Bay Area Land News - September 12, 2019
US / California / Bay Area News
In major victory for tenants, California lawmakers pass sweeping rent cap bill
The Mercury News
In a significant victory for California renters struggling to find affordable housing, state lawmakers on Wednesday sent a sweeping rent cap bill to the governor’s desk. Assembly Bill 1482, which passed the Assembly Wednesday afternoon 46-22, is set to limit rent increases across the state to 5 percent plus inflation. Gov. Gavin Newsom, who helped broker a compromise between tenant advocacy groups and apartment owners, is expected to sign the bill into law in the coming days. The state joins Oregon, which passed similar legislation in February, and New York in enacting widespread rent caps.
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California cap on rent increases moves to governor’s desk
San Francisco Chronicle
Millions more Californians would be protected against massive rent hikes and unfair evictions under legislation approved Wednesday.AB1482, which would impose a statewide cap on rent increases and just-cause eviction rules, now awaits the signature of Gov. Gavin Newsom, who helped negotiate a deal between tenant advocates and landlords that cleared a path for the bill.
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Bay Area super-commuting growing: Here’s where it’s the worst
East Bay Times
On a good day with no glitches, Lauren Hopfenbeck spends an hour and a half getting to work in San Francisco, but she’s not coming from some far-flung Central Valley city. She lives in San Leandro. Hopfenbeck, a Bay Area native, is one of an increasing number of super-commuters — people whose journey to and from work takes 90 minutes or more in each direction — whose trips originate in the Bay Area, as opposed to those who come from Sacramento, the Central Valley and beyond, according to two studies released last month detailing the changing nature of work and school-related travel in the region.
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San Francisco News
Central Subway to debut in 2021, nearly three years later than planned
San Francisco Examiner
It’s official: Muni’s new Central Subway will debut three years late. Muni officials are preparing to formally announce the $1.6 billion dollar Central Subway’s newest opening date, June 2021, after an exhaustive six-week fact-finding period by the subway’s new director, Nadeem Tahir, the San Francisco Examiner has learned.
SF to open safe parking site for RV dwellers by November
San Francisco Examiner
San Francisco will open its first ‘safe parking’ site to address the growing population of people living in their vehicles on residential blocks by November. The site, in Supervisor Asha Safai’s District 11, which is being called a vehicle triage lot or safe parking, will allow up to 30 vehicles with people living in them to park overnight for up to 90-days as they engage in services and possibly transition into housing.
Treasure Island ferry terminal breaks ground in anticipation of 8,000 new SF homes
San Francisco Chronicle
Developers have begun building a ferry terminal on the raw, palm-lined shore of Treasure Island, the site of a massive real estate project that could bring 8,000 homes and 24,000 new residents by 2035. The ferry is a critical element of the transportation plan that city and county officials are continuously refining to get people to and from San Francisco without jamming the Bay Bridge.
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South Bay News
Google purchases widen in downtown San Jose for transit village project
East Bay Times
Google has bought the downtown San Jose site of a metal fabrication shop that’s been in business for nearly seven decades, a fresh purchase by the search giant as it pursues a proposed transit village. The Puccio Machine & Welding Works site is the latest property that Google has collected for its transit-oriented development in downtown San Jose near the Diridon train station and SAP entertainment and sports complex.
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Peninsula News
San Mateo to put height limits on 2020 ballot
The Daily Journal
An estimated $1.8 million in staff and consultant work to evaluate the environmental impacts of Facebook's proposed Willow Village can now begin, after the Menlo Park City Council approved a series of contracts on August 20. Facebook will pay for this work as it pushes forward with its proposal to build millions of square feet of commercial and residential space in the Bayside area of the city.
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Redwood City Council scopes huge, mixed-use El Camino Real in plan
The Daily Journal
In reviewing a proposal to build a massive mixed-use development slated to provide 291 apartments and 550,000 square feet of office space on six blocks of El Camino Real in Redwood City, officials urged the developer to consider the ratio of jobs and housing units in the region as well as how families and the city’s diverse set of businesses could be accommodated in the plans.
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Overnight parking program for vehicle dwellers gains momentum in Palo Alto
East Bay Times
As more people continue to live inside their vehicles around the Bay Area, Palo Alto is turning to its churches for help — hoping they can offer a safe haven away from city streets. Under a proposed safe parking pilot program approved on Tuesday by a city policy committee, zoning regulations would be modified to allow churches to host up to four vehicles.
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Palo Alto to lean on churches for help with vehicle dwellers
Palo Alto Online
The committee's conversation focused on the latest proposal to address the city's growing homeless population: a "safe parking" program that would allow residents who live in vehicles to park overnight night at designated lots equipped with bathrooms and other amenities. The committee agreed Tuesday that the city should continue exploring such a program, both for public or private lots. The program would borrow elements from those that had recently been adopted in Mountain View and in East Palo Alto. In each case, the city is working with nonprofits to offer services and case management to people in the program.
Palo Alto's push for more housing spreads to San Antonio
Palo Alto Online
For years, Palo Alto's elected leaders have focused their housing efforts on downtown and around California Avenue, the two parts in the city with the most transportation options and retail opportunities. But with the city's housing efforts falling well short of the City Council's goals, officials are now considering an option that would be almost unthinkable a few years ago: encouraging housing density along San Antonio Road, the very area that they previously deemed unsuitable for residential construction.
Future of San Bruno's Mills Park is unclear
The Daily Journal
A rejected mixed-use development proposal including 425 housing units in San Bruno continues sitting fallow, despite continued efforts by officials, the developer and housing advocacy agencies to push it ahead. Following the San Bruno City Council’s denial of the Mills Park development earlier this summer, discussions between officials and the developer have continued but gained no traction, said City Manager Jovan Grogan.
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East Bay News
East Oakland tenants face devastating rent hike
The Mercury News
Pelayo and Gaona lost their rent control protection to what the tenants’ attorneys call a “loophole” in the city’s rent control laws, as well as some questionable actions by the previous owners. In 2000, the six-unit building was sold by the U.S. Department of Housing to a private buyer, who within a year received permission to convert four apartments into four condos with their own parcels, and an additional parcel for the common area. However, there were actually six apartments on the property.
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Evictions, displacements in Hayward apartment complex weigh on council members
San Francisco Chronicle
Members of the Hayward City Council on Tuesday chastised a developer whose conversion of an apartment complex into affordable housing is displacing some of the current tenants. City leaders said they were misled about the impacts, but the council stopped short of intervening and instead pushed the conversation off to a later subcommittee meeting.
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