11 ms·

Court overturns state ruling on San Francisco’s infamous 469 Stevenson project

117 points by jseliger 4y ago

beautifulfreak 4y ago
https://archive.ph/fqPVC https://archive.ph/fqPVC
Victerius 4y ago
The court has rendered its judgment. Now let it enforce it. The developers should ignore the judge and move forward with the project. Bring those bulldozers to the construction site. Put shovels in the ground. What's the judge going to do? Too much progress in this country is being slowed down by judges legislating from the bench, on both sides. Everyone should just stop following judges orders, Democrats and Republicans. The only matters judges are qualified to judge are trials.
- pc2g4d 4y ago
  Too much legislating from the bench is a symptom of too little legislating in the legislature...
  - benjaminl 4y ago
    Normally that is the case, but California has been very active passing significant housing reform legislation in the past couple of years. Just this last legislative session over 20 housing bills were passed: https://www.hklaw.com/en/insights/publications/2022/10/california-2023-housing-laws-what-you-need-to-know https://www.hklaw.com/en/insights/publications/2022/10/calif... The problem is that city counsels and judges are skirting laws by violating clear legislative intent.
- gort19 4y ago
  So disputes should be settled using guns instead? Violence is the general alternative to the rule of law.
- erehweb 4y ago
  The judge wouldn't have to do anything. A city that wants to stop construction could use a police officer to do it, and they would be legally in the clear.
- klyrs 4y ago
  > What's the judge going to do? Issue an injunction, have the construction workers arrested and charge the developers with contempt?
- LegitShady 4y ago
  There would be an emergency injunction filed and they would send police to the job site if they didn't listen
- toomanyrichies 4y ago
  > Everyone should just stop following judges orders, Democrats and Republicans. So... no more rule of law. Got it. What could possibly go wrong? /s
thebradbain 4y ago
This ruling is frustrating (to say the least) in the short term, but overall I think this ruling going to tremendously backfire in NIMBY's faces. This judge just unintentionally put the state's spotlight on CEQA -- previously, the dearth of housing laws passed this year were careful to navigate within its framework without attempting to change it. Newsom has demonstrated he takes housing starts seriously (Really! The fact that virtually every commercial lot is now zoned for ministerial housing approval statewide, abolishing parking minimums statewide, passing SB9 to allow 2-4plexes on single family parcels statewide, and passing SB10 to exempt apartments of less than 10 units from CEQA, and directing the housing authority to decertify rich cities' zoning codes that flout RHNA housing obligations like Santa Monica is huge) and I don't expect him to let up. > State housing laws, she ruled, do not apply to a project until after a city “certifies” the project’s environmental review. > Although CEQA puts a one-year limit on environmental review, the court held that this deadline is just advisory If these rulings stand, you can absolutely bet that CA state housing laws in 2023 will now turn their focus toward CEQA. At a minimum, expect that "advisory" deadline to be formalized, shortened, and certification expedited or even exempted if the project falls within certain categories. Bike and bus lanes were just exempted from CEQA this session, and I absolutely imagine housing that is X% affordable will be soon, too. In fact, really all California has to do is expand SB 330 or their 2019 Builders Remedy Law (which itself gave an existing state law from 1990 teeth) which states that developers are guaranteed ministerial approval regardless of zoning in any municipality determined to have a non-certified housing element to include expedient and ministerial CEQA approval. What would once be considered unthinkable politically a decade ago is now just a legislative hop and a skip away.
- tsycho 4y ago
  I really really hope you are right.
- xyzzyz 4y ago
  > In fact, really all California has to do is (…) I guarantee they when Charlie actually does that, Lucy will nevertheless pull away the ball again.
  - 4y ago
chayesfss 4y ago
chayesfss 4y ago
- pessimizer 4y ago
  - astrange 4y ago
    They're people who would like houses to cost less than $2 million. (The above comment appears to be from a "left-NIMBY", which is a kind of person that only exists in SF and spends all their time blocking new housing because it isn't "affordable" - of course, never making new housing also won't make it "affordable". They do have a tendency to believe poor/minorities are intrinsically poor and will only ever be able to live somewhere if they're constantly "organized" by "tenant organizers" who are typically over-theorized communist grad students or well connected slumlords like Michael Weinstein and John Elberling.)
jmyeet 4y ago
