A roundup of news and multimedia from the Unfamiliar Terrain team:

San Francisco

Mayor Lurie launches initiative to speed up S.F.’s slow permitting process (SF Chronicle): The Mayor announced a new effort to streamline the City’s permitting process as he seeks to bolster its economic recovery.

Lurie under YIMBY pressure to embrace aggressive rezoning plan (SF Standard): Pro-development factions are warning the Mayor that a “too-timid approach” could be politically risky.

Photos That Capture the Soul of San Francisco (New York Times): Taken in the late 1960s and early 1970s, these long hidden photographs by Barbara Ramos have just been published in “A Fearless Eye.”

Bay Area

What It Will Take to Close Oakland’s Structural Deficit, Part 2: Budget-Setting, Spending, and Revenues (SPUR): This article provides background on Oakland’s budget-setting process, where its revenue comes from, and how that money is spent.

California and Beyond

‘Too damn hard to build’: An East Bay Democrat’s push for speedier construction (Mercury News): Although “excruciatingly non-sexy,” more California officials want to re-examine how buildings get permitted.

This wealthy California city just flirted with bankruptcy to avoid new housing (SF Chronicle): Will cities and counties be willing to go bankrupt to fight housing?

Rebuilding Los Angeles Is California’s Economic Moment of Truth (Wall Street Journal): Wildfires that destroyed two neighborhoods made the state’s housing shortage even worse. Now, opposition is growing to creating more.

Los Angeles could be the next city to take up single-stair reform (Urbanize Los Angeles): Advocates for increasing the supply of market-generated housing have recently set their sights on reforming building code regulations. 

California Assembly Select Committee on Permitting Reform, Final Report – March 2025 (California State Assembly): This white paper aims to help accelerate efforts at permitting reform across a range of areas, including housing, electricity, water, and transportation.

How Progressives Froze the American Dream (The Atlantic): The U.S. was once the world’s most geographically mobile society. Now we’re stuck in place.

Success on the Street Policy Brief (SPUR): California’s CEQA exemption has helped cities build modern mobility faster — and has become a foundation for future streamlining.

A roundup of news and multimedia from the Unfamiliar Terrain team:

San Francisco

Why Mission Bay is recovering faster than anywhere else in San Francisco (SF Standard): The redeveloped neighborhood is booming ahead of its showcase at next month’s NBA All-Star Game.

Lurie asks of Candlestick Point: ‘How can we go faster?’ (SF Business Times): The City is pacing tens of thousands of units short of its housing target, and Mayor Daniel Lurie says he is focused on faster permitting and other moves to help developers speed up their projects. Candlestick Point is his first big test.

North Beach as a Historic District? Not Yet, SF Mayor Lurie Says (KQED): Mayor Daniel Lurie is asking a state commission to delay a hearing on whether to designate North Beach as a historic district after pushback from housing advocates.

This major S.F. street is filled with vacant storefronts. A new plan would allow chain retail there (SF Chronicle): Two of the City’s newest supervisors are looking to get rid of red tape for “formula retail” stores.

SF’s tourism industry may bounce back in 2025 (SF Standard): A narrative change, a jump in convention bookings, and a slate of major sporting events are rejuvenating the City’s biggest sector.

Bay Area

What It Will Take to Close Oakland’s Structural Deficit (SPUR): Some deeply rooted structural issues underlie the city’s fiscal distress, but Oakland is known for its creativity and resilience, and it has navigated bigger challenges before.

Berkeley is legalizing a type of housing that could add thousands of units to the market (SF Chronicle): Berkeley has opened an amnesty program to convert illegal accessory dwelling units, or ADUs, to legal homes.

Billionaire-backed plan to build Solano County city could now bypass voter approval (SF Business Times): Suisun City voted to explore annexing land beyond the city’s border that includes some of the 60,000 acres where California Forever is trying to build a walkable, mixed-use community from scratch in Solano County.

California and Beyond

Legal battles and funding woes: California housing 2024 in review (Cal Matters): California lawmakers in 2024 made good on a promise to push for more housing construction and hold accountable cities that resist creating affordable homes. But finding money to pay for all that new housing was another matter.

LA Fires: It’s Time to Rethink Risk Mitigation to Save California’s Home Insurance Market (SPUR): California’s evolving climate crisis underscores the urgent need for an innovative approach to home insurance and risk mitigation.

Why California keeps putting homes where fires burn (Cal Matters): The L.A. fires have exposed California’s difficult road to navigate between disaster risk and solving the state’s housing crisis.

