Thread: California Today: A Spreading ‘Yimby’ Movement

California Today: A Spreading ‘Yimby’ Movement

Mike McPhate
CALIFORNIA TODAY JULY 14, 2017



A pro-development movement has flourished in San Francisco’s high-cost housing environment. CreditJim Wilson/The New York TimesGood morning.

Today’s introduction comes from Conor Dougherty, who reports on economics from the Bay Area.

It’s like Woodstock, but for housing activists.

Over the past two years the rising cost of housing in the San Francisco Bay Area and elsewhere has created a budding movement of pro-development “Yimby” (yes in my backyard) groups that advocate for building more housing in hopes of easing exploding rents and home prices. On Friday a group of 200 or so activists from around the country, as well as Britain and Canada, will convene in Oakland for the “Yimbytown” conference.

“The goal is to get people together on how to build housing and bring those ideas back to those people’s cities,” said Kieryn Darkwater, an organizer with East Bay Forward, a pro-development group whose members are regulars at City Council meetings in Oakland, Berkeley and other east-of-San Francisco cities.

The conference is another sign of momentum for the Yimby movement, which has clashed with the Bay Area’s liberal establishment. A year ago most Yimby groups were tiny ragtag operations, but today they are pushing bills in Sacramento and have attracted enough money from Silicon Valley and elsewhere that many activists have been able to quit their day jobs to do politics full time. Scott Wiener, the state senator from San Francisco who is pushing a bill that aims to force California cities to ramp up housing production, is scheduled to speak at the conference on Saturday.

This is actually the second Yimby meeting. The first such gathering was last year in Boulder, Colo., and was organized by a group that included Will Toor, Boulder’s former mayor.

“It is great to see a second national Yimby conference bringing together activists from this burgeoning movement,” Mr. Toor said. “It is clearer than ever that if we really care about solving big national issues like inequality and climate change, tackling the lack of housing in thriving urban areas, caused largely by local zoning restrictions, is key.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/14/u...T.nav=top-news

U.S. Needs 4.6 MILLION New Apartments by 2030

Sean Keeley·June 9, 2017

Real Estate Development

Sacramento Approves 3,000-Home Greenbriar Community by Airport

Sacramento Approves 3,000-Home Greenbriar Community by Airport


It’s taken almost 10 years but a 600-acre development near Sacramento International Airport has finally received city approval.

The Sacramento City Council recently approved Greenbriar, which will bring, among other things, almost 3,000 homes to what has been farmland on the northwestern edge of Sacramento. The move is seen as a big win to help alleviate the stress of low housing inventory in the city and region. Specifically, the development will be located south of West Elkhorn Boulevard, edging up alongside Interstate 5 and Highway 99.

Model home rendering courtesy of Integral Communities

Developer Integral Communities plans to build 2,497 homes geared towards first-time and move-up buyers.

They will also include 483 rental units, 200 of which will be set aside for low-income seniors. A rep for the developer told the Sacramento Bee that 94 percent of the homes will be within a half-mile of a proposed light rail station that would connect downtown Sacramento and the airport.

Plans also call for three commercial sites within the development, including a retail hub around the light rail station. The developer is also working with Twin Rivers Unified School District to see if a K-8 school site can be added in or close to Greenbriar.


The approved guidelines call for Greenbriar to be designed as a pedestrian-oriented community. As such, five public parks will be created, including one designed specifically for sports. Two swimming pools and a community center are also in the mix. Over 140 acres of lakes, dedicated habitat mitigation areas, and other open space are included as well.

Integral Communities told the Sac Bee that it plans to develop Greenbriar across two phases, with work on the north section likely to begin in 2018. The second phase would begin construction “four or five years later, depending on the market.”

https://www.neighborhoods.com/blog/s...ity-by-airport

CA affordable housing bills benefiting in political dealing over cap and trade

Josie Huang
July 13, 06:22 PM



An effort in the California Legislature to address affordable housing is benefiting from negotiations over cap-and-trade legislation pushed by Gov. Jerry Brown. FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/GETTY IMAGES



California's proponents of affordable housing say they've never been so bullish about making a dent in the housing crisis as in the current legislative session.

Votes are planned Monday in Sacramento on a large package of housing bills expected to include millions of dollars in subsidies for low-income housing and policy changes to encourage the production of affordable housing.

Gov. Jerry Brown has opposed housing subsidies in the past, preferring to push along development by easing regulations. But now Brown needs legislators' help to extend for another 10 years the state’s cap-and-trade program that collects money from polluting companies.

"Cap and trade — because it’s urgent and needs to happen — provided us with an opportunity in our negotiations with the governor," said state Assemblyman Richard Bloom (D-Santa Monica).