For those not following the California housing crisis and the government's response to it, I would urge you to do so. This is an issue of national significance and Newson is actually trying to do a lot. The article mentions the Berkely case but let me highlight it [1]: > That’s essentially what Alameda County Superior Court Judge Brad Seligman ruled this week when he froze enrollment increases at UC Berkeley in response to a lawsuit by a local NIMBY group called Save Berkeley’s Neighborhoods. The judge found that the university failed to account for the impact of increased enrollment — including late-night parties and crowded parks — in its plans to add more student and faculty housing, in violation of the California Environmental Quality Act, known as CEQA. Well-intentioned laws (ie environmental impact) are effectively being weaponized for the benefit of rich people. There have been some victories in Newson's push. A notable example is Santa Monica. The city is quite famous for fighting development to going back decades. Now the state mandates cities have to have a "Housing Element", which is a plan for increasing affordable housing. Santa Monica fought this but got out of compliance. This allowed developed to bypass the city and get thousands of units approved. The city is now in compliance but is lookking at legal options for fighting the approvals. Santa Monica, like many wealthy cities, also fought against the Westside rail extension into the city [2]. Why? "Crime" of course. What this really means is "undesirables", which itself means "poor people". You really see the awful cruelty of some people in all this. Rampant NIMBYism and the impact it has on housing supply and affordability is a key contributor to homelessness, poverty and property crime. Oh well, I guess we'll ship everyone off to Martha's Vineyard. Problem solved. [1]: https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/Editorial-UC-Berkeley-students-are-now-16931016.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/Edito... [2]: https://la.curbed.com/2013/7/16/10219386/westside-nimbys-handed-8-millionth-loss-in-expo-line-battle https://la.curbed.com/2013/7/16/10219386/westside-nimbys-han...
- pirate787 4y ago
  Santa Monica is not the source of the state's housing crisis, and in a democracy where power should rest at the local level, the people of cities like Santa Monica should be free to determine their future in terms of railroads and housing density. There's an element of tyranny and expropriation in the YIMBY movement.
Cupertino95014 4y ago
You often hear of courts issuing injunctions but not so often writs of mandamus. That's because a judge can easily order someone NOT to do something, and police show up and prevent them from doing it. Ordering them TO do something gets more complicated. That's not to say the courts can't make things happen, but it's harder. The relevant party can say "look, I'm doing it!" and the court then has to rule "no, you're not."
- bombcar 4y ago
  Besides ordering specific performance the most common way is for the court to say "You need to have done this by this date" which then can cause another hearing when that date passes and it hasn't been done.
  - Cupertino95014 4y ago
    As you said: "another hearing." And probably, when that date passes, 1) someone has to complain to the court 2) the court has to schedule a hearing, where both parties are represented. In other words, time goes by. Not saying it's impossible.
- singleshot_ 4y ago
  The reason why you do not hear of courts issuing writs of mandamus against someone to compel them to take some private commercial action is because that is not what a writ of mandamus is. A writ of mandamus obligates a government official do do his job. If a court wants to order “someone” (read: a citizen who is not a government official) to take some positive action they issue what is known as a positive injunction which is, as the name suggests, a type of injunction. When a court issues a negative injunction, the enjoined party can say, “Look, I’m not doing it!” and the court still has to decide whether or not that is true, so I’m somewhat unclear of the nature of your argument against positive injunctions.
  - Cupertino95014 4y ago
    where do I say "private commercial action"? We're talking about government agencies, which a writ of mandamus CAN apply to.
toomanyrichies 4y ago
For those who are curious, the appellant that is holding up the 469 Stevenson project is the Yerba Buena Neighborhood Consortium [1], an LLC run by Tenants and Owners Development Corporation (aka TODCO) [2]. TODCO plans and develops new and rehabilitated senior and SRO housing, with 968 units completed in eight properties since 1977 [3]. According to Wikipedia [4], "Since the early 2000s, the organization has not built more housing. The organization derives resources from the rising value of its properties, which is a consequence of skyrocketing property prices in San Francisco." EDIT: more context from the Wikipedia quote: "The organization has used these resources to lobby against housing construction, as well as fund various other propositions. The organization has been criticized for using the windfalls of its operation on political advocacy rather than on its properties and resident services." In other words, they’re basically the real estate equivalent of patent trolls, except you can’t pay them to go away. 1. https://sfgov.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=5127075&GUID=FBE288C4-6DCB-4B7B-ADBC-70093226014D https://sfgov.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=5127075... 2. https://www.todco.org/advocacy https://www.todco.org/advocacy 3. https://yellow.place/es/todco-group-san-francisco-usa https://yellow.place/es/todco-group-san-francisco-usa 4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenants_and_Owners_Development_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenants_and_Owners_Development...
