Bay Area Land News - October 24, 2019
US / California / Bay Area News
‘A big deal’: Facebook matches Google’s $1B pledge to fight housing crisis
San Francisco Chronicle
Facebook says it will invest $1 billion over the next decade to help fund 20,000 new homes in California, becoming the latest big employer to ramp up its financial commitment amid a crippling housing shortage. Facebook’s plans follow a similar, unrelated $1 billion plan from Google that includes subsidies and land for market-rate and affordable homes. Other large Bay Area companies like Kaiser Permanente and Wells Fargo have also committed millions for housing as their employees struggle to afford the Bay Area and recruiting new workers to the area becomes increasingly challenging.
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California Housing Crunch: Interactive maps on home prices and tumultuous market
San Francisco Chronicle
It’s no secret that Bay Area home prices have risen dramatically since the Great Recession, though the market started to cool about a year ago. Single-family home values have jumped an average of 6% each year for the past 10 years, reaching a peak median of $962,700 in Oct. 2018 across the San Francisco metropolitan area. San Francisco has the highest median home price among major U.S. cities, reaching $1.7 million in June. Some Silicon Valley suburbs are even more expensive, such as Atherton, where the median home price is $8 million. Demand is so strong that historically lower priced, minority areas like East Oakland, East Palo Alto and San Francisco’s Bayview have seen some of the biggest price spikes in recent years.
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Facebook’s strategy to address housing and transportation
The Mercury News
A recent poll identified homelessness as well as housing costs and availability as two of the most important issues facing California today. In fact, these issues are two sides of the same coin — we cannot address homelessness without also addressing the housing shortage across the income spectrum. This recognition should drive a common agenda for building the Bay Area’s future. Today, it’s too expensive to live here. Young people can’t raise families in the communities where they grew up. Many families are forced to live in RVs. Communities suffer when commuting keeps families apart and ruins our environment. How do we overcome our different priorities and interests to develop common solutions?
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Related’s Bill Witte Unpacks California's 'Housing Affordability Crisis'
The Planning Report
Bill Witte—as the Chairman and CEO of Related California and someone who’s been involved very successfully in building affordable housing for more than three decades-—how should political and civic leaders be framing the challenges of increasing the supply of affordable housing , and also homeless units, in California’s urban metropolises? Bill Witte: I’ve long stated that government can affect the availability and affordability of housing really in just two ways. The first, which until recently has been given short shrift, is land use policy, and the second is direct financial support.
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If Sacramento politicians can’t support a renter’s tax credit, they aren’t serious about the state’s housing mess
Fox & Hounds
Drive through almost any city or town in California and the impact of California’s housing crisis is plainly evident. Homelessness is on the rise. And ever-rising housing costs are going to push more and more people in that direction. Despite months and months of hearing legislators promise action, we’re not seeing it. It’s not happening.
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San Francisco News
SF may more than double fees on office construction
San Francisco Curbed
On Monday, the SF Board of Supervisor’s Land Use Committee voted 2-1 in favor of a measure that would more than double fees on new office development, potentially raising millions for affordable housing—while scaring away new developments. The fee in question, designated the Jobs-Housing Linkage Fee, would raise money for affordable housing to offset the effects of more jobs on the city’s scarce housing market.
S.F. moves forward with controversial jobs-housing linkage fee
San Francisco Business Times
San Francisco is moving forward with a plan to sharply raise its Jobs-Housing Linkage Fee, despite a city staff report predicting that the increase would cost the city more than 1,000 jobs over the next two decades. Introduced by Supervisor Matt Haney, the current version of the proposed legislation would would raise the fee for new office development from $28.57 to $57.14 per square foot for projects that were approved before Sept. 10 and to $63.37 for projects submitted between then and Jan. 1, 2022. Projects submitted after that would be charged $69.60 per square foot.
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Tenants union backs housing bond after change in how landlords can pass on costs
San Francisco Examiner
To shore up support for November’s $600 million housing bond, the Board of Supervisors approved legislation Tuesday changing how landlords can pass on the cost to tenants. In an 11-0 vote, the board approved legislation introduced by Supervisor Aaron Peskin that allows tenants to apply to for financial hardships if they cannot afford to pay.
New limits proposed on extended-stay rentals
San Francisco Examiner
Legislation introduced Tuesday aims to regulate a growing trend of companies leasing out units in projects approved for housing as so-called “corporate rentals,” or extended-stay apartments. The San Francisco Examiner has previously reported that some developers who have won approval to build housing are instead leasing out large portions of the constructed units to third-party companies that specialize in furnished apartment rentals advertised for limited stays of 30 days or more.
