Arent Fox Bay Area Land News - December 20, 2016
News you can dig.
US/California/Bay Area News
Mercury News
Unions given preference for jobs on $500 million Bay Area wetlands tax
Union leaders saw an opportunity and urged the San Francisco Bay Restoration Authority, a seven-member government agency made up of local elected officials that will distribute the money, to require “project labor agreements” for contracts funded with the Measure AA proceeds.
To read the full article, click here.
Mercury News
Bay Area drivers could see $3 bridge toll increase
The Metropolitan Transportation Commission on Wednesday began discussing plans to seek state legislation to allow it to ask voters for a toll increase in 2018. Those talks could start as soon as next month. The ballot measure would be tallied regionally among all nine Bay Area counties and would need a simple majority to pass.
To read the full article, click here.
UCLA
How to Build an Affordable Home: Start With the Framework
For UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs scholar Paavo Monkkonen, making housing affordable in California starts with a vital building block: the state’s Housing Element framework requiring cities to meet existing and projected local and regional housing needs.
To read the full article, click here.
The Registry
The Future of Bay Area Housing Markets and Income Inequality: What the Demographics Tells Us
Because US birth and death rates are pretty stable—at least for the not too distant future—predicting demographic change is easier than predicting the future of the economy. The rate of immigration is basically the only unknown.
To read the full article, click here.
Brown Political Review
No More Parties in LA: How City Regulations Stymie Progress
The General Plan divides the City of Los Angeles into 37 smaller communities, each the size of a small city. Construction rules for each neighborhood are specified down to details like sidewalk width, building heights, parking requirements, and residences-per-building. However, because the General Plan is so antiquated and no longer reflects the city’s needs, developers must frequently seek exceptions to its rules.
To read the full article, click here.
FastCo Design
Prefab's moment of reckoning
In the dogged quest to use this technique, architects and developers have run into problem after problem, yet still remain unflinchingly confident that prefab is the path to the building of the future—as shown at 461 Dean, the 32-story modular high-rise designed by SHoP Architects and built by developer Forest City Ratner Corporation (FCRC).
To read the full article, click here.
Marginal Revolution University
VIDEO: Why Is the Rent So Damn High?
It’s a classic case of supply and demand: lots of people want to move to big cities because of the opportunities they afford. Naturally, they demand housing. But the supply is often short due to many factors, from geography to regulations. What does economics tell us happens when there’s a lot of demand, but not so much supply? Prices rise.
To read the full article, click here.
San Francisco News
New York Times
Opinion: The Tent Cities of San Francisco
The people spoke, in other words, and we said, “Get rid of those filthy tents and set aside heaps of money to make sure it’s done in a compassionate way so I don’t have to feel guilty, but don’t squeeze me for a dime.”
To read the full article, click here.
San Francisco Business Times
California Attorney General will seek injunction to stop Uber's self-driving cars
The California State Department of Justice has joined the chorus of regulators calling for Uber to halt its self-driving car program in San Francisco, with an order from the Attorney General’s office saying it will seek an injunction to force a halt.
To read the full article, click here.
SFGate
Academy of Art agrees to $60 million settlement of SF lawsuit
After a decade of thumbing its nose at San Francisco’s zoning laws, the Academy of Art University has agreed to a $60 million settlement with the city aimed at bringing the school’s many illegally converted buildings into compliance with local rules.
To read the full article, click here.
San Francisco Chronicle
SF artists get eviction notice amid crackdown
The eviction notice contends that the warehouse was being used only for business — most commercial leases in California can be terminated with 30 days’ notice — and not a living space, as its dwellers say has been the case for years. Under California law, residences, even illegal ones, are given protections against evictions that business tenants are not.
To read the full article, click here.
San Francisco Business Times
Despite sinking, Millennium Tower penthouse sold for $13 million
A penthouse at the sinking, tilting Millennium Tower previously occupied by late venture capitalist Thomas Perkins has been sold for $13 million, the most expensive condo sale in five years.
To read the full article, click here.
San Francisco Examiner
SF stretched to the limit by tech boom, says city report
“Given The City’s constrained housing market, it is unlikely that the resident labor force can readily expand much further in the short term, and this should lead to a slowdown in the rate of job growth in The City, even if the demand for new hires remains high,” the report reads.
To read the full article, click here.
Curbed SF
How the city plans to add 25,000 people to Central SoMa
The proposed Central SoMa plan defines that neighborhood as the 17 or so blocks in the area west of Second Street, east of Sixth, north of Townsend, and south of Folsom or Howard (depending on the block).
To read the full article, click here.