- jonny_eh 4y ago
  > except you can’t pay them to go away. Has anyone tried?
  - michaelt 4y ago
    Because anyone has standing to file objections, even if you paid the first lot a $$$$$$ ransom, surely anyone else could file the same objections in the hopes of also receiving a $$$$$$ payout?
  - renewiltord 4y ago
    Mate, the reason TODCO makes money is that they get paid[0] for the government for providing affordable housing. The amount they get paid is proportional to the difference between the rate they charge and the current market rate. This is supposed to last a certain amount of time after which they have to run through some statutory rehab thing which need not do anything meaningful, at which point they just start collecting again. So, to be clear, we are currently paying them to not go away, so you're going to have to come up with something truly exceptional to get them to go away. 0: Tax credits, strictly, which are transferable
ElijahLynn 4y ago
https://web.archive.org/web/20221102211129/https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/california-469-stevenson-court-ceqa-housing-17550982.php https://web.archive.org/web/20221102211129/https://www.sfchr...
astrange 4y ago
> AB2656 made it through the Assembly and the policy committees of the Senate, only to be killed without a vote by the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee. This is a common fate for laws in CA; they don't like voting down things when they can silently kill them. In this case it'd be popular, as all YIMBY laws are, but was killed by building trade unions. Unions and activists alike rely on a lot of "trolling" features in state law where they just annoy developers to death with process and fake lawsuits until they agree to negotiate with whatever their demand is today. It's probably not a good way to do things.
- thebradbain 4y ago
  AB2656 may have also been killed because it was a victim of compromising too much and the proponents did not see much value in trying to get it across the finish line. A developer having to (1) wait a year after submitting the approval to then "call into question" the deadline and then (2) wait another 3 months for a decision after that and then (3) sue the city for a court order to proceed is not a "streamlined" process. In fact it's more or less what the process already is today in some cities. I'd much rather see a better system introduced, rather than that bandaid solution: "If the completed environmental review is not approved within a year after submission [for some projects which fulfill X criteria], it is assumed compliant." with further safeguards like "a city must start the review process within 90 days and present major findings within another 90 days after that" to avoid the "we just started reviewing it a day before the deadline" delay tactic.
- tssva 4y ago
  > This is a common fate for laws in CA 1st to be pedantic, this was a bill not a law. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBpdxEMelR0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBpdxEMelR0 2nd, this is the fate of many a bill in all 50 states and is not something unique to the legislative process in CA.
outside1234 4y ago
The judge is up for election in 2025: https://ballotpedia.org/Cynthia_Ming-Mei_Lee https://ballotpedia.org/Cynthia_Ming-Mei_Lee Time to swap her out!
- astrange 4y ago
  She's not wrong, it's because the law is bad. It'd be better to fix the law. CEQA and NEPA are bad ideas in the first place; they were designed by environmentalists to slow down bad projects, but instead they just slow down everything. Other countries don't make you write 300 page reports and get sued by all your neighbors to install solar panels. In the meantime, this can be appealed.
- benj111 4y ago
  You elect judges??? Who in hell thought that was a good idea?
  - erehweb 4y ago
    The Progressive movement of the early 1900s - see e.g. Pg 4 of https://www.ca-ilg.org/sites/main/files/file-attachments/unit_1.pdf?1564533410 https://www.ca-ilg.org/sites/main/files/file-attachments/uni...
  - dkjaudyeqooe 4y ago
    Do you think the outcomes on, say, the US Supreme Court are better?
  - thebigman433 4y ago
    What do you think is a better way of doing it? Elections seem like the most fair way to me
    - benj111 4y ago
      Fair? Every politician ever says they're tough on crime, and this basically turns judges into politicians. I don't want a judge that's tough on crime, I want a judge that's impartial. I want a judge judging a case purely on its merits, not with one eye on the upcoming election, and what's popular with voters. I don't know how it's done elsewhere. Probably selection by peers, some kind of veto from the government? You need someone capable of assessing the quality of someone's judgements. The general public ain't it.
outside1234 4y ago
We need to repeal CEQA and replace it with something else. Enough is enough. Can we get a ballot initiative on this for god's sake?