A vote on the cap-and-trade program is also planned for Monday.
California is in the midst of a growing and crippling housing crisis, with some of the highest home prices and rents in the country. Los Angeles, San Diego and San Francisco count among the cities with the least affordable housing in the state.

Bloom said he was optimistic the housing package will include eight to 15 bills, including his own, AB 1505, which would allow local governments to require affordable housing in new apartment buildings.

Bloom’s bill is a top priority for Tyrone Buckley, policy director of Housing California, which advocates for affordable housing. He said the measure will allow lower-wage workers to live near their jobs.

Buckley, who has worked in Sacramento for five years, said he has never seen progressive Democrats prioritize housing at this level before.

"I‘m just pleased that they are leveraging political capital for affordable housing," Buckley said. "I’m as hopeful as I’ve ever been about success for housing this year."

Bloom said other bills that may be part of the package include a new $75 fee on real estate transactions to fund affordable housing as well as a $3 billion low-income housing bond measure planned for 2018.

http://www.scpr.org/news/2017/07/13/...g-in-politica/

No matter how you do it, there is only so many people you can squeeze into a given amount of space. Water and waste become insurmountable issues.

There are too many people on this planet and some places are suffering in this worse than others. The popularly idiotic solution for too many is to ship them some place else -- like here -- so they can have more space and resources to puke out more babies.

Votes are planned Monday in Sacramento on a large package of housing bills expected to include millions of dollars in subsidies for low-income housing and policy changes to encourage the production of affordable housing.

Now we make subsidized housing for the illegals and their anchor babies.

US housing starts total 1.215 Million in June, vs 1.16 Million expected

Developer begins construction on 3 new apartment complexes in downtown Long Beach

Chris Payne of SRG speaks Thursday as city officials gathered to break ground on three apartment complexes by developer Sares-Regis Group: The Alamitos, The Pacific and The Linden. (Photo by Brittany Murray, Press Telegram/SCNG)

By Andrew Edwards, Press-Telegram
POSTED: 06/01/17, 4:03 PM PDT | UPDATED: ON 06/01/2017 1 COMMENT

City officials break ground celebrating three apartment complexes by developer Sares-Regis Group. Two are being constructed in the second district and one in the first district.

They will be The Alamitos, The Pacific and The Linden. (Photo by Brittany Murray, Press Telegram/SCNG)

Real estate developer Sares-Regis Group plans to have three mid-rise apartment projects completed in downtown Long Beach within roughly two years.

The company, which has offices in Irvine and is already the master developer for the large-scale Douglas Park project in northeastern Long Beach, hosted a groundbreaking Thursday morning at the site of one of its downtown projects. The event took place on the asphalt of a parking lot near the crossing of West Third Street and Pacific Avenue where Sares-Regis plans to develop one of the buildings, with a backdrop provided by the towering construction cranes on the nearby site where workers are assigned to the construction of a new civic center.

“This is really looking like all the other urban centers on the West Coast that are really having an explosion of activity,” Sares-Regis managing director Chris Payne said.

A TRIO OF PROJECTS

Sares-Regis plans for the parking lot where the groundbreaking took place include a 163-unit apartment project to be known as The Pacific. The developer acquired the property from Plenary Edgemoor Civic Partners, the joint venture developing a new city hall and other buildings for the Long Beach Civic Center project. That company previously obtained entitlements to build a residential project there at the time the City Council approved plans for the Civic Center.

The apartment project details include:
• The Pacific, at 230 W. Third Street, is scheduled to be under construction before the end of July. Sares-Regis plans for 17 of its 163 units to be let at below market rates for tenants earning up to 120 percent of area median income. The U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department presently calculates the median income for Los Angeles County as being $64,300.

Plans call for this building to be seven stories tall with two underground parking levels. Sares-Regis plans to build town homes, not retail, at the street level. Completion is expected as early as summer 2019.
• The Linden, at 434 E. Fourth St., could begin construction this month. The building may be complete sometime in spring 2019. Sares-Regis plans to build 49 market rate apartments within a six-story building to be constructed above two levels of underground parking. The developer also wants to build a little more than 2,500 square feet of retail and restaurant space at the building.
• The Alamitos, at 101 Alamitos Ave. is already under construction. Building work commenced in May and may wrap before the end of spring 2019. Sares-Regis plans to build 136 market rate apartment units with 2,500 square feet of retail and restaurant space, with storefronts facing First Street. Developers conceived The Alamitos as a seven-story building with two levels of subterranean parking.

MORE DENSITY

Sares-Regis plans align with Mayor Robert Garcia and Long Beach planners’ intention to see thousands of new residential units be added to the city’s core. The developer’s actions follow other recent housing starts that include City Ventures’ initiation of its 40-town home development, called Huxton, at 227 Elm Ave. City Ventures celebrated its groundbreaking in late May.

