Latest News
NOTE: The opinions expressed in the news items cited here do not necessarily represent the opinion of Catalysts for Local Control. We try to present a balanced picture of the news on the subject of housing and legislation.
S.F. prioritized building homes for the ‘missing middle.’ 80% of units sit empty
By J.K. Dineen
April 21, 2024
For years, San Francisco politicians and housing advocates have fought for the creation of “missing middle” housing for workers with incomes high enough to be middle class in most markets, but who are often priced out of the famously expensive city.
But developers who have recently built apartments aimed at moderate-income families in San Francisco have discovered a harsh reality: The missing middle seems to have gone missing.
It’s not just skyscrapers and high-density — ‘builder’s remedy’ is also bringing more urban sprawl
By Kate Talerico
April 21, 2024
In southern Santa Clara County, an orchard could be razed for 320 single-family homes. On a pasture on the northern edge of Benicia, cows could give way to 1,080 houses. On a road cutting through Sonoma County wine country, there could soon be traffic from 514 homes. Homebuilders are proposing these houses — and thousands more — on farmland and grassy hills on the outskirts of the Bay Area. And because of state housing law, local governments may be powerless to stop them
The Latest Plan to Exacerbate California’s Housing Crisis
By Lawrence J. McQuillan
April 19, 2024
Against the backdrop of a national shortage of affordable housing, due in large part to government policies, California lawmakers want to restrict corporate investment in single-family rental properties. This would make the Golden State’s housing affordability crisis worse. Since California is often a bellwether for both federal and other states’ policies, renters should hope the flawed idea dies before it spreads.
One of S.F.’s biggest apartment complexes at risk of defaulting on $1.8 billion mortgage
By Roland Li
April 16, 2024
Parkmerced, one of San Francisco’s biggest apartment complexes, is at risk of defaulting on its nearly $1.8 billion mortgage.
Owner Maximus Real Estate Partners has requested the transfer of the mortgage to special servicing, a move that can lead to foreclosure, according to a report by Morningstar, a financial services firm.
Live in a single-family home? This Bay Area company wants to give you $100,000 for the yard space you’re not using
By KATE TALERICO
April 5, 2024
In recent years, California lawmakers have approved a flurry of legislation aimed at increasing the housing supply and addressing the state’s decades-in-the-making housing crisis. Senate Bill 9, passed in 2021, is one such change: it allows single-family homeowners around the state to split their lots in two, and build two homes on each lot. An analysis by the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley estimated that the new law could result in 700,000 new homes.
A wealthy Peninsula town is dragging its feet on building housing, state says. Now, it faces consequences.
By KATE TALERICO
April 2, 2024
The town is the first to have its housing element decertified by the state, which means it loses out on key state infrastructure funds. Wealthy Portola Valley earlier this year became one of the first towns in San Mateo County to receive state approval for its plan to build more housing.
Department says that plan isn’t worth anything if the city isn’t following through on it — and, as it turns out, Portola Valley isn’t.
California’s most controversial housing law could get a makeover
by CalMatters
April 2, 2024 11:00 am
For the last two years the “builder’s remedy” has been the unruly teenager of California housing laws.
Now, some of California’s most powerful Democratic lawmakers are pushing legislation that would clear up, but also rein in, the state’s most controversial housing statute. Nearly a year and a half since a developer first used the law to propose a zoning-code-blowing project, 2024 may be the year that the builder’s remedy grows up.
Californians’ home insurance is being dropped due to ‘density.’ What does that mean?
By Megan Fan Munce
March 30, 2024
Last October, Marc Snyder’s insurance company informed him it wouldn’t be renewing his homeowners insurance this year for a reason he had never heard before: density.
The letter from Liberty Mutual said Snyder’s home was “located in a region where the dwellings are considered to be too densely concentrated for us to continue to provide coverage.”
Is California headed for another tax revolt?
By Nicole Nixon
Thursday, March 28, 2024
It’s been 46 years since California voters approved the landmark Proposition 13 — which limited property tax hikes — and taxpayer advocate Howard Jarvis famously declared “a new revolution against the arrogant politicians” and a “tax, tax, tax, spend, spend, spend” philosophy.
Politically and demographically, California is a very different place now than it was in the 1970s. But battle lines are being drawn up both on the ballot and in court in preparation for another war over taxes.