San Diego made ambitious changes this Tuesday to the city’s blueprint for future growth to help prepare the city for climate change, speed up revisions to neighborhood zoning plans, and try to reverse racial segregation....more
Various state housing bills are currently making their way through the State Legislature that are expected to benefit mixed-income multifamily housing developers. The following summaries reflect the status of the legislation...more
5/24/2024
/ Affordable Housing ,
California ,
CEQA ,
Conversion ,
Density Bonus ,
Endangered Species Act (ESA) ,
Housing Market ,
Multi-Family Development ,
Natural Gas ,
Office Space ,
Real Estate Development
Assembly Bill (AB) 3068 (Haney, Quirk-Silva, and Wicks) would provide for the streamlined ministerial (i.e., no CEQA) approval of qualifying adaptive reuse projects involving the conversion of an existing building to...more
Two bills proposed to modify the Builder’s Remedy are currently making their way through the State Legislature. As currently proposed, AB 1893 (Wicks) would (i) reduce the required percentage of (lower income) affordable...more
On March 19, 2024, Assemblymember Buffy Wicks introduced new amendments to pending Assembly Bill (AB) 2243, which would amend AB 2011 (operative as of July 1, 2023). As explained in our prior legal alert, AB 2011 provides for...more
On March 11, 2024, it was announced that San Francisco voters approved Proposition C, amending the Business and Tax Regulations Code to waive the real property transfer tax for the first five million square feet of...more
Senate Bill (SB) 1227, introduced by Senator Scott Wiener on February 15, 2024, would help speed the recovery of downtown San Francisco by creating a new CEQA exemption for qualifying commercial, institutional, student...more
3/7/2024
/ Affordable Housing ,
California ,
CEQA ,
Community Development ,
County Planning Commissions ,
Environmental Impact Report (EIR) ,
Homeless Issues ,
Mobile Homes ,
Natural Gas ,
Office Space ,
State Bans ,
Tax Exemptions
The Berkeley City Council opened the door to high-rise apartment buildings in the Southside neighborhood by signing off on new zoning regulations that could allow for thousands more homes at UC Berkeley’s doorstep....more
12/5/2023
/ Affordable Housing ,
California Coastal Commission ,
Community Development ,
Eviction ,
Housing Developers ,
Office Space ,
Public Health ,
Renter's Rights ,
Student Housing ,
Sustainability ,
Zoning Laws
The Biden administration is launching a multi-agency effort to encourage states and cities to convert more empty office buildings into housing units, with billions of federal dollars available to help spur such transitions....more
11/10/2023
/ Affordable Housing ,
Biden Administration ,
California ,
CEQA ,
Homeless Issues ,
Housing Developers ,
HUD ,
Office Space ,
Property Tax ,
Urban Planning & Development ,
Vacant Properties
After more than two years of resistance, the city of Coronado, a wealthy island city in San Diego County, has agreed to follow state housing law by setting aside more land for development, Governor Gavin Newsom and Attorney...more
Governor Newsom recently approved multiple state housing bills passed by the State Assembly and Senate. The following is a summary of a few of the key bills that are expected to benefit multi-family, mixed-income housing...more
10/13/2023
/ Affordable Housing ,
CEQA ,
Commercial Buildings ,
Environmental Impact Report (EIR) ,
Governor Newsom ,
Housing Developers ,
Low Income Housing ,
Multi-Family Housing ,
Office Space ,
Prevailing Wages ,
Rental Property ,
Urban Planning & Development ,
Vacant Properties
The much-discussed push to revive downtown San Francisco by converting empty office buildings to housing is starting to gather momentum. Eight office building owners have responded to the city’s “request for information”...more
The Hermosa Beach City Council unanimously approved its Housing Element, which now must be submitted to the state Department of Housing & Community Development for certification. The state has said Hermosa Beach must build...more
In last year’s update, we provided an overview of federal and California regulatory actions designed to protect public health and the environment from the impacts of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). These actions...more
5/2/2023
/ California ,
CEQA ,
CERCLA ,
Clean Water Act ,
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ,
Environmental Site Assessment ,
Environmental Social & Governance (ESG) ,
Housing Developers ,
Office Space ,
Offshore Wind ,
PFAS ,
Proposed Legislation ,
Safe Drinking Water Act ,
State and Local Government
A federal appeals court on Monday overturned Berkeley’s first-in-the-nation ban on natural gas in new construction, agreeing with restaurant owners who argued the city bypassed federal energy regulations when it approved the...more
There has been a flurry of recent legislation to encourage the repurposing of underutilized office buildings, both on the state and local level. New legislation recently proposed in San Francisco would facilitate the...more
San Francisco leaders have a new plan to make it easier for developers to convert office buildings to housing downtown and in swaths of SoMa and Union Square....more
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....more
A consortium of San Francisco landlords and property owners filed a lawsuit last week challenging the city’s new tax on vacant residences as unconstitutional and a violation of state law. Proposition M, “The Empty Homes Tax,”...more