An effort to temporarily protect California tenants from steep rent hikes cleared a major hurdle in the Legislature on Wednesday, even as other measures meant to insulate renters from the state’s rising housing costs continue to fall short at the Capitol. A bill to cap annual rent hikes statewide at 7% plus inflation cleared the […]
The state Department of Finance reported this month that California, which has a stubborn and growing shortage of housing, added just 77,000 houses, apartments and condos in 2018. Actually, private and public housing developers drew permits for well over 100,000 units, and about that many were constructed. But a whopping 23,700 existing homes were burned […]
New-home sales in the U.S. declined in April, posting the largest monthly drop since the end of last year, but there are signs the market for new homes is brightening. Purchases of newly built single-family homes—a relatively narrow slice of all U.S. home sales—declined 6.9% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 673,000 in April, […]
Southern California’s best year for housing creation since the Great Recession left the region trailing the national growth pace and a local hiring spree. Fresh Census Bureau statistics detail the slow pace of new housing added to the region. The number of housing units — owned or rented — in the four counties covered by […]
Many naive policymakers discuss homelessness in purely economic terms, perpetrating a distracting myth. Sure, people become homeless for diverse reasons. One might be a LGBT youth, kicked out by parents. Another might be a spouse fleeing an abusive relationship. Those are prime candidates for conventional outreach and solutions: Make them aware of shelters and house […]
The highest-profile bill moving through the California Legislature aimed at addressing the state’s housing crisis has effectively been killed for the rest of the year. Proposed by state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, Senate Bill 50 would have rewritten zoning laws and forced local governments to allow taller apartment buildings and other multi-family complex near […]
Earlier this spring, residents of a San Francisco waterfront neighborhood put up a plea on GoFundMe, seeking to raise $100,000 to file a lawsuit under one of California’s landmark environmental laws. The fundraiser, which surpassed its goal, wasn’t intended to fight a toxic waste facility or industrial warehouse. Instead, residents plan to sue to stop […]
March 2019 building permits came in hot with a 40% total unit increase compared to February 2019, including a 25% increase in single-family dwelling units and a 63% increase for multifamily – but that’s where the positive news ends. All housing categories, and even non-residential construction valuation categories, revealed permit decreases of at least 15% […]
When Paul Wickboldt moved to the Bay Area from Boston more than two decades ago, he settled in Walnut Creek for the same reasons many families choose the suburbs: good public schools, safety, a backyard for the kids to play in, and the pleasure of knowing his neighbors. “There’s a different level of anonymity that […]
A controversial bill that would force California cities to allow denser housing around public transit cleared a major hurdle today, but only after its sponsor agreed to go easier on smaller-sized counties. Senate Bill 50, from Democratic Sen. Scott Wiener of San Francisco, passed out of a key legislative committee after it was amended to […]
Between 2000 and 2015, as housing prices rose, historically Black cities and neighborhoods across the region lost thousands of low-income Black households. These areas include the Bayview in San Francisco, flatland neighborhoods in Oakland and Berkeley, and the cities of East Palo Alto, Richmond, and Vallejo. Low-income Asian and Latinx households decreased in several neighborhoods […]
Led by younger voters, 43 percent of California voters feel they can’t afford to live in the Golden State. Among voters 18 to 34 years old, 61 percent say they can’t afford to live in California. Voters statewide say 77 – 18 percent that there is a housing crisis in California. That ranges from 72 […]
Among the hurdles Gov. Gavin Newsom will face in his goal to see 3.5 million new homes built across California over the next seven years is that the state hasn’t set aside enough land for that development, a forthcoming report by UCLA concludes. Cities and counties have zoned land to allow for the construction of […]
Compared to other more traditional cities, such as New York or Chicago, multi-polar L.A.’s gentrification reflects less organic development than massive real estate speculation, supported by public dollars and policy. In a new report on gentrification nationwide co-authored with Karla Lopez del Rio and Chapman University researcher Kenneth Murphy, released by the Center for Opportunity […]
Implementing a split roll would mean that commercial property would be taxed at market value. That would bring in more revenue to schools and local governments. But supporters of the split roll stop the discussion at that point, and fail to discuss the far-reaching consequences of undoing Proposition 13. High housing costs were a constant […]