“We are going to see three high-quality projects in the downtown core that will activate what were essentially empty parking lots,” Garcia said during Thursday’s event. “People will get a chance to form relationships and enjoy great small businesses,” he said.

City Hall’s density push, however, hasn’t been without controversy.

Sares-Regis plans for The Alamitos, for example, ran into some neighborhood opposition in late 2015 when people living near the project site voiced their worries that new construction would worsen downtown parking shortages.

Sares-Regis won the city Planning Commission’s approval in December 2015 after altering their plans to offer 17 more parking spaces than City Hall requires.

Nearly one year later, in November 2016, city government settled three lawsuits that parking advocates filed over a trio of other developers’ downtown projects. The agreement committed City Hall to commission parking studies analyzing conditions in parking-scarce downtown and Alamitos Beach, while also committing city government and developers to set aside funding for future parking improvements.

http://www.presstelegram.com/busines...own-long-beach

Legislature delays vote on housing-bills package

By Kevin Fagan
Updated 10:36 pm, Monday, July 17, 2017

California lawmakers have delayed until late August voting on a package of bills aimed at spurring a boom in affordable housing.

Gov. Jerry Brown is negotiating a deal with state senators and Assembly members on 130 bills aimed at easing restrictions on development and creating new funding sources. A vote had been expected Thursday or Friday.

However, Brown and leaders of the state Senate and Assembly issued a joint statement late Monday saying the package won’t be ready until after lawmakers’ summer recess, which runs from July 22 to Aug. 20.

Several people involved with the process said legislators had been too busy with a measure extending the state’s cap-and-trade system on greenhouse gas emissions to focus on the housing bills. Also, the expected absences of a few Assembly members later this week would have made it difficult for supporters to put together the needed two-thirds majorities in both houses to pass some of the package’s funding bills.

“There’s a good chance we’ll take it up very shortly when we get back,” said state Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco, author of a bill, SB35, to streamline the approval process for new housing units. “I am cautiously optimistic. We have good momentum.”

http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/articl...e-11295245.php

1,710 apartments proposed at Irvine’s Sand Canyon interchange face opposition


The Irvine Co. wants to build a 1,710 apartment community near the Sand Canyon Avenue and Interstate 5 interchange in Irvine. (Courtesy of The Irvine Co.)8 COMMENTS

By TOMOYA SHIMURA | tshimura@scng.com | Orange County Register
PUBLISHED: July 24, 2017 at 12:04 pm | UPDATED: July 24, 2017 at 1:02 pm


IRVINE — When Deb Swensen moved to the Orange Tree community nearly 20 years ago, the area was largely home to strawberry and bean fields.

Sand Canyon Avenue was one-lane in each direction, and Swensen frequently shared the road with farm equipment. With barely any traffic lights, she said she could fly up and down Sand Canyon.

“It was a different world,” she said.

Such bucolic times, to the dismay of some long-time residents, are gone as Irvine has morphed into a mega suburb with a population over 250,000 — and still growing.

And they are worried things may get worse.

Swensen was among a few dozen Orange Tree residents who attended a meeting Wednesday, July 19, at Oak Creek Golf Club — across the street from their community — to get information and voice their opinions about the Irvine Co.’s plan to build a 1,710-unit apartment complex.

The Irvine Co. is asking the city to amend the General Plan, which defines the city’s long-term plan for development, and change zoning so the company can build the complex on the former Traveland USA site off the I-5 freeway across Sand Canyon from La Quinta Inn & Suites. The 70-acre land, owned by the Irvine Co., sits empty.



The Irvine Co. is proposing to develop up to 1,710 apartments, a 25,000-square-foot shopping center and a five-acre park on the former Traveland USA site, currently vacant, off the I-5 freeway across Sand Canyon Avenue from La Quinta Inn & Suites. (Photo by Tomoya Shimura, Orange County Register/SCNG)In addition, the developer is proposing 250 condominiums and a 10,000-square-foot child care center on its 20 acres of vacant land at Sand Canyon and Great Park Boulevard, about 0.7 miles north of the Traveland site. The site was previously anticipated as a 205,000-square-foot commercial center.

These proposals, especially the apartments, have raised concerns among residents and elected city officials about the impacts of increased population on traffic and schools.

“I understand the need for housing, but I’m concerned about traffic,” Swensen said.

Targeting young professionals

Wednesday was the first in a series of meetings the Irvine Co. plans to host for nearby homeowner’s associations to discuss the project.

“We want to make sure people have adequate input into the process,” said Robin Leftwich, vice president of community affairs at Irvine Co.

Irvine Co. officials say the project would produce less traffic in the area — by about 24,000 car trips a day — compared to building 955,000 square feet of offices allowed under the existing zoning. The offices would bring in about 4,000 employees, according to the company.

Generally, housing creates less traffic than offices, Irvine Co. Senior Vice President Michael Le Blanc said.

