San Diego made ambitious changes this Tuesday to the city’s blueprint for future growth to help prepare the city for climate change, speed up revisions to neighborhood zoning plans, and try to reverse racial segregation. Council members praised the changes, called Blueprint SD, for combining an array of city goals into one document to create the first new big-picture vision for San Diego since the anti-sprawl City of Villages plan in 2008. Mayor Todd Gloria, whose planning staff spearheaded Blueprint SD, said after the vote: “Blueprint SD is a bold step forward in creating an equitable and sustainable future for all San Diegans. The plan will help us address our housing needs, support economic growth, and make significant progress toward our climate goals.”
President Joe Biden revealed a series of proposals aimed at lowering housing costs last week as inflation and elevated home prices are shaping up to be decisive issues for voters this year. The plan, which is subject to congressional approval, calls for withdrawing tax credits from landlords who raise rent by more than 5% per year, beginning this year and for the next two years. The plan would apply only to larger landlords who have more than 50 units in their portfolio, though that counts for more than 20 million rental units across the country, according to the White House. The policy would include an exception for new construction and buildings that are being substantially renovated.
With millions of square feet of approved office space indefinitely on hold in San Francisco’s Central SoMa neighborhood, Mayor London Breed introduced legislation this Tuesday that would relax zoning in order to allow more housing to be built in the area. The 2018 Central SoMa Plan was supposed to deliver 8 million square feet of modern office space for 32,000 workers. Instead, six of the eight large development sites in the neighborhood are dormant. And with 38.5% of the neighborhood office space vacant, there is little hope that those office buildings will be constructed any time soon. Since 2020, Central SoMa office tenants have given up 1.8 million square feet more than they have leased, enough space for 8,000 workers. City planners said two of the key development sites, 88 Bluxome St. and 725 Harrison St., may be most appropriate for converting entitlements from office to housing.
A new state bill seeks to facilitate the construction of dedicated housing for farmworkers in Santa Clara and Santa Cruz counties. While advocates acknowledge the bill is only a small step, they say its passage could be key to improving housing conditions for farmworkers. The bill, AB 3035, would streamline approval to allow developers to build up to 150 units of farmworker housing on land within 15 miles of grazing or farmland. The bill is on track for a vote on the Senate floor in late August.
California Forever, the billionaire-backed company behind a controversial plan to build a city from scratch in eastern Solano County, will pull its proposal from the November ballot and bring it back to the voters in 2026. Those in favor of the plan pointed to California Forever’s promises to add 15,000 new jobs to the county — where many residents commute outside the county for work — and vows that the new city would house 400,000 residents when fully built out. Opponents, however, feared those promises were merely a ploy to win over voters and noted the proposal did not include any legally binding guarantees.
Apple is partnering with the philanthropic arm of real estate firm Sobrato and two other California-based groups to launch a fund with an initial investment of $50 million to support affordable housing projects in the San Francisco Bay Area. The Bay Area Housing Innovation Fund is part of Apple’s 2019 pledge to contribute $2.5 billion towards affordable housing across California, the company stated.
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