- thaumasiotes 4y ago
  The ballot initiative would lose; CEQA is notionally an environmental protection measure.
- jeffbee 4y ago
  It doesn't need to be repealed. It can be narrowly amended such that it does not apply to residential projects within existing urban growth boundaries, on previously-developed parcels.
hendrikrassmann 4y ago
> warned that they may have violated the Housing Accountability Act, which says that cities generally can’t deny or downsize housing projects that comply with whatever rules are in place at the time the project application was submitted. This sounds like a law which states that you can't break the law.
- bombcar 4y ago
  It specifically sets the grandfather date to the project application date - so if I roll into your town and submit a proposal for a building, you can't tomorrow add a "hendrikrassmann law" that requires me to do something additional. Note that this is NOT the case usually - if you propose a building today and construction starts in 4 years you often have to code-update everything to the construction start date; or even the construction end date. So the law has a purpose.
  - jonny_eh 4y ago
    Another way to say it: You can't move the goal post once you've started running towards it.
mensetmanusman 4y ago
California’s _Tax revenue alone_ ($250B) is about the size of Finland’s GDP. Imagine if they spent that on improving the housing situation.
- jeffbee 4y ago
  Try to keep the scale in mind. Even if the state spent 100% of that revenue building housing the most optimistic production rate would be half a million dwellings per year which, while substantial, is essentially treading water and will do nothing to address the accumulated deficit from the last 40 years of under-building. Whenever someone says "image a billion dollars" just remember that amounts to 1000-2000 small apartments at best.
  - WillPostForFood 4y ago
    Whenever someone says "image a billion dollars" just remember that amounts to 1000-2000 small apartments at best. A billion dollars for a thousand apartments is one million per apartment. Even in corrupt, dysfunctional California that's crazy high. The cost should be a few hundred dollars per square foot to build, plus land cost. Anything over that is overhead California forced on itself.
    - bombcar 4y ago
      And you can find houses for $500k in California right now, so clearly they can build them, but where people want? Don't know if this will work, but Zillow found 285 properties between 475-500k built in 2022 that are houses: https://www.zillow.com/ca/?searchQueryState=%7B%22pagination%22%3A%7B%7D%2C%22usersSearchTerm%22%3A%22CA%22%2C%22mapBounds%22%3A%7B%22west%22%3A-125.63741038941119%2C%22east%22%3A-116.56270335816119%2C%22south%22%3A32.07021441557542%2C%22north%22%3A42.526142779897874%7D%2C%22regionSelection%22%3A%5B%7B%22regionId%22%3A9%2C%22regionType%22%3A2%7D%5D%2C%22isMapVisible%22%3Atrue%2C%22filterState%22%3A%7B%22sort%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3A%22days%22%7D%2C%22ah%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3Atrue%7D%2C%22price%22%3A%7B%22min%22%3A475000%2C%22max%22%3A500000%7D%2C%22mp%22%3A%7B%22min%22%3A2485%2C%22max%22%3A2616%7D%2C%22tow%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3Afalse%7D%2C%22mf%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3Afalse%7D%2C%22con%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3Afalse%7D%2C%22land%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3Afalse%7D%2C%22apa%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3Afalse%7D%2C%22manu%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3Afalse%7D%2C%22apco%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3Afalse%7D%2C%22built%22%3A%7B%22min%22%3A2022%7D%7D%2C%22isListVisible%22%3Atrue%2C%22mapZoom%22%3A7%7D https://www.zillow.com/ca/?searchQueryState=%7B%22pagination...
ars 4y ago
Am I understanding this right - cities in CA are fighting the State of CA? Isn't the State of CA supposed to be made of the cities in CA, rather than in opposition to their desires? If the city doesn't want housing, that should be fought at the city level, rather than the state stepping in. The whole thing just seems upside down to me.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Karrot_Kream 4y ago
  That's not what's happening here. The actual party challenging this project is TODCO [1], a non-profit housing organization that actually hasn't built any housing in the last 20 years and has spent its revenue in the form of appreciating property values in fighting new housing projects by challenging them on environmental issues. The Californian law in question that allows this challenge is a state (not city) law known as CEQA [2]. This issue is much more complicated than a mere issue of power delegation between states and cities. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenants_and_Owners_Development_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenants_and_Owners_Development... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Environmental_Quality_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Environmental_Quali...
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- raldi 4y ago