Competition for an Office Space Allocation in SF is Heating Up
Socket Site
With over 2 million square feet of new office development having recently been approved and granted a coveted allocation from San Francisco’s bank of allowable “Large Cap” office development, the Proposition M limited pool to which 875,000 square feet of allocable space is added every October now totals 896,752 square feet. And that’s after this year’s allotment was added last week.
Five Point sheds two-thirds of Candlestick retail space in shift to mixed-use office plans
San Francisco Business Journal
Five Point is switching its game plan at Candlestick Point for the third time, sharply cutting back on retail space to accommodate more offices. After nearly a decade of piecing together plans for a retail-anchored neighborhood, the relationship between the developer and its retail partner, Macerich (NYSE: MAC), fizzled earlier this year. Meanwhile, broader changes in the retail market have triggered a substantial drop in demand for space, the site has undergone extensive environmental review and the need for more office space in the city has skyrocketed — all in rapid-fire succession.
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South Bay News
$330 million financial boost emerges for troubled towers in downtown San Jose
The Mercury News
Two housing towers perched alongside downtown San Jose’s bustling San Pedro Square appear to have reversed their prior misfortunes by landing hundreds of millions of dollars in financing to complete construction of the gleaming high rises, the developer said Wednesday. 188 West St. James, which consists of two residential towers and ground-floor retail, has been hounded by an array of setbacks and sluggish progress, but the development now appears to be back on track with a cascade of financing boosts that culminated in a $330 million construction loan from Mack Real Estate Group.
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Peninsula News
Mountain View residents launch campaign to block the city’s ‘inhumane’ RV ban
The Mercury News
Mountain View had barely finalized its plan to ban RV dwellers from parking their vehicles on most streets throughout the city when a group of residents and housing advocates began a campaign to stop it in its tracks. Outside of the city council meeting Tuesday night, organizers with the Mountain View Housing Justice Coalition handed out materials in their quest to collect more than 3,700 signatures — or those from at least 10 percent of the city’s registered voters — in the next 30 days.
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Woodside looks at green building mandates, affordable housing goals
The Almanac
California updates its building codes every three years, and in recent years the state has increasingly required new buildings to be more environmentally friendly.
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Hundreds call for more contributions from Stanford for expansion plan
Palo Alto Online
With Stanford University's ambitious expansion plan nearing the finish line, hundreds of Stanford students, public school advocates and elected leaders from surrounding communities rallied in Palo Alto on Tuesday to demand that the university do more to address the impacts of its increasingly divisive proposal.
SoftBank Pre-Leases 130,000 SQFT in Stanford University’s Middle Plaza in Menlo Park
The Registry
SoftBank, a Japanese multinational investment firm, has come to an agreement with Stanford University and big-time developer John Arrillaga to lease 130,000 square feet in Menlo Park. The deal, first reported by The Mercury News, involves multiple buildings in Middle Plaza, a mixed-use development owned by Stanford University. The office buildings that are part of the project will be developed by Arrillaga and his business partner, Richard Peery.
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Councilman to take seat in Belmont
The Daily Journal
Belmont Planning Commissioner Thomas McCune has been selected to fill the City Council seat vacated in September by Doug Kim. A Belmont resident since 2009, McCune was appointed to the Planning Commission in 2014 and currently serves as its chair for the second time. He previously served on the Finance Commission and the Measure I Infrastructure Repair Ad-Hoc Committee.
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Foster City recall process moves forward
The Daily Journal
After accepting what’s called a certificate of sufficiency Monday, the Foster City Council is set on Nov. 4 to officially call a recall election for Vice Mayor Herb Perez. If the council follows staff’s recommendation, Foster City voters will decide whether to oust Perez and if so, who should replace him in a consolidated election March 3, 2020. If the council does not call a recall election by Nov. 4, then San Mateo County elections officials will schedule it instead.
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East Bay News
A’s offer deal to Oakland to shake loose movement on Coliseum site, new ballpark
San Francisco Chronicle
In an effort to break the legal logjam that’s threatening their new ballpark, the Oakland A’s are offering to either buy out the city’s half share in the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum site for $85 million or enter into a long-term lease, sources close to the negotiations say.
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Trending Towards Mediocrity: The Story of UC Berkeley’s Great Real Estate Experiment (Part 2)
The Registry
Recognizing Berkeley’s financial plight, and the role that real estate played in it, former Chancellor Bob Birgeneau and Vice Chancellor of Finance and Administration (VCFA) John Wilton determined in early 2013 that a restructuring of Berkeley’s lines of financial reporting, combined with the creation of a real-estate specific division would be necessary in order to reorganize the university’s vast real estate portfolio.
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'$1B Doesn't Go As Far As It Used To': Oakland Mayor, Developer On Facebook Pledge
Bisnow
Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf and TMG Partners Chairman and CEO Michael Covarrubias said Wednesday that recent billion-dollar commitments from Facebook and Google are much too small to make a dent in the housing crisis. Read more
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