The proposed apartments are mainly targeted toward young professionals working in the nearby Spectrum area and making $45,000-$65,000 a year, Irvine Co. officials said.

Irvine is home to more than 206,000 jobs and 15,000 companies, according to the Irvine Co. As many as 100,000 people commute to their jobs in Irvine from other cities, company officials said, adding traffic on city streets and freeways.

The proposed apartments and condos would allow these people to live close to work, Irvine Co. officials said. There are more than 57,000 jobs within two miles from the Traveland site, including at Kaiser Permanente, Hoag and Blizzard Entertainment.

Rents for the proposed apartments would be lower than other rental communities in the area because they would be smaller and less costly to build, Le Blanc said.

The apartments would have studios, one-bedrooms and two-bedrooms, ranging from 500 to 775 square feet. Rents could be $1,425-$2,200 in today’s dollars, company officials said.

Although he didn’t answer whether the Irvine Co. would make more money by building apartments than offices, Le Blanc said there’s strong demand for housing.

“This is a much better use of the land” for both the Irvine Co. and the general public, he said.

• Previous
• 

Congestion vs. housing shortage

Some residents at Wednesday’s meeting didn’t buy into the Irvine Co.’s plans and projections.

“Traffic is horrendous in Irvine,” said Lisa Wood, who’s lived in the Orange Tree community for 15 years.

She said it takes 30 minutes to drive 3.7 miles to her office in Irvine at peak hours.

She suggested building less-dense condos instead of the apartments so that young families could buy homes.
Supporters of the project say lower-cost apartments would help alleviate Orange County’s severe housing shortage.

Courtney Santos, a 35-year-old UC Irvine employee who lives in an Irvine Co. apartment, said salary increases don’t keep up with rising rents. Santos said she was hit with another rent increase this month.

“You have to make cuts in your budget like food, a basic necessity,” she said. “Any new housing helps to provide new options to people and to get some people out of overcrowded housing. It makes older units more affordable.”

However, 23-year-old Hope Dorman, who grew up in Irvine and now works in the Spectrum area, said young professionals like herself wouldn’t be able to afford the proposed apartments while trying to save money to buy a house.

Dorman shares a three-bedroom apartment in Irvine with two roommates. If her rent increases, she would have to move out of the city, she said.

She said she wants the Irvine Co. to build more affordable for-sale homes.

“You just feel kind of hopeless,” Dorman said.

Some are worried the project would put a burden on local schools, some of which are already crowded.

According to Irvine Unified School District projections, the proposed apartments would add 273 students to Greentree Elementary School, 68 to Venado Middle School and 120 to Irvine High School.

Venado and Irvine High have the capacity to accommodate the additional students, Irvine Unified spokeswoman Annie Brown said. The district may have to add portable facilities or modular buildings at Greentree, she said.

Irvine Unified receives a state-mandated $3.54 per square foot of residential space from a developer, but doesn’t have the authority to approve or deny the project, district officials said.

The Irvine Co. has been paying community facilities district taxes that go to the school district since 1986, Le Blanc said. The Traveland site is also part of the newly approved $319 million bond district created to improve aging schools.

What’s next?

What could complicate the matter is the county of Orange’s plan to build 2,103 housing units, as well as 220,000 square feet of commercial space and a 242-room hotel, on its narrow strip of land adjacent to the Orange County Great Park. That site is just across the freeways from where the Irvine Co. wants to build the apartments.

Irvine officials call the development a money grab that will congest roads and prevent the development of the Great Park. The county’s development itself could jam I-5, the Sand Canyon Avenue freeway ramps and nearby intersections, according to the Orange County Transportation Authority and Caltrans.

The Irvine council in March voted 3-2 in favor of starting to process the Irvine Co.’s application, with Councilwomen Christina Shea and Melissa Fox opposing.

Fox said Sunday, July 23, she’s still worried the project would exacerbate congestion on city streets and freeway on-ramps, as well as school overcrowding.

“I agree we need more housing in the city, but this is a particularly difficult site,” Fox said.

Those who voted yes at the time said the council can still deny the project if its impacts are insurmountable.

An environmental impact report — which reviews the project’s impact on traffic and schools as well as air quality, noise and more — is expected to be released at the end of the year or early 2018.

Public hearings by the city’s commissions are scheduled in the spring and summer of 2018 before it goes to the council. If approved, the apartments could open in about three years, Irvine Co. officials said.

Le Blanc said it’s “premature” to say whether the Irvine Co. would build offices at the Traveland site if the city denies rezoning it.

In the meantime, the Irvine Co. will continue to host meetings with HOAs. The company on Wednesday also launched a website with information on the apartment project at spectrum7update.com.

http://www.ocregister.com/2017/07/24...ce-opposition/