Bay Area Land News - September 24, 2019
US / California / Bay Area News
Critics challenge new Bay Area housing calculus
The Mercury News
Critics are raising questions about a new methodology used to project how much new housing will need to be built in the Bay Area by 2050. At a public hearing Thursday in San Francisco, Susan Kirsch of Mill Valley, founder of the slow-growth group Livable California, was among about a dozen people concerned about the change in procedure used by the Association of Bay Area Governments. Kirsch said she fears it will result in higher estimates, and ultimately, denser housing. “We know that this is leading towards having high regional housing needs assessment numbers,” Kirsch said, although ABAG staff disagreed.
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Despite climate crisis, California continues to embrace exurban sprawl
San Francisco Chronicle
Beyond the Altamont Wind Farm, on former grazing fields that slope down to the flat floor of the San Joaquin Valley, builders are framing houses for the first wave of Tracy Hills. Even in the midst of a climate crisis, the Bay Area’s skyrocketing housing costs are pushing families into far-flung suburbs like Tracy. And the American dream of a single-family home coupled with cities’ restrictions on building multifamily rentals and condos means “exurbs” continue to thrive despite state and local officials’ recognition that they exacerbate climate change.
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Why Bay Area transit is broken, and who is trying to fix it
The Mercury News
At a time when regional leaders are considering asking taxpayers to back a proposed “mega-measure,” a $100 billion or more regional transportation sales tax, transit advocates say it’s more imperative than ever for the Bay Area’s more than two dozen transit agencies to work together and put customers first. That means timing connections between agencies, agreeing to standard ticket prices and discounts, and using the same branding and mapping systems, so customers are aware of where they can go in the Bay Area on transit, said Ian Griffiths, the co-founder of Seamless Bay Area. The relatively nascent advocacy organization was formed roughly two years ago with the goal of championing a more integrated, regional transit network.
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To fight climate change, car-loving California must overhaul transportation. Can it?
San Francisco Chronicle
California’s crusade against planet-warming emissions seems at times disconnected from the reality of its gridlocked freeways. But that hasn’t stopped a push for change. State officials want new cars to burn less gasoline for each mile they travel, and to use cleaner fuel. They are making electric cars easier to buy and adding bike lanes along major thoroughfares. Cities and counties have ripped apart streets to build new rail lines and bus corridors.
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Electric cars won’t save us, but a new transportation grid might
San Francisco Chronicle
No state has made more progress on adopting electric cars and improving fuel efficiency than California. The Trump administration is trying to undo that progress, a fight the state is taking on. But even the rosiest scenarios for future electric car uptake won’t be enough when it comes to climate change. The California Air Resources Board has found that even with a fleet of electric vehicles, California will fail to reach its aggressive climate targets without a reduction in overall driving. In some cases, this means each person driving just 1.6 miles less per day.
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San Francisco Bay: California and environmental groups sue Trump administration to block Cargill development
East Bay Times
A major legal battle is looming over a Silicon Valley site where a developer had proposed building the largest housing development on San Francisco Bay’s shoreline in half a century, the Cargill Salt property in Redwood City. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra and four environmental groups sued the Trump administration Tuesday over a decision it made earlier this year that could green light construction on a new development on the property. “The salt ponds and other San Francisco Bay wetlands and water deserve continued federal legal protection against pollution and development,” said David Lewis, executive director of Save the Bay. “We won’t let the Trump Administration invite developers to pave the bay.”
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San Francisco News
Facing protests, San Francisco’s largest landlord agrees to roll back some rent increases
San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco’s biggest landlord has been criticized for years for charging tenants with hefty rent increase to cover rising maintenance and operations costs. It now says it will stop the practice for renters who can prove hardship. Veritas Investments, which owns more than 250 apartment buildings in the city, says a new program will give quick relief over so-called “pass through” charges resulting from both operating and maintenance expenses as well as from other capital improvements.