L.A. County says state housing laws stand in the way of rebuilding. Advocates disagree (LA Times): A request by L.A. County officials to temporarily waive state housing laws as residents rebuild in fire-ravaged swaths of unincorporated areas drew the ire of housing advocates, who accused the officials of skirting efforts at boosting affordable housing.

‘A perfect storm’: California’s housing crisis could worsen as construction slows (SF Chronicle): President Trump’s proposals could lead to a further decline in permitted homes, experts say, contributing to a shortage of available workers and increased inflation.

A roundup of news and multimedia from the Unfamiliar Terrain team:

San Francisco

Can downtown be saved? Mayoral candidates’ big ideas to stop the bleeding (SF Standard): The candidates agree that something must be done, but who has the right formula to make the downtown boom again?

State labels S.F. as a pro-housing city, one year after criticizing city’s slow housing progress (SF Chronicle): State officials have designated the City as pro-housing, pointing to “significant progress in accelerating housing development and removing obstacles that delay approval.”

Could changing this obscure S.F. building code allow the city to create more housing? (SF Chronicle): Supervisor Aaron Peskin introduced a resolution that convenes a “sensible density” working group to study permitting apartment buildings of up to six stories to be constructed around a single staircase.

Can Free Rent Revive Downtown San Francisco? (NY Times): The City is trying to lure businesses back with a free-rent period.

After public school closures, what happens to the real estate? (SF Standard): The San Francisco Unified School District is poised to close 13 facilities.

California and Beyond

Beverly Hills is dragging its heels on a development with affordable apartments. The governor says: Build it (LA Times): California officials are turning the screws on the City of Beverly Hills, where approval of a new hotel and apartment complex is moving too slowly for state housing bosses and the governor.

Judge orders VA to build housing on UCLA baseball parking lot. On the double! (LA Times): U.S. District Judge David O. Carter has nullified UCLA’s lease to the veteran land and ordered the lot to be used for temporary housing.

What Kalamazoo (Yes, Kalamazoo) Reveals About the Nation’s Housing Crisis (NY Times): A decade ago, the city had too many houses. Now it has a shortage. The shift there explains today’s costly housing market in the rest of the country.

Why Does This Building by the Subway Need 193 Parking Spots? (Yes, Exactly 193.)  (NY Times): New York and cities across the country reconsider decades-old parking rules.

How Developers Are Catering to Would-Be Homeowners With Rental Amenities (NY Times): Families are choosing to rent for the foreseeable future — some out of necessity, others for amenities.

Who’s Responsible for the Housing Crisis? How local governments broke America’s housing markets (The Atlantic): Local government is driving a housing crisis that is raising rents, lowering economic mobility and productivity, and negatively impacting wages.

The Labyrinthine Rules That Created a Housing Crisis (The Atlantic): A deep dive on the rules that govern land and how they function as the foundation of our lives.

This is How to Fix the Housing Crisis (NY Times): Tying federal transportation spending to building activity may be the best way to induce change.

A roundup of news and multimedia from the Unfamiliar Terrain team:

San Francisco

S.F.’s Stonestown to become west side’s largest residential development in 50 years (SF Chronicle): The plan to convert the Stonestown Galleria from a suburban shopping center to an urban neighborhood with thousands of units of housing received its final approvals from the Board of Supervisors.

$20 billion affordable housing bond measure makes it on November ballot (Business Times): The Bay Area Housing Finance Authority estimated that the funding would roughly double the number of affordable homes built in the region over the next 15 years and push through affordable housing units that observers say are stuck in the pipeline.

South of Market megaprojects could pivot from office to residential under new proposal from Breed (Business Times): The legislation could open the door for thousands of new homes across swaths of the South of Market neighborhood.

New legislation would dramatically reduce S.F. transfer tax for certain projects (Business Times): The legislation would temporarily lower transfer taxes for apartment buildings backed by union pension investment.

Scott Wiener’s downtown CEQA exemption is dead, to Mayor Breed’s dismay (Business Times): The Senate Appropriations Committee voted to hold the bill in suspense, causing it to miss a critical midyear deadline.

One of S.F.’s most contentious land use battles ends with construction of new housing (SF Chronicle): The seven-story, 90-unit project will become a model — good or bad — for what it means to put dense affordable homes in a neighborhood that has been resisting density for decades.

Landmark bill creates unprecedented path to approval for housing in San Francisco (Business Times): SB 423 clears the way for some residential projects to evade the City’s lengthy approval processes. 

