By Hydee Feldstein This article focuses on the language of SB 330 itself to show why Dick Platkin’s article on SB 330 as published here in CityWatch was correct, and the response by Senator Skinner’s office as published here in CityWatch is misleading and not an accurate rendition of the text of the bill by the bill’s sponsor and her office. Read the

Tech, not recalcitrant cities, is the root of our housing crisis By Eric Filseth in SF Chronicle Open Forum “Bay Area voters understand the root of our housing crisis is not local officials — the political narrative — but enormous tech demand for housing. The region has generated vast wealth, but hasn’t invested enough of

How San Francisco broke America’s heart “This is unregulated capitalism, unbridled capitalism, capitalism run amok. There are no guardrails,” says Salesforce founder and chairman Marc Benioff, a fourth-generation San Franciscan who in a TV interview branded his city “a train wreck.” There’s an ongoing battle between the NIMBYs and YIMBYs over development in one of

· PCASTS Can ‘SLO life’ survive when tech comes to town? By Bill Fink May 24, 2019 Photo: miroslav_1, Getty Images/iStockphoto “On Feb. 21, days after Amazon backed out of its plan to stage a second headquarters in New York City, the mayor of San Luis Obispo issued a statement lambasting the online retailer for

Opponents of SB 50 warned of the housing bill's impact on diverse, working-class urban neighborhoods like Los Angeles' Jefferson Park, above. (Los Angeles Times) To the editor: While I have great respect for anyone assigned to report on Sacramento, having covered it myself as a columnist in the Arnold Schwarzenegger era, I take issue with

A new analysis finds that liberalizing zoning rules and building more won’t solve the urban affordability crisis, and could exacerbate it. Build more. That’s what a growing number of urbanists hail as the solution to the surging home prices and stark inequality of America’s superstar cities and tech hubs. They want to relax regulations that

Oblivious to reality, Senator Wiener trips over American's third rail "Senator Wiener’s failure to gain traction for his far left, ideological, anti-single family home crusade, most recently evidenced by the failure of Senate Bill 50 to advance in Sacramento, is directly tied to his inability to comprehend what is fundamentally important to the average Californian.

  In a series of letters to California state Senate and Assembly Committees, Livable California formally Opposed SB50, SB330 and AB1487   _____________________________________ April 14, 2019 CA Senate Governance & Finance Committee State Capitol, Sacramento, CA 95814 SB 50 -  OPPOSED Dear Senator Mike McGuire, Chair, and members of the Senate Governance & Finance Committee:

Marin Post - by: Niccolo Caldararo - April 1, 2019 "But we have to ask why American cities have a glut of high rise developments and still little affordable housing? That is because builders and financiers are pursuing luxury buyers and planners and politicians are supporting them. Most units built are not primary residences but are speculative investments