Governor Gavin Newsom said he will work this year to reform a landmark state environmental law that he says has been weaponized by wealthy homeowners to block badly-needed housing for students at UC Berkeley. Newsom's comments over the weekend followed a state appellate court ruling finding that UC Berkeley "failed to assess potential noise impacts from loud student parties in residential neighborhoods near the campus" as required by the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), when it planned new housing near the university. The 1st District Court of Appeals' ruling could delay the building of a complex at Berkeley's historic People's Park, which is owned by the university, for years or even decades, Newsom said.
San Francisco Assemblymember Matt Haney has introduced legislation that could make office-to-residential conversions faster, easier, and less expensive. The Office to Housing Conversion Act, or Assembly Bill 1532, would "stop local governments from slowing down or killing office-to-housing conversions by making their approval automatic and imposing strict time limits on all building permits," according to Haney's office. It would also "block local governments from 'nickel-and-diming' projects to death by capping unnecessary fees and design requirements." The creation of a fund — the California Downtown Recovery Catalyst Fund — would provide grants to projects that turn unused office space into housing.
The state Department of Housing and Community Development says the 300-plus acres Chula Vista has set aside for a university and innovation district is not exempt from the Surplus Land Act, and it has ordered the South County city to begin the process of making the property available for sale or lease to affordable housing developers. Assemblymember David Alvarez, however, last week introduced Assembly Bill 837 to protect the property. There are some exceptions to the Surplus Land Act: parcels deemed unsuitable for housing because of factors such as size, lands that a local agency is exchanging for another property, or those being transferred to another local, state, or federal government. AB 837 would add one more very specific exemption: land acquired by a local agency for the development of a university and innovation district.
Representative Robert Garcia has helped secure a $30 million federal grant to support a massive reconfiguration of West Shoreline Drive in Long Beach. The Shoreline Drive Gateway Project will create about six acres of new park space — on land that has been blocked by freeway lanes, rendering the area inaccessible to residents for decades — will detour heavy freeway traffic away from residential roadways and will create a new bike path. The $30 million grant came via the U.S. Department of Transportation's Reconnecting Communities Pilot program.
Exasperated by Alameda County's nearly three-year eviction moratorium, landlord groups are ramping up pressure on supervisors to lift the pandemic tenant protections they contend are ruining the livelihoods of many mom-and-pop rental owners. The moratorium, which prevents most evictions across the county, is among the last remaining in the Bay Area and throughout the state. Landlords have filed lawsuits, petitioned local officials, and one even planned a hunger strike in hopes of putting an end to the emergency ordinance, set to come up for review this week.
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