Arent Fox Bay Area Land News - May 31, 2016
News you can 'dig' covering national, California, Bay Area, San Francisco, South Bay, Peninsula, and East Bay headlines.
US/California/Bay Area News
San Francisco Business Times
Opponents rally against Brown’s plan to exempt affordable housing
Gov. Jerry Brown's plan to exempt certain affordable housing projects from local permitting is running into steep opposition from influential organized labor and environmental advocates.
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Arent Fox Alert
House Passes Landmark Overhaul of TSCA
Earlier this week, the US House approved a bill by an overwhelming majority that will significantly reform the 40-year-old Toxic Substances Control Act. The "Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act," H.R. 2576, is a landmark overhaul of chemical regulation that will give the Environmental Protection Agency more authority to regulate hazardous chemicals. The American Chemistry Council lauded the House’s passage of the bill, stating on its website that “U.S. manufacturers and America’s consumers can take heart that a 21st century approach to managing chemicals is just steps away
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Silicon Valley Business Journal
Plummeting cap-and-trade market could wreak havoc on high-speed rail funding
The market demonstrated exactly the kind of volatility that the Legislative Analyst’s Office warned about in a March review of the California High-Speed Rail Authority’s business plan.
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San Francisco Chronicle
L.A. to convert motel units to 500 apartments for homeless vets
The city of Los Angeles has approved a deal for nonprofit and private developers to convert “nuisance” motels into 500 permanent supportive apartments for homeless veterans.
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The Mercury News
San Francisco Bay: $12 parcel tax for wetlands has big financial backers
When environmentalists wade into political contests, they're almost always outspent by big business.But that's not the case with Measure AA, a $12 annual parcel tax that will appear on the June 7 ballot in all nine Bay Area counties to fund wetlands restoration and flood control projects around San Francisco Bay's shoreline.
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San Francisco Chronicle
First segment of high-speed rail hits another snag
It was supposed to be the easiest section of the high-speed rail project: a 119-mile stretch in the Central Valley that would serve as the testing ground for the high-speed trains before tracks are expanded south to Los Angeles and north to San Francisco.
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San Francisco Chronicle
Maintain the local voice in Bay Area land use — oppose MTC plan
There is still time to have your voice heard on local land-use planning. The Association of Bay Area Governments and the Metropolitan Transportation Commission are embroiled in a fight that could result in the former — responsible for creating the Bay Trail, cleaning up the bay, putting solar on roof tops, funding affordable housing, restoring wetlands, strengthening homes against earthquake damage and teaching small businesses to be greener — being subsumed by the all-powerful MTC solely because MTC holds the purse strings.
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The Mercury News
Walters: Fixing California's housing crisis
Those in California media and politics understand -- finally -- that there is a housing crisis. However, there's no agreement on what precisely it is or how it might be addressed. To many, it's homelessness -- the 100,000-plus people who live in California but have no place to live, by far the largest number of any state.
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San Francisco News
San Francisco Business Times
Supervisors attempt to reduce mayor's powers with suite of new measures
San Francisco's Board of Supervisors have introduced a suite of measures aimed at taking power away from Mayor Ed Lee in five major departments, as the deadline to introduce charter amendments for the November ballot arrived Tuesday.
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San Francisco Business Times
Less is not more when it comes to S.F. affordable housing
San Francisco progressives profess to love affordable housing. The trouble is, too often they love it to death.
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San Francisco Chronicle
Low-key Ed Lee gets criticism from all sides
When Ed Lee completes his second term in 2020, he’ll become San Francisco’s second-longest-serving mayor in more than 70 years. It may seem hard to imagine that people will one day speak of “the Ed Lee era,” but after nine years in office, that’s what it will be.
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San Francisco Chronicle
State agency for bay development prepares for sea-level rise
The state agency that for the past 50 years has controlled changes along San Francisco Bay has voted to take assertive new steps — not to stop the bay from being filled, but to prepare for sea-level rise.
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San Francisco Chronicle
Sidewalk campsites frustrate neighbors, city leaders
Sidewalk tents have taken everyone in San Francisco by surprise. It’s not your imagination, they’re springing up like mushrooms.
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San Francisco Chronicle
Measure would exempt Hunters Point Shipyard from office-space cap
The 5 million square feet of commercial development planned for the Hunters Point Shipyard project would be exempt from the city’s long-standing cap on office space under a ballot initiative San Francisco voters could consider in November.
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San Francisco Chronicle
Housing showdown over ‘Beast on Bryant’ in SF
After three years of talking, developer Nick Podell says he’s ready to start building some housing at 20th and Bryant streets. Whether he’ll get to do so is not certain.
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San Francisco Chronicle
SF makes pitch to be home of transit of the future
Bay Area transportation leaders, academics and technology executives filled a City Hall conference room Wednesday to pitch U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx on a plan to transform — and reform — San Francisco’s transportation system.
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South Bay News
The Mercury News
Quinn: Dustup over Google buses in the heart of Silicon Valley
It's hardly the open antipathy tech shuttles have faced in San Francisco or Oakland.No one is blocking the sleek vehicles, deflating their tires or crying out that the Google bus is a symbol of gentrification that must be stopped. But make no mistake, just below the radar in Los Gatos, there's a little tension simmering over the shuttles.
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Silicon Valley Business Journal
Sunnyvale Town Center revamp gets a reboot
The city has approved modifications to the Town Center, including rent conversions and more demolition, to reflect new developments.