California and Beyond

SB 423 promises to remake housing policy across the Bay Area (Business Times): The law’s streamlining provisions for new residential development also apply to other Bay Area jurisdictions.

Newsom Orders California Officials to Remove Homeless Encampments (NY Times): The directive is the nation’s most sweeping response to the Court’s decision that gave local leaders greater authority to remove homeless campers.

After High Court Ruling, L.A. County Supervisors to Reaffirm Policy Against Jailing Homeless People (LA Times): The board considered a motion reaffirming its existing policy that County jails “will not be used to hold people arrested due to enforcement of anti-camping ordinances.”

L.A. Officials Continue to Stall Homeless Housing Project in Venice, New Lawsuit Claims (LA Times): The lawsuit alleges that by not allowing the project to proceed, the city is preventing the construction of low-income homes in an affluent neighborhood and therefore violating fair housing and equal protection laws.

Reforming California’s landmark coastal law can restore balance between housing and environment (Cal Matters): A former attorney for the California Coastal Commission says the state Coastal Act has failed to deliver on what it envisioned.

Behind the evolution of rent control’s politics (The Real Deal): Pushes to overturn state bans on rent control have been mostly futile across the nation, but have gained traction recently in Illinois and California.

A roundup of news and multimedia from the Unfamiliar Terrain team:

San Francisco

Ultra Wealthy Are Putting Money Behind Bets on San Francisco’s Comeback (Bloomberg): Big investments in City businesses and real estate assets continue.

New data reveals what’s really fueling downtown San Francisco’s recovery (Business Times): New data suggests nightlife and after-hours activity may be a bigger driver of the recovery than what’s happening during the workday.

S.F. nonprofits secure $100 million gift for affordable artist housing on Market Street (SF Chronicle): Artists Hub on Market and Mercy Housing of California are collaborating to redevelop the Market Street site with approximately 100 affordable housing units.

Rethinking Revenue: Business Tax Reform in San Francisco in the Era of Remote Work (SPUR): The Office of the Controller and the Office of the Treasurer and Tax Collector have proposed final tax reform recommendations aiming to increase the City’s economic resilience, create more transparency for taxpayers, and help struggling small businesses.

California and Beyond

Bay Area could add 41,000 affordable homes. This map shows where they’d be located (SF Chronicle): A $20 billion housing bond likely headed to Bay Area ballots in November could “unlock” a pipeline of nearly 41,000 units across the nine-county region.

California will force Malibu and other towns to add housing. Here’s why that’s not nearly enough (LA Times): Exploring why the state government must expand the scope and speed of land-use reforms, with all cities, including wealthy and recalcitrant enclaves, doing their part.

Newsom promised 1,200 tiny homes for homeless Californians. A year later, none have opened (CalMatters): The Governor said he’d send tiny homes to San Jose, Los Angeles, Sacramento, and San Diego County. Why haven’t any materialized yet?

Why a California Plan to Build More Homes Is Failing (Wall Street Journal): Only a few dozen people have built housing under a law allowing them to construct duplexes alongside single-family houses.

One of every five new homes built in California last year was an ADU (Mercury News): In recent years, California has seen an explosion in ADU construction.

New battlegrounds emerge in California’s endless housing conflict (CalMatters): Exploring housing clashes emerging in recent weeks, including one in Portola Valley and the other a coalition of cities governed by their own charters, rather than state law.

7 Creative Solutions to Affordable Housing in California (Chan Zuckerberg Initiative): Ideas about how to solve California’s housing crisis, and proof that it can happen.

How an American Dream of Housing Became a Reality in Sweden (NY Times): Sweden picked up on the idea of modular construction and put it into practice.

A roundup of news and multimedia from the Unfamiliar Terrain team:

San Francisco

Small and Mighty: How small businesses can reinvent downtown San Francisco (SPUR Policy Brief): SPUR’s research, drawn from a literature review and interviews with City staff, small business owners, and nonprofits, pinpoints seven interventions that would make a difference to help small downtown businesses succeed.

These tech workers want to build a co-living ‘campus’ across a square mile of S.F. But for whom? (SF Chronicle): The nonprofit City Campus envisions turning one square mile of the Lower Haight, Hayes Valley, and Alamo Square neighborhoods into a multigenerational campus.

S.F. prioritized building homes for the ‘missing middle.’ 80% of units sit empty (SF Chronicle): Developers who have recently built apartments aimed at moderate-income families in San Francisco have discovered a harsh reality: The missing middle seems to have gone missing.

