Bay Area homeowner is the face of California’s latest housing drama
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Re: Bay Area homeowner is the face of California’s latest housing drama
#2Is there anywhere to see the list of projects that are being insta-approved as they come in?
Also, does anyone know what legal recourse there is to block projects that are submitted under the current no-zoning state?
Re: Bay Area homeowner is the face of California’s latest housing drama
#3Zoning laws broadly are probably still in effect, right? I doubt you could build something industrial in residential zones. It's just the bad parts of zoning that are disabled, if I understood the article correctly.
Excellent development in any case. Hope a lot of good dense housing gets built.
Re: Bay Area homeowner is the face of California’s latest housing drama
#4The next target should be CEQA, the California Environmental Quality Act. NIMBYs can endlessly delay new construction by requesting CEQA assessments. I am hugely pro-environment, mind you, but an environmental assessment for a new development should be relatively fast and easy to complete, and it shouldn't prevent new builds wholesale except in the direst cases.
Re: Bay Area homeowner is the face of California’s latest housing drama
#5Is there anywhere to see the list of projects that are being insta-approved as they come in? Also, does anyone know what legal recourse there is to block projects that are submitted under the current no-zoning state?
My understanding is that they can still be delayed by CEQA lawsuits, which NIMBYs have become very good at, but at least CEQA usually only delays projects instead of blocking them entirely.
Re: Bay Area homeowner is the face of California’s latest housing drama
#6Is there anywhere to see the list of projects that are being insta-approved as they come in? Also, does anyone know what legal recourse there is to block projects that are submitted under the current no-zoning state?
Projects can still effectively be denied/delayed from discretionary environmental review. State is working on pre-empting or expediting that as well for these affordable housing projects.
Re: Bay Area homeowner is the face of California’s latest housing drama
#7Is there anywhere to see the list of projects that are being insta-approved as they come in? Also, does anyone know what legal recourse there is to block projects that are submitted under the current no-zoning state?
Here is an website which tracks projects around bay area: https://sfyimby.com
Re: Bay Area homeowner is the face of California’s latest housing drama
#8Is there anywhere to see the list of projects that are being insta-approved as they come in? Also, does anyone know what legal recourse there is to block projects that are submitted under the current no-zoning state?
An earlier Chronicle article anticipates some ways projects will be blocked. It sounds like this isn't the unambiguous green light that some articles suggest.
> Environmental review is one such way. Normally, cities perform one environmental review for a citywide or neighborhood-wide zoning plan. So long as project applications comply with those plans, they can piggyback on the parent environmental report. But since builder’s remedy applications often disregard local zoning, cities can ask developers to complete a full environmental impact report for a project. Once that’s done, cities can then claim that any impact — noise, shadows, pollution — in the report was insufficiently studied and demand costly redos. Community groups can also take builders to court.
> Cities can further pile on costs for builder’s remedy projects by requiring infrastructure upgrades like new sewer connections. Local governments can also potentially exact revenge by making other applications from developers more unpleasant — for instance, by subjecting them to additional scrutiny or longer processing times. This threat will likely dissuade many developers from pursuing a builder’s remedy project.
The last portion, where local governments might intentionally punish developers, may be why there's not a bunch of large experienced developers rushing to submit plans.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/builde...
Re: Bay Area homeowner is the face of California’s latest housing drama
#9Zoning laws broadly are probably still in effect, right? I doubt you could build something industrial in residential zones. It's just the bad parts of zoning that are disabled, if I understood the article correctly. Excellent development in any case. Hope a lot of good dense housing gets built.
City Beautiful explain it really well [1]. There will still be ordinances and deed restrictions.
Re: Bay Area homeowner is the face of California’s latest housing drama
#10Zoning laws broadly are probably still in effect, right? I doubt you could build something industrial in residential zones. It's just the bad parts of zoning that are disabled, if I understood the article correctly. Excellent development in any case. Hope a lot of good dense housing gets built.
There was a great article about this a couple weeks back:
https://darrellowens.substack.com/p/ca-cities-to-lose-all-zo...
Basically, until these cities get a housing plan validated with the state, who is apparently sick of their crap like zoning in the middle of an active mall that will not be torn down, builder’s remedy is in place.