Stroock Presents: GOAT Town, Episode 4: Office-to-Residential Conversions in NYC – Magic Bullet or Merely One Piece of the Puzzle?
Business Better Podcast Episode: Affordable Housing in Chinatown, Los Angeles: How To Better Serve Your Community
California CRE to Expand in 2022
How To Be A Project Advocate By Diffusing Adjacent Neighbor Tensions
Homebuilder Series Webinar: Joint Ventures Solutions, Steve Lear
On June 27, 2024, the California First District Court of Appeal affirmed the denial of a writ petition challenging the City of Lafayette’s determination that a 12-unit residential condominium building qualified for the Class...more
City of Los Angeles - Increase to Planning Applications and Affordable Housing Linkage Fees - On July 1, 2024, the fee for planning and land use applications increased by 3.5% based on the Consumer Price Index for All Urban...more
The California Supreme Court, on June 6, 2024, reversed the First District Court of Appeal’s decision regarding UC Berkeley’s Long Range Development Plan (LRDP) EIR. The Supreme Court’s unanimous decision clears the way for...more
The Los Angeles Superior Court issued a highly anticipated ruling on March 4, 2024, addressing a Builder’s Remedy project denial by the City of La Cañada Flintridge. The decision confirms (i) that a local jurisdiction cannot...more
In a published opinion filed on January 17, 2024, the Second District Court of Appeal (Div. 5) reversed a trial court judgment overturning a mitigated negative declaration (MND) and requiring an EIR for a 42-single family...more
2023 served up roughly the same number of published appellate CEQA cases as 2022 with a defense win percentage of over 80 percent, which has been the case in many, if not all, of the past ten years. A prominent theme of...more
In Guerrero et al v. City of Los Angeles (January 17, 2024, No. B326033 c/w B327032) ___Cal.App.5th___, the Second District Court of Appeal held that the project opponents did not timely file their CEQA lawsuit. The...more
On September 7, 2023, Governor Newsom signed into law AB 1307, urgency legislation which took effect immediately and added to the Public Resources Code a new Section 21085, which reads: “For purposes of this division, for...more
During the summer of 2023, the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) released its updated Statewide Determination Summary for Senate Bill (SB) 35. In its report, HCD determined only 7% of California...more
In an opinion filed June 28, 2023, and later ordered published on July 25, 2023, the Second District Court of Appeal (Div. 5) affirmed a judgment granting a writ of mandate setting aside (1) the City of Los Angeles’ (City)...more
CITY OF LOS ANGELES - Site Plan Review Exemption for Affordable Housing - On June 30, 2023, the city council adopted an amendment to the Site Plan Review Ordinance to exempt deed-restricted affordable housing units from...more
On July 1, 2023, Senate Bill (SB) 6 (Caballero) – also known as the Middle Class Housing Act of 2022 – went into effect. Under the bill, if a project site is currently zoned for commercial retail or parking use, a developer...more
A roundup of news and multimedia from the Unfamiliar Terrain team: San Francisco - National Insight on Downtown San Francisco Recovery (Urban Land Institute): San Francisco can create a more commercially vibrant and...more
Los Angeles City Planning and Department of Building and Safety - COVID-19 Emergency Public Order on Tolling and Time Limits Rescinded - On March 21, 2020, then-Mayor Eric Garcetti issued a COVID-19 emergency public order to...more
The Terraces of Lafayette is a 315-unit housing development project in Lafayette, California that is perhaps the poster child project under the state’s most important housing production law, known as the Housing...more
On May 25, 2022, the League of California Cities (“League”) and California State Association of Counties (“CSAC”) filed a 10-page letter with the California Supreme Court requesting it to depublish the First District Court of...more
In an opinion filed on December 29, 2021, and later ordered published on January 25, 2022, the First District Court of Appeal (Div. 4) affirmed a judgment upholding the City of Newark’s (City) use of Government Code § 65457’s...more
Los Angeles Department of City Planning - Affordable Housing Linkage Fee The Affordable Housing Linkage Fee - (AHLF) schedule, adopted June 29, 2018, places a fee on certain new market-rate residential and commercial...more
As previously reported, California Senate Bill (SB) 7, the Jobs and Economic Improvement Through Environmental Leadership Act of 2021, was signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom on May 20, 2021, and became effective...more
A recent court of appeal opinion out of San Diego demonstrates how the California Environmental Quality Act (“CEQA”) has once again been used to impede housing development—this time to the benefit of a high-end luxury spa. ...more
In this op-ed for pv magazine, David Lazerwitz and Linda Sobczynski of Farella Braun + Martel examine the levels of precaution necessary to ensure fire risk mitigation in project development. Originally published in...more
Wildfires pose an increasingly serious threat to the public and environment in California. So it should be no surprise that the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research (OPR) amended Appendix G of California Environmental...more
Water Supply Sufficiency Analyses Must Consider Groundwater Sustainability - Gov. Jerry Brown has signed Senate Bill 1262 into law, representing an initial attempt to incorporate groundwater management requirements under...more