  We both agree that a government is made up of citizens, yes? Absent any enforcement mechanism, it would be the natural and logical choice for any one of these citizens to decline to pay their taxes, a classic example of the free-rider problem. The classic solution to this problem is to create a central authority with the power to compel each citizen to do their fair share. Similarly, the people of California have shown through their votes that they believe the state should take collective action to build enough housing to allow the next generation to move out of their parents' houses. Absent state action, no city would volunteer to do their share; they would prefer to keep their abundant parking availability and endlessly-rising property values. And so the state steps in to ensure that voters' goal of increased housing production is achieved.
ProAm 4y ago
When a city becomes unlivable the smart decision is to move. It's the easiest answer for all parties involved.
- mdavidn 4y ago
  Proposition 13 makes that option untenable for many homeowners. They cannot sell and buy a house elsewhere in the state without significantly increasing their property tax burden.
  - Cupertino95014 4y ago
    No longer true. You can move anywhere in the state and keep your tax bill, as long as it's not a more expensive house.
    - mdavidn 4y ago
      If you are referring to Prop 19, that only applies in limited situations. The homeowner must be over 55, disabled, or a victim of natural disaster.
      - Cupertino95014 4y ago
        yeah, as I was running, I was wondering if I'd misremembered. Still, this does handle the supposed problem of aging Boomers being stuck in their houses because of Prop. 13.
        mistrial9 4y ago
        "stuck" ? under Prop19, property tax on a paid-off 3-bedroom home in a wealthy area is less than rent in the ghetto. It has been that way for twenty years.
        Cupertino95014 4y ago
        Please don't call me "dude." Supposedly, Boomers in a paid off house in a wealthy area were dissuaded from moving, because their property taxes would skyrocket. Unless they moved to a county that accepted the Prop 13 swap for over-55's, which not all counties did. Now that is eliminated. Dude.
NotYourLawyer 4y ago
> it would be fairer to call the judge’s decision tone deaf rather than outrageously wrong It isn’t a court’s job to evaluate tone or make policy decisions. If laws lead to bad outcomes, the laws are the problem. Not the courts.
anm89 4y ago
tracker1 4y ago
Just start filling the thing with garbage and/or shipping containers... whatever the ugliest most foul thing they can legally do with the property in the interim.
acchow 4y ago
“ Any city may now pick up the 469 Stevenson St. manual and use it to impose an unreviewable death by delay on almost any housing project it wants to kill.” Anyone who doesn’t understand California housing politics won’t understand why every city would want to arbitrarily kill every housing project. California cities don’t want housing in THEIR city. They want housing in their neighboring city and want the commercial buildings in their own city. This is because Prop 13 prevents cities from collecting RISING taxes from residential properties (but they can collect rising taxes from commercial properties) This is why California looks obscenely underdeveloped despite its GDP per capita rising 15x in 50 years.
- HanayamaTriplet 4y ago
  >This is because Prop 13 prevents cities from collecting RISING taxes from residential properties (but they can collect rising taxes from commercial properties) The parenthetical here is incorrect - all property taxes, regardless if they are for residential, commercial, or industrial properties, have capped yearly increases under Prop 13. In 2020, there was a ballot initiative, Prop 15, which proposed a "split roll" to remove the Prop 13 rate caps from certain types of businesses, but it did not pass. You can read more about Prop 15 here: https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_15,_Tax_on_Commercial_and_Industrial_Properties_for_Education_and_Local_Government_Funding_Initiative_(2020) https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_15,_Tax_on_Co...
  - MaysonL 4y ago
    Prop 13, however, doesn’t apply to sales tax.
    - Ar-Curunir 4y ago
      This means that really the best way to increase income is to approve more mixed-use zoning. Hopefully we will see a push for that moving forward.
    - neilparikh 4y ago
      And also payroll and gross receipts tax.
givemeethekeys 4y ago
At this point any San Francisco company that requires its employees to come to the office is enabling NIMBYism.
rdl 4y ago
I've always wondered what would happen if you simply ignored zoning laws in construction, assuming you could exceed the legitimate safety requirements and use modern technology (modular construction, etc.) to do it quickly (weeks) and fund everything from cash vs. bank finance. Would SFPD actually send armed police to intervene (on camera, livestreamed...) or just a bunch of stupid civil actions?
- larryliu 4y ago
  They don't even have to use cops. They are able to let you lose your cash. They can prevent you from selling the apartments by refusing to issue titles to buyers. They can stop you from connecting to city-owned utilities. They can write you a big ticket for zoning violation and put a lien on your land title if you don't pay the fine.

