Unfamiliar Terrain

On April 20, 2022, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD) adopted new recommended thresholds for determining the significance of individual projects’ greenhouse gas impacts under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). Fifteen years after the Legislature amended the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) to require consideration of individual project contributions to global climate […]

On March 14, 2022, a new eviction ordinance took effect, amending the San Francisco Administrative Code to require that landlords provide residential tenants a 10-day written warning and opportunity to cure prior to initiating “just cause” eviction proceedings. “Just causes” for eviction include failure to pay rent, a material lease violation, severe nuisance, illegal use […]

The Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) is finalizing its Regional Housing Needs Allocation Plan (RHNA Plan) for the sixth housing element cycle (2023-2031), which allocates a total of over 440,000 housing units across all Bay Area cities and counties, more than double the allocation from the prior 2015-2023 cycle. Notably, 27 Bay Area cities […]

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors continues to pursue options for COVID-19 tenant protections, in anticipation of the September 30, 2021 expiration of State protections of residential tenants from eviction for non-payment of rent due to COVID-19. On September 28, the Board of Supervisors unanimously passed on second reading amendments to the City’s COVID-19 residential […]

While the 2020-2021 California Legislative Session was dominated by the ongoing COVID-19 health crisis and the ultimately unsuccessful Gubernatorial recall election, there were significant efforts made to change statewide housing policy. Last week, the Governor began signing some of those new housing bills into law—including the widely discussed SB 9, which is regarded as the […]

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to affect the commercial real estate market, and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors is pursuing relief for certain categories of commercial tenants, including adoption of an ordinance creating a rebuttable presumption that a commercial tenant’s legally required shutdown excuses rent owed for the shutdown period. We previously reported on San Francisco’s eviction […]

In March 2020, in response to the COVID-19 public health crisis, Governor Newsom issued Executive Order N-29-20, suspending open public meeting requirements under the Brown Act and Bagley-Keene Act thereby allowing state and local public agencies – including Boards of Supervisors, City Councils and Planning Commissions – to meet by teleconference without requiring a physical […]

AB 900, a law that provided for speedy resolution of California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) litigation, was allowed to “sunset” at the end of the 2020 legislative session, without an anticipated legislative extension. On May 20, 2021, Governor Newsom signed SB 7, the Jobs and Economic Improvement Through Environmental Leadership Act of 2021, to reinstate and expand […]

Since we last reported on this topic, many of the residential and commercial eviction moratoriums that were enacted in response to the COVID-19 pandemic have been amended, replaced and/or extended. These moratoriums are generally set to expire on June 30, 2021. Depending on how COVID vaccination and the broader economic recovery play out in the […]

The state has granted an 18-month extension to certain housing development entitlements that were otherwise due to expire before the end of 2021. AB 1561 (Garcia) was enacted last year to support continued housing production in light of the ongoing economic and administrative challenges created by the COVID-19 pandemic. Its provisions apply to approvals, permits, and entitlements […]

The San Francisco Planning Department is updating the City’s General Plan, and Department staff will be holding a two-week series of online workshops on the proposed General Plan updates beginning Monday, March 15th. All development projects must be consistent, on balance, with the General Plan’s objectives and policies, so these updates are of high interest […]

In 2020, California legislators considered but ultimately did not approve bills that would have substantially restricted the continued use of single-family zoning across the state. These efforts included SB 50 (Wiener), which would have required increased residential density near qualifying transit, and SB 1120 (Atkins), which would have allowed duplexes on most residential lots across […]