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Our view: There's only one way to fix our housing-jobs imbalance
San Francisco Business Journal
There is no argument that San Francisco has a serious jobs-housing imbalance. By most calculations, since 2010 the city has added between eight and 10 jobs for every new home. Clearly, only two means exist to address this problem: Either we get more housing, or we have fewer jobs. It is depressing, though not particularly surprising, that San Francisco progressives are starting to coalesce around the second option. As our cover story this week has detailed, the Balanced Development Act, a proposal making its way toward the San Francisco ballot, would ask voters to tighten the city’s longstanding Prop. M office allocations by tying them to its success in developing affordable housing.
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Thirty years later, city debates future of Prop. M
San Francisco Business Journal
Next month, permission for a fresh wave of office space will hit San Francisco — but even as developers compete to grab it, they face a looming possibility that the city’s squeeze on new offices could get even tighter. It’s the latest chapter in the decades-old fight over Proposition M, the 1986 voter-approved measure that limits the total of large office developments to just 875,000 square feet each year. The cap remains one of the development community’s sorest subjects — and John Elberling, executive director of SoMa neighborhood group Todco, wants to clamp down further with another ballot measure, the “Balanced Development Act,” that he says will help address the city’s jobs-housing imbalance.
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People over parking: Judge permits construction to continue at SF waterfront homeless shelter
San Francisco Chronicle
A San Francisco Superior Court judge dealt a blow Monday to a neighborhood group fighting a Navigation Center on the Embarcadero, ruling that the city does not have to halt construction of the 200-bed facility while the opponents continue their court battle. The group, Safe Embarcadero for All, has vigorously opposed the center for months, claiming that the facility — a homeless shelter with intensive, on-site services — would be a magnet for violent crime, drug use and blight. The group’s attorney, Peter Prows, argued at Monday’s hearing that the city failed to get the necessary approvals from the State Lands Commission, which regulates waterfront development.
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San Francisco commercial development fees to rise by 143 percent
San Francisco Business Journal
San Francisco’s Planning Commission approved a bill that will more than double fees on new office construction to help pay for affordable housing. The bill raises the current fee for most new commercial space to $69.60 per square foot from $28.57. Fees for lab space will rise to $46.43 per square foot from about $19.To build 100,000 square feet of new commercial space, a developer would now pay $6.96 million instead of $2.86 million — a 143 percent jump.
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South Bay News
Google wants to start downtown San Jose transit village as soon as possible
The Mercury News
Google would like to launch a proposed transit village in downtown San Jose as soon as possible, yet the search giant and city leaders are well aware that an intricate path must be navigated before that can happen, officials said. The enthusiasm for the Google transit village, tempered by the sober realities of what cities typically require for a major development, emerged during a meeting at Backyard San Jose organized by SPUR, a nonprofit civic planning organization. The theme of the SPUR meeting Thursday evening: the changing landscape of San Jose.
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This duo has a singular focus on San Jose
Silicon Valley Business Journal
Gary Dillabough and Jeff Arrillaga are far from your typical real estate developers and dealmakers. First off, their company Urban Community could be seen as a side hustle for each. Second, they’re only interested in downtown San Jose. And third, they’re just as focused on the people living and working around their holdings as they are in the properties themselves. “To us, developments aren’t about a transaction or a single asset, but an ecosystem,” said Dillabough, who besides being part of Urban Community is managing partner of the venture firm Navitas Capital. “And ultimately, if you do a good job of bringing that ecosystem together, you’re going to deliver this more profound and more satisfying user experience.”
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San Jose to consider extending subsidy for residential high rises
The Mercury News
The San Jose City Council on Tuesday will consider extending a subsidy that proponents contend is critical for plans to build nine residential high rises downtown in a city that desperately needs more housing.
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Google village neighbors team up to ease downtown San Jose impacts
The Mercury News
Three San Jose neighborhoods have teamed up to ensure their voices are heard amid ongoing efforts by Google and municipal officials in connection with a game-changing transit village the search giant has proposed for the city’s downtown district. Leaders of the trio of neighborhoods are anxious to ensure they have enough muscle to deal with San Jose City Hall and Google in connection with a transit-oriented community that’s being developed near the Diridon train station on the western edges of the downtown area.