Making the Ive Hive: Jony Ive’s bold plans to reshape a small slice of San Francisco (SF Standard): Entities tied to the legendary Apple designer are buying up nearly a city block in Jackson Square.

California and Beyond

Berkeley recognized as ‘pro-housing’ by state, eligible for millions in grants (Business Times): Berkeley is now eligible to apply for a share of an exclusive state housing grant after being named among 10 cities recognized for their pro-housing policies.

California’s most controversial housing law could get a makeover (CalMatters): Some California lawmakers want to clear up, but also rein in, the Builder’s Remedy.

California is building fewer homes. The state could get even more expensive (LA Times): Across California and the nation, developers moved to start fewer homes in 2023, a decline some experts say could eventually send home prices and rents even higher as supply shortages worsen.

Not your grandma’s granny flat: How San Diego hacked state housing law to build ADU ‘apartment buildings’ (CalMatters): A 2021 state law radically changed the housing equation in San Diego. Advocates, developers, and policymakers are split on whether it should be exported to other jurisdictions.

These California Companies Want to Buy Your Backyard — and Build a House (KQED): Companies are hoping to jumpstart the construction of SB 9 projects by taking on the permitting and development work themselves, as well as making it easier for homeowners to take advantage of the law.

‘Getting out of hand’: Legislator blasts California Coastal Commission on housing (SF Gate): Amid the state’s housing crisis, some legislators and housing advocates are arguing that the 12-member commission’s powers have expanded too far.

California’s population is on the rise. So much for the claims of the state’s demise (LA Times): California has resumed adding people after three years of shedding them.

 

 

A roundup of news and multimedia from the Unfamiliar Terrain team:

San Francisco

San Francisco’s Montgomery Street Could Signal a Downtown Revival (NY Times): Why a seven-block stretch of Montgomery Street, from the Transamerica Pyramid to Market Street, offers hope for recovery in the City.

Why TMG Partners Co-CEO Matt Field is still betting on San Francisco (Business Journals): Insight into Matt’s life and work, and how he’s thinking about the City’s downtown recovery.

What I Found in San Francisco (The Atlantic): Exploring the daily realities of San Francisco.

Everything Is About the Housing Market (The Atlantic): Discussing how high rents make life worse for everyone in countless ways.

California and Beyond

Billionaire-Built Cities Would Be Better Than Nothing (NY Times): Exploring why the Bay Area needs a lot more housing, and how privately built cities could help get us there.

Structured for Success: Reforming housing governance in California and the Bay Area (SPUR): Explaining how California’s current housing governance system works, detailing the challenges of the existing system, and offering recommendations to improve it so that California can produce sufficient housing.

Los Angeles’ one weird trick to build affordable housing at no public cost (CalMatters): How Los Angeles is now approving hundreds of unsubsidized, 100% affordable projects.

New York Reimagined Subsidized Housing. What Happened? (NY Times): Analyzing the impact of one South Bronx subsidized housing development a decade after it opened.

Cities Face Cutbacks as Commercial Real Estate Prices Tumble (NY Times): Lost tax revenue fuels concerns about the far-reaching economic consequences for cities.

The Surprising Left-Right Alliance That Wants More Apartments in Suburbs (NY Times): Legislators from both sides of the political divide are working to add duplexes and apartments to single-family neighborhoods.

In Tokyo, Rescuing the Residential Spaceship That Fell to Earth (NY Times): Fifty years ago, the Nakagin Capsule Tower was hailed as a marvel of organic architecture. Now its legacy lives on through 23 orphaned capsules.

How Does Paris Stay Paris? By Pouring Billions Into Public Housing (NY Times): One quarter of residents in the French capital live in government-owned housing, part of an aggressive plan to keep lower-income Parisians — and their businesses — in the city.

A roundup of news and multimedia from the Unfamiliar Terrain team:

San Francisco

Can Free Rent Jump-Start a Downtown San Francisco Revival? Pop-Up Retailers Say Maybe (SF Standard): Nearly halfway into the three-month program, called Vacant to Vibrant, stakeholders say it has breathed life into Downtown and given entrepreneurs a platform to get their businesses in front of new customers.

S.F. passes crucial housing reforms. Will it be enough to satisfy the state? (SF Chronicle): The California Department of Housing and Community Development will soon determine whether the City is on track to come into compliance with state housing law.

Bay Area

Berkeley approves increased height limits near campus to ease UC student housing crunch (SF Chronicle): Berkeley will allow taller buildings in a densely populated neighborhood adjoining the UC Berkeley campus.

