Arent Fox Bay Area Land News - April 24, 2018
US/California/Bay Area News
Silicon Valley Business Journal
Wiener vows to try again after devastating defeat of transit-housing bill
Senate Bill 827 would have taken away some local land-use authority around transit stations and corridors so the state could allow denser, higher housing construction that neighborhoods often oppose. Tim Tosta is quoted saying that, “[l]ong term, (the bill’s failure) just starts to cement the idea that we’re not smart enough to get out of our own way."
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Wall Street Journal
YouTube shooting raises questions about Silicon Valley’s open-campus push
In a time where technology companies are pushing to make their offices more accessible to the public, the shooting raised questions regarding how to balance this increased public access without compromising the safety of their employees. Tim Tosta states that, for companies planning expansions in Silicon Valley, “[t]he tension is between how do we become open and remain safe.”
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San Francisco Business Times
Viewpoint: SB 827’s defeat is just the first shot in a long war
Scott Wiener's bill may have been defeated, but expect some of the same principles to stick around.
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Mercury News
Could this new tech help Silicon Valley build more houses?
As the yellow and black bull-dozer-like machine zoomed around the construction site preparing the ground for 700 new houses, all that was missing was someone in the driver's seat.
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Mercury News
Ballot fight over rent control is revving up
A renters' revolt in California could be heading to the November ballot as a campaign to lift decades-old restrictions on rent control reported Friday it had gathered more than enough signatures to qualify.
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San Francisco Business Times
Scott Wiener's housing near transit bill may be on ice for now, but he's not done with housing laws this year
Sen. Scott Wiener is moving with other state laws that would force cities to allow more housing to be built.
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New York Times
Can dirt save the earth?
Agriculture could pull carbon out of the air and into the soil — but it would mean a whole new way of thinking about how to tend the land.
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San Francisco Chronicle
Yelp CEO calls on Google, Facebook to help housing crisis
Two days after a controversial state bill to allow more housing near public transit was stopped dead in its tracks, one of its biggest supporters — Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman — called on other tech leaders to pressure their local governments to expand housing near their campuses.
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East Bay Times
Are you single? Good luck buying a home in California!
Let’s talk about a big California affordability challenge that’s often ignored: There’s likely no tougher place in the nation for singles to be house hunters.
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East Bay Times
Opinion: Bay Area cities need to say no to big business to end housing, traffic crises
Maybe the reason the recent housing bill failed to gain any traction in the legislature is because people are finally starting to realize the is no way to build our way out of the housing crisis.
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East Bay Times
U.S. existing home sales rose 1.1 percent in March
U.S. sales of existing homes increased 1.1 percent on a monthly basis in March, which suggests that buyers are undeterred by the dwindling number of properties available on the market.
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San Francisco News
San Francisco Business Times
Can Fisherman's Wharf be reinvented? Businesses welcome new retailers with fish market and big investments on way
About 65 percent of the city's tourists visit the Wharf. Last year they spent about $600 million in retail sales in the neighborhood, and $250 million in hotel expenditures.
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San Francisco Business Times
Huge investors chase San Francisco's $300 million Ferry Building
The 1889 building is drawing interest from some of the country's biggest landlords.
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San Francisco Business Times
Mega-developer's next major San Francisco condo tower to hit the market near Salesforce Tower
New condos are coming soon to San Francisco's burgeoning Transbay District at The Avery, Related California's new 56-story residential tower.
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San Francisco Chronicle
New, simpler plan for SF’s downtown rail extension
San Francisco’s latest vision for South of Market preserves Interstate 280, gets rid of the Caltrain rail yard, and has the commuter rail line’s downtown extension bypass Mission Bay, instead dipping underground a mile before its current station at Fourth and King streets.
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San Francisco Chronicle
Toxic soil went from SF’s Hunters Point to state landfills, ex-workers say
The scandal involving cheating in the $1 billion cleanup at the former Hunters Point Naval Shipyard has until now focused on allegations of what was left behind at the site: radioactive dirt dumped into trenches to save the time and expense of testing and disposing of it properly.
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San Francisco Chronicle
Nothing happens quickly at BART; Powell Street face-lift is no exception
San Francisco’s heavily traveled Powell Street BART Station is getting a $30 million-plus face-lift. And as usual with big BART projects, the five-year job is already running behind schedule — about 18 months behind.
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San Francisco Chronicle
Rules in the works as city offers olive branch in scooter war
Despite the very public push to get the newly arrived hordes of electric scooters off San Francisco’s sidewalks, the two-wheel rentals could wind up operating with the city’s blessing.
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San Francisco Chronicle
Solving transit troubles key in SF mayor’s race
Shortly before a tightly contested election for mayor, a new urban transit fad hit San Francisco.
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San Francisco Examiner
Van Ness Bus Rapid Transit construction delayed another 5 months
The Van Ness Improvement Project will see an additional five-month delay after crews encountered unexpected old city infrastructure under the street.
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San Francisco Examiner
Scooter complaints to SF’s 311 surge
San Francisco is fired up about motorized scooters. And that’s not just anecdotal. Complaints to the SF 311 service about them have surged in the last week, according to the department.