San Francisco Business Times
Uber defies regulators, says S.F. self-driving cars will stay on the road
Uber has continued to refuse to stop its autonomous vehicle initiative in San Francisco or seek a permit from the California Department of Motor Vehicles, citing "uneven application of the law" against the company.
To read the full article, click here.
San Francisco Examiner
Mayor Lee grows government by 5,090 jobs, then halts growth
Despite the labor costs, the Mayor’s Office defended the job growth during the Board of Supervisors Budget and Finance Committee hearing Wednesday.
To read the full article, click here.
The Registry
San Francisco Now Has 2nd Slowest Single-Family Rent Growth in Nation, San Jose 8th
HomeUnion, an online real estate investment management firm, has released a list of the single-family rental (SFR) rental markets in the U.S. featuring the highest growth.
To read the full article, click here.
San Francisco Examiner
Opinion: What Santa brought the developers
Not a single project in San Francisco has ever taken advantage of the state density bonus. That is, until last Thursday, when the developer for a 200-unit market-rate project at 333 12th St. claimed the bonus.
To read the full article, click here.
South Bay News
The Registry
Sunnyvale Approves 8.83-Acre Housing and Hotel Development on Lakeside Drive
The lot today is a rare infill opportunity in Silicon Valley along one of its busiest corridors. It is vacant; a site where previously a 378-room Four Points Sheraton, demolished in 2006, once stood. The surrounding neighborhoods in all four directions have similar occupancy.
To read the full article, click here.
Mercury News
Luxury apartments open next to Sunnyvale civic center and downtown
A grand opening for the 105-unit residential unit apartment community was held Dec. 7 with several city staff members in attendance. The complex, called 481 on Mathilda, is a short walk from city hall and other city offices.
To read the full article, click here.
Peninsula News
Mountain View Voice
Measure V: Rent-control ordinance faces lawsuit threat
Just days away from implementation, Mountain View's voter-approved rent-control ordinance, Measure V, is in danger of being challenged and potentially halted by a lawsuit expected to be filed next week by landlord advocates.
To read the full article, click here.
San Francisco Business Times
As biotech booms, South San Francisco approves new hotel to showcase industry
A new hotel is joining the Peninsula's biotech boom at Genesis South San Francisco, a 21-acre, 800,000-square-foot life science campus.
To read the full article, click here.
The Registry
Greystone Provides $221MM Freddie Mac Credit Facility for Affordable Housing in Palo Alto
Greystone, a real estate lending, investment and advisory company, today announced it has provided a $220,843,000 Freddie Mac credit facility to Woodland Park Property Owner, LLC. Woodland Park is a 1,808-unit affordable housing project located in East Palo Alto, CA.
To read the full article, click here.
Mercury News
Menlo Park: Commission backs large downtown project
Everyone at Monday night’s Menlo Park Planning Commission meeting seemed to agree a mixed-use development planned for a block-long stretch of El Camino Real downtown should proceed.
To read the full article, click here.
KALW
Brisbane remains defiant under regional pressure to build housing
In the midst of a regional housing shortage, where squeezing new units into San Francisco is a hard-fought battle, suburbs that refuse to build have become scapegoats for the housing affordability crisis.
To read the full article, click here.
Palo Alto Online
Gridlock frustrates local drivers and residents
Thursday's traffic nightmare was an extreme version of what many residents on Middlefield Road and feeder streets to University Avenue said happens every day, affecting both safety and their quality of life.
To read the full article, click here.
Monterey Herald
Reversible lanes on Dumbarton? There’s a chance
A bill signed into law this year by Gov. Jerry Brown has set into motion a study by SamTrans in San Mateo County to convert the six-lane span from Fremont to the Peninsula to four westbound lanes and two eastbound lanes in the morning, then flip-flopping that configuration in the afternoon.
To read the full article, click here.
East Bay News
San Francisco Business Times
St. Anton gets approval for 179-unit transit-oriented development in Fremont
The six-story Serra Apartments at 42000 Osgood Road will contain two floors of podium parking with a total of 225 spaces and four stories of residential units, split up between 124 one-bedroom units, 47 two-bedroom units, and eight three-bedroom units.
To read the full article, click here. [subscription required]
San Francisco Chronicle
Site of Ghost Ship fire was on Oakland city planners’ radar
While the plan is largely theoretical, it shows that although many properties along International Boulevard seem blighted, unloved and forgotten, in reality they are very much on the radar of city planners, not to mention developers.
To read the full article, click here.
San Francisco Business Times
Uber-loaded 2.0: Here's where Oakland is building housing and offices
Oakland is booming after years of being the city that was about to happen. Housing, retail and office renovations are underway while restaurants, startups and the arts scene are thriving.
To read the full article, click here.