The “Affordable Homes Now” measure submitted in March by a coalition of labor and housing advocates, has successfully collected the 52,000 signatures required to qualify for San Francisco’s November 2022 ballot. Citing a study by the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley, the measure describes San Francisco’s four-year average to permit multifamily residential […]
Imagine being at home one day when you receive news that someone (or some entity) is claiming to be the true owner of that same property you worked so hard, and paid so much, to purchase. Is there a chance there is actual merit to such a claim? What does this mean for your ability […]
The Downtown Oakland Specific Plan (“DOSP”) is Oakland’s sixth area plan and has been in the works since the mid-2010s. On April 27, 2022, Zoning Code Amendments to implement the objectives of the DOSP were released. The DOSP’s objectives, include new and equitable housing production, economic opportunity, social justice, culture keeping, quality urban form, climate-friendly […]
Pending Specific Plan Will Streamline CEQA Review of Future Life Science Projects On April 25th, the City of San Carlos enacted a development moratorium covering approximately 120 acres of land in the north side of the City, and east of Old County Road (see map below). San Carlos has seen significant life science and R&D […]
The Department of Building Inspection and the San Francisco Fire Department have drafted a new Information Sheet EG-02, which provides guidelines for R-3 projects that are unable to meet the Building and Fire Code (SFBC) Section 1030, which requires emergency escape and rescue openings (EEROs) to open directly into a public way or to a […]
After a productive legislative year in 2021, the state legislature is continuing to tackle California’s ongoing challenges related to the housing crisis and lengthy processing times. Two bills would aim to minimize some of the roadblocks facing housing projects by bringing down both direct costs and holding costs. First, AB 2063 proposes to codify the […]
Senate Bill 9 (SB 9), which took effect January 1, 2022, enables property owners to split their single-family residential lot into two separate lots and build up to two new housing units on each lot. A key component of SB 9 is that it requires ministerial approval of such projects. In San Francisco (the “City”), […]
This winter, two California Courts of Appeal issued decisions that reaffirm some of the positive aspects of state laws related to housing production, from both a CEQA perspective and via the State Density Bonus Law (“DBL”). In the first case, out of East Bay city Newark, the First District Court of Appeal upheld a tiered […]
This Thursday, the San Francisco Planning Commission will consider an ordinance that would amend the Planning Code to address electric vehicle (“EV”) charging uses. The Planning Code does not contemplate EV charging currently—leaving operators to work with the Planning Department on a case-by-case basis to determine the permissibility and approval path for any new EV […]
On December 1, 2021, the City of Berkeley adopted a new Zoning Ordinance (Title 23 of the Berkeley Municipal Code), the first major revision of the City’s Zoning Ordinance since 1999. The revision process originated from a 2016 City Council referral which asked the Planning Department to undertake structural revisions to the Zoning Ordinance. As […]
