Housing Markets and the State
Each year, the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) promulgates what’s known as the RHNA (Regional Housing Needs Assessment). As the title of the report suggests, the RHNA announces to regional governments in California – councils of governments (COGs) – their housing goals for the next eight years or so. To complete the […]
Guess What? California Needs More Housing
The major findings of a recently released report came as no surprise to most of us: California needs more housing – lots of it. This, by the way, comes on the heels of enactment of a package of bills to, presumably, solve the problem. That’s what we were told, anyway, by state legislators after they […]
Mayor Laments Climate Change as San Jose Withers
“Calling all California residents! Get ready to shut off your kitchen stove. Then, turn off with your water heater. Done? Now, shut down your central heater. All right then, go put on a jacket, sit down and keep quiet for awhile.” That’s the message coming from the mayor of the City of San Jose, Sam […]
Where Fees on New Housing Go
If you’re a builder in California the most obvious costs you pay for a housing project’s approval are fees, development impact fees. These fees are purportedly assessed to cover the charges associated with the new housing being built. And, if you’re building anywhere near an urban area you’re paying a lot of them. Indeed, the […]
Some Good News on the Wildfire Front
As fire raced up hillsides and down ravines in Northern and Southern California recently – killing dozens of individuals, destroying whole communities and leaving countless people homeless – residents of Stevenson Ranch in the Santa Clarita area of the state must have thought back to nearly twelve years earlier when a similar conflagration roared through […]
Global Warming – Then Versus Now
The perils of climate change were first introduced to the world in 1968. It was then that the renown Stanford Research Institute (SRI) published its report, called Sources, Abundance, and Fate of Gaseous Atmospheric Polluters, warning everyone that a steady increase in levels of carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere were unnaturally warming the […]
Legislature Again Pursues Rent Control
It seems that California legislators can’t help themselves. After a year that saw every one of their rent-restricting efforts in the Legislature fail ignition – and after an election in which voters decisively rejected a statewide ballot measure to repeal a law protecting landlords – in Sacramento lawmakers are as determined as ever to put […]
More Housing Due in San Jose
The mayor and members of the San Jose City Council were recently seen in celebration mode: shaking hands and patting one another on the back after reaching agreement on a price for the sale of a downtown property that will pave the way for a massive Google expansion project. San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo was […]
Redevelopment Legislation Marked by Flaws, Benefits
Assembly Bill 11 isn’t about housing, yet. It isn’t about building much in the way of infrastructure, either. What’s more, the long-promised revival of redevelopment in California, it isn’t. Instead, the pending legislation – which co-author Todd Gloria (D-San Diego) touts is “a more robust funding source to construct more affordable homes” – is really […]
A First Look at the Governor’s Housing Budget
During his campaign for Chief Executive of California, then-candidate and now Governor Newsom promised three and a half million new housing units would be built in the state by 2025. He promised a majority of those units would be affordable to lower-income households, as well. He also promised he would make it profoundly easier to […]