117 points by jseliger 4y ago

https://archive.ph/fqPVC https://archive.ph/fqPVC

The court has rendered its judgment. Now let it enforce it. The developers should ignore the judge and move forward with the project. Bring those bulldozers to the construction site. Put shovels in the ground. What's the judge going to do? Too much progress in this country is being slowed down by judges legislating from the bench, on both sides. Everyone should just stop following judges orders, Democrats and Republicans. The only matters judges are qualified to judge are trials.

pc2g4d 4y ago
Too much legislating from the bench is a symptom of too little legislating in the legislature...
- benjaminl 4y ago
  Normally that is the case, but California has been very active passing significant housing reform legislation in the past couple of years. Just this last legislative session over 20 housing bills were passed: https://www.hklaw.com/en/insights/publications/2022/10/california-2023-housing-laws-what-you-need-to-know https://www.hklaw.com/en/insights/publications/2022/10/calif... The problem is that city counsels and judges are skirting laws by violating clear legislative intent.
gort19 4y ago
So disputes should be settled using guns instead? Violence is the general alternative to the rule of law.
erehweb 4y ago
The judge wouldn't have to do anything. A city that wants to stop construction could use a police officer to do it, and they would be legally in the clear.
klyrs 4y ago
> What's the judge going to do? Issue an injunction, have the construction workers arrested and charge the developers with contempt?
LegitShady 4y ago
There would be an emergency injunction filed and they would send police to the job site if they didn't listen
toomanyrichies 4y ago
> Everyone should just stop following judges orders, Democrats and Republicans. So... no more rule of law. Got it. What could possibly go wrong? /s

thebradbain 4y ago

This ruling is frustrating (to say the least) in the short term, but overall I think this ruling going to tremendously backfire in NIMBY's faces. This judge just unintentionally put the state's spotlight on CEQA -- previously, the dearth of housing laws passed this year were careful to navigate within its framework without attempting to change it. Newsom has demonstrated he takes housing starts seriously (Really! The fact that virtually every commercial lot is now zoned for ministerial housing approval statewide, abolishing parking minimums statewide, passing SB9 to allow 2-4plexes on single family parcels statewide, and passing SB10 to exempt apartments of less than 10 units from CEQA, and directing the housing authority to decertify rich cities' zoning codes that flout RHNA housing obligations like Santa Monica is huge) and I don't expect him to let up. > State housing laws, she ruled, do not apply to a project until after a city “certifies” the project’s environmental review. > Although CEQA puts a one-year limit on environmental review, the court held that this deadline is just advisory If these rulings stand, you can absolutely bet that CA state housing laws in 2023 will now turn their focus toward CEQA. At a minimum, expect that "advisory" deadline to be formalized, shortened, and certification expedited or even exempted if the project falls within certain categories. Bike and bus lanes were just exempted from CEQA this session, and I absolutely imagine housing that is X% affordable will be soon, too. In fact, really all California has to do is expand SB 330 or their 2019 Builders Remedy Law (which itself gave an existing state law from 1990 teeth) which states that developers are guaranteed ministerial approval regardless of zoning in any municipality determined to have a non-certified housing element to include expedient and ministerial CEQA approval. What would once be considered unthinkable politically a decade ago is now just a legislative hop and a skip away.

tsycho 4y ago
I really really hope you are right.
xyzzyz 4y ago
> In fact, really all California has to do is (…) I guarantee they when Charlie actually does that, Lucy will nevertheless pull away the ball again.
- 4y ago

chayesfss 4y ago

pessimizer 4y ago
- astrange 4y ago
  They're people who would like houses to cost less than $2 million. (The above comment appears to be from a "left-NIMBY", which is a kind of person that only exists in SF and spends all their time blocking new housing because it isn't "affordable" - of course, never making new housing also won't make it "affordable". They do have a tendency to believe poor/minorities are intrinsically poor and will only ever be able to live somewhere if they're constantly "organized" by "tenant organizers" who are typically over-theorized communist grad students or well connected slumlords like Michael Weinstein and John Elberling.)