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Peninsula News
Facebook opens huge Sunnyvale campus where thousands will work
East Bay Times
Facebook has officially opened a huge Sunnyvale campus big enough to accommodate several thousand workers, a complex that features offices and open spaces designed to help the company entice recruits and retain existing employees. The social networking giant has just moved into the first of three big office buildings that it will occupy in Sunnyvale. On Wednesday night, Facebook gathered with employees, city officials, business leaders, and real estate executives to stage a ribbon-cutting to mark its occupancy of the sleek and gleaming offices.
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Sunnyvale welcomes ‘one of the biggest’ Facebook campuses
The Mercury News
Eighteen months after signing the lease, Facebook on Sept. 18 officially opened the first of its three office buildings planned for Sunnyvale’s Moffett Park. The other two buildings are slated to open by March 2021 in the office park, located on Discovery Way. At more than 1 million square feet, the Sunnyvale campus will be “one of the biggest … in the history of Facebook,” John Tenanes, Facebook’s vice president of global facilities and real estate, said at last week’s ribbon-cutting ceremony.
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Facebook’s Proposed 1.75MM SQFT Willow Village in Menlo Park Enters Environmental Review Phase
The Registry
The proposed Willow Village Master Plan project would demolish the existing buildings on the project site and would redevelop the site with approximately 1,735 housing units (with a minimum of 15 percent or approximately 260 affordable units), up to 200,000 square feet of non-office/commercial retail uses (including a grocery store and pharmacy), approximately 1,750,000 square feet of offices, a hotel with approximately 200-250 rooms, an approximately 10,000 square foot space for community facilities/uses, and approximately 9.8 acres of publicly accessible open space (including an approximately 4-acre public park). The project would result in a net increase of approximately 1,000,000 square feet of nonresidential uses at the project site (not including the proposed hotel).The applicant is seeking a bonus level development, which includes a request for an increase in height, floor area ratio (FAR), and density in exchange for providing community amenities.
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City Council rejects plans to replace Milk Pail with eight-story office building
Mountain View Voice
The Mountain View City Council voted 3-2 Tuesday night to sink a proposal for an eight-story office building in the San Antonio shopping center, calling it too tall, too dense and the wrong fit for a city striving to build more housing.
After months of wavering, will Mountain View finally ban RVs?
The Mercury News
On Tuesday, the council is set to consider banning oversized vehicles on streets 40 feet wide or less — the typical width of residential streets — and on streets with bicycle lanes starting in January. The proposed ordinance would effectively push RVs and campers away from residential areas and onto industrial and commercial streets, which are generally wider.
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County sets hearing in Palo Alto on Stanford general-use permit
Palo Alto Online
Launching into the final phase of the review process for Stanford University’s application for a permit to add millions of square feet of academic and residential development on campus, the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors will hold four public meetings over the next six weeks to vet and possibly approve the plans, including one in Palo Alto.
Proposed 17-story building at Sequoia Station would be the tallest in Redwood City
The Mercury News
Proposed plans to transform an outdated shopping center in the heart of Redwood City into a vibrant downtown destination with housing, shops and offices would also include the tallest building in the city. The project’s developer, Los Angeles-based Lowe, has submitted preliminary plans to redevelop Redwood City’s Sequoia Station Shopping Center and some surrounding property owned by Regency Centers, Safeway and SamTrans. The 12-acre site sits between the Redwood City Caltrain station and El Camino Real and across the tracks from the city’s downtown entertainment district.
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East Bay News
Emeryville may scrap parking requirements for all new buildings to discourage car use
East Bay Times
In an effort to encourage people to ditch their cars, Emeryville may scrap a long-standing requirement that developers provide ample off-street parking spaces for their buildings — if any at all. At its meeting Tuesday, the Emeryville City Council called for an ordinance by the end of November that would do away with minimum parking mandates for all new buildings throughout the city.
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