Jan 27, 2025 | Housing, Legislation
Leading up to this month’s Final Blueprint approval, MTC and ABAG also released the final update to the Equity Priority Communities (EPCs) geographies in December 2024. In addition to informing long-range planning efforts, EPCs are also used to identify funding and public engagement priorities, among other areas. The final Plan Bay Area 2050+ Equity Priority Communities Map ensures that no EPC tracts previously identified as part of Plan Bay Area 2050 will lose EPC status in Plan Bay Area 2050+.
Jan 27, 2025 | Opinion, Housing, Legislation
By Cherie Zaslawsky
January 23, 2025
Though we’re told we’re facing a “housing crisis,” when you come right down to it, we’re experiencing more of a “legislation crisis” since Sacramento has robbed our cities of local control over zoning, insisting we squeeze hundreds of “affordable housing” units into our mostly built-out downtowns. These monolithic apartment complexes tower over a number of our suburban cities of mostly one- and two-story buildings. Such high-density high-rises have sprouted up all along El Camino Real as if overnight.
Jan 2, 2025 | Housing, Legislation, Politics
By KATE TALERICO
UPDATED: January 2, 2025
Developers who have reaped millions of dollars from an affordable housing program for middle-income renters with sometimes little-to-no discounts from market rents have spent hundreds of thousands on lobbying and campaign donations in recent years in a bid to keep lawmakers from imposing regulations. The expenditures represent a fraction of the $32 million the California real estate industry as a whole spent on lobbying the state legislature and the executive branch in the past three years.
Nov 23, 2024 | Legislation, Housing, Taxes
By Kota Suzuki,Data team intern
Nov 20, 2024
Over the last several decades, an increasing number of California cities have transitioned to “charter cities,” and many more could follow suit. The main obstacle? Recent elections show many residents don’t actually want that designation.
Charter cities in California are incorporated jurisdictions that can impose special taxes at higher rates and with greater flexibility than the state law allows. To become a charter city, a city has to adopt a charter through a majority vote of the city’s electorate.
Nov 16, 2024 | Housing, Legislation
By Alfred Twu
Nov 16, 2024
In California, 2023 was a blockbuster year for housing legislation with bills that streamlined approvals in most major cities, doubled the affordable housing density bonus, created more options for townhouses, condos and ADUs, and allowed religious organizations to build affordable housing on their land, regardless of zoning.
Nov 5, 2024 | Legislation, Bills
Holland & Knight Alert
November 5, 2024
As in previous years, California saw a significant volume of new housing legislation emerge from Sacramento in 2024. (See Holland & Knight’s previous annual recaps of California Housing Laws in the final section below.) This Holland & Knight alert takes a closer look at some of the most significant housing laws that the California Legislature passed and Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed into law, grouped into following categories