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Silicon Valley Business Journal
Yelp CEO: Company boards are asking about hiring outside of the Bay Area because housing costs are too high locally
Conversations in the board rooms of Bay Area companies have “shifted dramatically” as the costs of hiring people locally continue to escalate, Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman said at a panel discussion on housing held at the company's San Francisco headquarters Thursday.
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South Bay News
Silicon Valley Business Journal
CityLine developers in downtown Sunnyvale take over Macy's site
The news comes as the CityLine development, once known as Sunnyvale Town Center, gets off the ground after being stalled for years. The purchase brings almost all of the 36-acres that will make up the downtown project under one owner, which plans to anchored the development by a Whole Foods and AMC Theater.
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East Bay Times
Hotel planned for downtown San Jose’s south side
A large new hotel is being proposed for the south side of downtown San Jose, which could form a gleaming gateway — along with other projects — to the urban core of the Bay Area’s largest city.
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Mercury News
Landlords sue over registry policy
A group of San Jose landlords is pushing back against a new city registry for rent-controlled apartments, claiming in a lawsuit that requiring them to turn over a wealth of tenant information is illegal.
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East Bay Times
San Jose office tower bought for $101.5 million, pointing to downtown upswing
A downtown San Jose office tower has been bought for more than $100 million by East Coast investors at a huge profit for the seller over the prior purchase of the high rise, an acquisition that points to rising interest in buying pieces of the city’s urban core.
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Silicon Valley Business Journal
San Jose's median home price is up a third in one year, and that's just the beginning
San Jose’s year-over-year median home price increase for the first quarter led the nation, according to a report from the real estate database Attom Data Solutions.
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Mercury News
Santa Clara’s voting system attacked in court as discriminatory
Santa Clara could be forced to change how City Council members are elected if lawyers for a group of Asian-American residents who say the current voting system is unfair prevail in court this week.
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Peninsula News
The Almanac
Menlo Park: Coffee kiosk to 'benefit public' hits snags
The owners of the office building currently under construction at 1020 Alma St. in Menlo Park may be asked to subsidize a publicly-accessible coffee kiosk indefinitely, following a discussion by the city's Planning Commission on April 9.
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Mountain View Voice
Affordable housing project carries steep price
A new five-story affordable housing project that would replace a downtown Taco Bell received enthusiastic support from a City Council subcommittee on Thursday.
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Palo Alto Online
'Workforce housing' project scores a victory
A developer looking to build a 57-unit apartment building on the prominent corner of El Camino Real and Page Mill Road eked out an important victory Thursday morning, when Palo Alto's Architectural Review Board endorsed the project.
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Mountain View Voice
City projects to be studied under 'human rights lens'
Mountain View officials will begin looking at the human rights impacts of various city projects -- but there's still some confusion as to exactly what that means.
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The Almanac
Ravenswood school board could discuss principal's transfer
As East Palo Alto parents continue to rally against the sudden removal of a popular principal last month, school board members are considering whether to discuss the matter at an upcoming meeting.
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Palo Alto Online
Palo Alto's planning director to resign
Palo Alto Planning Director Hillary Gitelman will step down from her post next month, leaving the city with a vacancy in one of its most critical and demanding positions.
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Silicon Valley Business Journal
Mountain View officials’ push for affordability spurs proposal for nearly 450 housing units near downtown
The developer of an apartment and condominium project near downtown Mountain View this week presented a revised plan that nearly doubles the housing units by raising some buildings to seven stories and adds more affordable housing units.
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Mountain View Voice
Council embraces 447-unit East Whisman housing project
Mountain View City Council members rolled out the welcome mat for the first of many high-density housing projects expected to transform the city's East Whisman tech park into a mixed-use neighborhood with thousands of new homes.
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Silicon Valley Business Journal
Global real estate giant grabs huge office park in San Mateo leased by Tesla and GoPro
Hines, a global real estate firm, is the new owner of Clearview Business Park, a 380,000-square-foot office complex in San Mateo that is fully leased to Tesla and GoPro.
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East Bay News
San Francisco Business Times
Nearly 500 homes next to this East Bay BART station could transform a neighborhood
The project aims to transform 25 acres next to BART into a new mixed-use development.
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San Francisco Business Times
591-foot Oakland waterfront proposal would be city's tallest tower
The 500-unit housing project would exceed the current tallest building by nearly 200 feet.
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San Francisco Chronicle
A’s, Oakland could be taking a 2nd look at Howard Terminal for stadium site
For the second time in four years, Oakland’s Port Commission this week is expected to enter into exclusive negotiations with the Oakland A’s for a possible ballpark at Howard Terminal.
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East Bay Times
Affordable senior housing project to open in Livermore by summer 2019
Wednesday marked the official construction start of a new affordable senior housing project in Livermore that’s expected to open in the summer of 2019.
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East Bay Times
Plans for Goodwill in Brentwood torpedoed after neighborhood uproar over traffic, homeless and felons
The Planning Commission has denied Goodwill’s application for a retail and training center in southeast Brentwood despite redesigns, analysis and approval from the city Planning Department.
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