of Marin lawsuit, which the county lost, morphed into a much larger exposure of dysfunction between county interests and staff.
On Sept. 23, the commission voted 5-2 to simply follow a court order to remove unlawful language clauses from county documents that had been inserted by staff – over commissioners’ objections – in 2022.
By J.K. Dineen
Sep 28, 2024
Developers hoping for a faster and easier path to converting empty office buildings to housing in California’s downtowns will have to wait for another legislative session after Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed legislation that would have fast-tracked such projects.
The measure, AB3068, would have expedited adaptive reuse projects by mandating by-right approval for projects converting offices to residential or mixed-use in city centers.
By Annie Vainshtein, Sophia Bollag
Sep 19, 2024
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law a package of bills intended to bolster California’s response to the dual homelessness and the housing crisis, he announced at a news conference in San Francisco’s Mission District on Thursday morning. Newsom also introduced guidance for up to $2.2 billion in funding through Proposition 1, passed by California voters in March, to construct permanent supportive housing for individuals at risk of — or currently — experiencing homelessness.
By Hillel Aron
September 4, 2024
California Governor Gavin Newsom said Wednesday he plans to sign a bill that would strengthen the state attorney general’s power to fine cities that flout state housing laws.
Once Senate Bill 1037 goes into effect, the attorney general can seek penalties that would be assessed from the date that the housing law violation began. Those much larger fines will now go toward building affordable housing in the jurisdiction being penalized.