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The Mercury News
San Jose housing prices: County's median hits $1 million for first time
With high demand and a tight market, Bay Area housing prices continue to soar, setting record highs in April in Santa Clara and Alameda counties.
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The Mercury News
Poll: Santa Clara County voters favor taxing themselves to combat traffic woes
Buoyed by a survey that shows growing support for a new transportation tax, Santa Clara County officials will ask voters to support a half-cent sales tax increase for 30 years to extend BART, fill potholes, upgrade numerous aging interchanges and fund bus lines.
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Peninsula News
Palo Alto Online
Faircourt's bid to ban two-story homes rejected
An effort to ban new two-story homes in the Eichler enclave of Faircourt faltered Wednesday night after a series of last-minute detraction dragged the petition just below the needed signature threshold.
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The Mercury News
Ravenswood district places $26M measure on June 7 ballot for 'urgent' repairs
Ravenswood City School District has placed a $26 million measure on the June 7 ballot to pay for "urgent" and "critical" needs, such as leaking roofs and failing air-conditioning and heating systems.
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Mountain View Voice
Tenant advocates push back against looming deadline
Each and every day will count in the race against time for the Mountain View Tenants Coalition to gather signatures for a ballot measure to cap the city's rent increases. But exactly how much time remains to collect these signatures remains up in the air due to a brewing disagreement between lawyers from the tenants' group and the city over how election rules should be interpreted.
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Mountain View Voice
Council OKs funding for Bike Share
The Mountain View City Council approved spending $160,000 as a subsidy for the city's Bike Share service, despite acknowledgment that the bicycle-rental program has been struggling to attract riders.
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Palo Alto Online
New housing proposal on Maybell scores a victory
Three years after a proposed housing development on Maybell Avenue stoked a revolt in Palo Alto's Barron Park neighborhood, a new plan to build housing on the former orchard site is on the verge of winning the city's approval.
To read the full article, click here.
Silicon Valley Business Journal
Mountain View wrestles with how to encourage housing in North Bayshore
This much we know: At some point, more residential is going to get built in Mountain View's North Bayshore district, in the backyard of the Googleplex.
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The Almanac
Menlo Park: Environmental report released on Facebook's expansion plans
An environmental review says that Facebook's plan to build three 75-foot-tall buildings, adding 962,400 square feet at two proposed office buildings and 174,800 square feet at a 200-room hotel, plus 3,533 parking spots, could have some impacts determined to be "significant and unavoidable."
To read the full article, click here.
Palo Alto Online
Zuckerberg plans to raze, replace his Crescent Park homes
Facebook's billionaire CEO Mark Zuckerberg is preparing for a major update to his digs in the Crescent Park neighborhood, where he plans to raze four homes and build four new ones, equipped with large basements and small crawl spaces.
To read the full article, click here.
Palo Alto Online
Palo Alto seeks to toss mobile-home park lawsuit
Attorneys for the City of Palo Alto and the Jisser family squared off in federal court on Thursday over whether the closure plan for the Buena Vista Mobile Home Park is unconstitutional.
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Mountain View Voice
North Bayshore: Could housing incentives increase office space?
In their quest to rapidly inject housing into the North Bayshore business park, Mountain View City Council members wavered on some incentives for developers, based on new fears that they could be unintentionally unleashing a spree of new office growth.
To read the full article, click here.
Silicon Valley Business Journal
Tubes, trains and automobiles: People movers of the future in Silicon Valley
Several ideas seemingly hatched in Fantasyland are being proposed to help ease Silicon Valley’s crushing traffic congestion. Will any actually get built?
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The Mercury News
California's 24th Assembly District: Eight candidates vie to replace Rich Gordon
Five city councilmen from Silicon Valley are among eight candidates jostling to replace Assemblyman Rich Gordon, D-Menlo Park, whose 24th District includes huge swaths of open space and some of the world's largest tech companies.
To read the full article, click here.
East Bay News
The Mercury News
Alameda: Supporters of rent stabilization submit petitions
Supporters of rent stabilization submitted their signed petitions to the city clerk on Tuesday, setting the stage for it to appear on the November ballot.The Alameda Renters Coalition wants rent increases capped at 65 percent of inflation and an elected rent board in the city, as well as an end to no-cause evictions.
To read the full article, click here.
San Francisco Business Times
CIM quadruples Oakland office project's potential size up to 800,000 square feet
CIM Group may build a huge new office tower in Oakland after all. A rendering of CIM's office project next to Pandora Media's headquarters in Oakland. This version shows the 200,000-square-foot plan, but the company is now marketing a property that could be four times as large.The Los Angeles-based developer and its broker, Colliers International, are now marketing an office project proposal that calls for between 450,000 square feet and 800,000 square feet at an existing parking lot at 338 21st St.
To read the full article, click here.
San Francisco Chronicle
Richmond fights for apartments; developer wants ‘Riviera’ homes
A developer’s plan to build single-family houses on Richmond’s waterfront — walking distance from a future ferry to San Francisco — is the focus of a fierce political battle over how much housing will get built in the East Bay city.
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San Francisco Business Times
Another West Oakland project proposed in race to avoid fees
One of the few market-rate developers active in West Oakland is seeking approvals for a new housing project in the next few months before new impact fees start.
To read the full article, click here.