Oakland is automating 70% of its building permits. Here’s how development will change (Business Journals): Oakland is making changes to the way it issues some building permits in an effort to streamline the often-bureaucratic process.

The 15-Minute Neighborhood (SPUR): A policy brief suggesting that the City of San José could use the 15-minute framework to undertake and evaluate actions to implement its urban villages.

California and Beyond

Did one of California’s biggest new housing reforms go too far? (SF Chronicle): A review of the State Density Bonus Law, including why it is both an essential tool for housing production and possibly due for some refinement around the edges.

California’s Prohousing Designation Program (Terner Center): A paper examining the California Department of Housing and Community Development’s Prohousing Designation Program, and what short- and long-term reforms to the program may be warranted.

How Berlin’s Bid to Boost Affordable Housing Backfired (Wall Street Journal): Rents are rising at a record pace in Berlin despite anti-gentrification rules and rental caps.

A roundup of news and multimedia from the Unfamiliar Terrain team:

San Francisco

San Francisco Office Market Shows Signs of Life (Wall Street Journal): Sales slowly materialize as some sellers accept lower prices, showing that the City’s appeal hasn’t evaporated.

San Francisco has a big plan to revive downtown. Will it work? (Business Journals): Describing the City’s Vacant to Vibrant program that aims to fill a growing number of empty downtown storefronts with pop-up businesses.

San Francisco Mystery Property: How a $13.5 Million Dirt Lot Explains the City’s Housing Crisis (SF Standard): The unique story behind 941 Powell and what it says about the City’s housing crisis and the politics of development.

Converting S.F.’s empty offices to housing could finally be starting (SF Chronicle): The push to convert downtown’s empty office buildings to housing is starting to gather real-world momentum – future legislation could further facilitate this shift.

What Happened to San Francisco, Really? (New Yorker): A thought-provoking tour through San Francisco, examining how it got “here” and why “here” is often a difficult concept to define.

Bay Area

Traditionally industrial West Berkeley is making room for life sciences (Business Journals): Describing West Berkeley’s burgeoning transition from an industrial past to a future life science-focused district.

Berkeley to raise building height limits amid student housing woes (CBS News): Berkeley’s Planning Commission has approved raising building height limits for new projects on the south side of campus.

‘It’s a sleeper’: This East Bay downtown is poised for a comeback with new housing, restaurants (SF Chronicle): Downtown Hayward is showing signs of new life and hoping to capitalize on its central core and BART station.

California and Beyond

Housing the Middle: A national survey of programs to encourage middle-income housing development (SPUR): A new SPUR research paper explores the market’s failure to meet the needs of middle-income households.

The Big City Where Housing Is Still Affordable (NY Times): Exploring how Tokyo has become the world’s largest city by remaining affordable, and vice versa.

How to Cool Down a City (NY Times): Singapore is spending enormous resources to try to cool itself down – and learning lessons that could help other cities.

A roundup of news and multimedia from the Unfamiliar Terrain team:

San Francisco

• These three new blocks of housing are among S.F.’s best. They’re for the formerly homeless (S.F. Chronicle): Exploring three recently completed complexes in San Francisco, and how they provide both shelter and services to improve lives.
• More than a dozen small businesses to get free downtown locations as part of S.F. recovery effort (Business Journals): Describing the City’s Vacant to Vibrant program, one aspect of the Mayor’s larger Roadmap to Downtown San Francisco’s Future, which aims to fill a growing number of storefronts that now sit empty in the wake of the pandemic.
• Bad Math: The Middle-Income Housing Crisis (SPUR): A short documentary on middle-income housing through the eyes of a San Francisco high school math teacher.
• Why the AI boom is different from San Francisco’s last tech surge (S.F. Chronicle): Will this latest tech industry surge have similar effects on the City as the last two?
• Replacing struggling mall with downtown soccer stadium subject of new S.F. feasibility study (Business Journals): The Mayor indicates that momentum is building around an idea to replace Westfield Centre with a downtown soccer stadium.

California and Beyond

• An evaluation of streamlined housing production under SB 35 after five years (firsttuesday): Exploring the impacts of SB 35 since its implementation in 2018.
• The Anti-California (The Atlantic): How Montana transformed its land-use policies in an attempt to fix its housing crisis.
• This is Public Housing. Just Don’t Call It That. (N.Y. Times): Showcasing a unique multi-family public-housing development in Montgomery County, Maryland, the controlling owner of which is a government agency.
• How to Convert Empty Offices into Luxury Apartments (Wall Street Journal): A video providing an inside look into the challenges behind converting office buildings into housing.