jmyeet 4y ago

For those not following the California housing crisis and the government's response to it, I would urge you to do so. This is an issue of national significance and Newson is actually trying to do a lot. The article mentions the Berkely case but let me highlight it [1]: > That’s essentially what Alameda County Superior Court Judge Brad Seligman ruled this week when he froze enrollment increases at UC Berkeley in response to a lawsuit by a local NIMBY group called Save Berkeley’s Neighborhoods. The judge found that the university failed to account for the impact of increased enrollment — including late-night parties and crowded parks — in its plans to add more student and faculty housing, in violation of the California Environmental Quality Act, known as CEQA. Well-intentioned laws (ie environmental impact) are effectively being weaponized for the benefit of rich people. There have been some victories in Newson's push. A notable example is Santa Monica. The city is quite famous for fighting development to going back decades. Now the state mandates cities have to have a "Housing Element", which is a plan for increasing affordable housing. Santa Monica fought this but got out of compliance. This allowed developed to bypass the city and get thousands of units approved. The city is now in compliance but is lookking at legal options for fighting the approvals. Santa Monica, like many wealthy cities, also fought against the Westside rail extension into the city [2]. Why? "Crime" of course. What this really means is "undesirables", which itself means "poor people". You really see the awful cruelty of some people in all this. Rampant NIMBYism and the impact it has on housing supply and affordability is a key contributor to homelessness, poverty and property crime. Oh well, I guess we'll ship everyone off to Martha's Vineyard. Problem solved. [1]: https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/Editorial-UC-Berkeley-students-are-now-16931016.php https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/editorials/article/Edito... [2]: https://la.curbed.com/2013/7/16/10219386/westside-nimbys-handed-8-millionth-loss-in-expo-line-battle https://la.curbed.com/2013/7/16/10219386/westside-nimbys-han...

pirate787 4y ago
Santa Monica is not the source of the state's housing crisis, and in a democracy where power should rest at the local level, the people of cities like Santa Monica should be free to determine their future in terms of railroads and housing density. There's an element of tyranny and expropriation in the YIMBY movement.

Cupertino95014 4y ago

You often hear of courts issuing injunctions but not so often writs of mandamus. That's because a judge can easily order someone NOT to do something, and police show up and prevent them from doing it. Ordering them TO do something gets more complicated. That's not to say the courts can't make things happen, but it's harder. The relevant party can say "look, I'm doing it!" and the court then has to rule "no, you're not."

bombcar 4y ago
Besides ordering specific performance the most common way is for the court to say "You need to have done this by this date" which then can cause another hearing when that date passes and it hasn't been done.
- Cupertino95014 4y ago
  As you said: "another hearing." And probably, when that date passes, 1) someone has to complain to the court 2) the court has to schedule a hearing, where both parties are represented. In other words, time goes by. Not saying it's impossible.
singleshot_ 4y ago
The reason why you do not hear of courts issuing writs of mandamus against someone to compel them to take some private commercial action is because that is not what a writ of mandamus is. A writ of mandamus obligates a government official do do his job. If a court wants to order “someone” (read: a citizen who is not a government official) to take some positive action they issue what is known as a positive injunction which is, as the name suggests, a type of injunction. When a court issues a negative injunction, the enjoined party can say, “Look, I’m not doing it!” and the court still has to decide whether or not that is true, so I’m somewhat unclear of the nature of your argument against positive injunctions.
- Cupertino95014 4y ago
  where do I say "private commercial action"? We're talking about government agencies, which a writ of mandamus CAN apply to.

toomanyrichies 4y ago

For those who are curious, the appellant that is holding up the 469 Stevenson project is the Yerba Buena Neighborhood Consortium [1], an LLC run by Tenants and Owners Development Corporation (aka TODCO) [2]. TODCO plans and develops new and rehabilitated senior and SRO housing, with 968 units completed in eight properties since 1977 [3]. According to Wikipedia [4], "Since the early 2000s, the organization has not built more housing. The organization derives resources from the rising value of its properties, which is a consequence of skyrocketing property prices in San Francisco." EDIT: more context from the Wikipedia quote: "The organization has used these resources to lobby against housing construction, as well as fund various other propositions. The organization has been criticized for using the windfalls of its operation on political advocacy rather than on its properties and resident services." In other words, they’re basically the real estate equivalent of patent trolls, except you can’t pay them to go away. 1. https://sfgov.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=5127075&GUID=FBE288C4-6DCB-4B7B-ADBC-70093226014D https://sfgov.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=5127075... 2. https://www.todco.org/advocacy https://www.todco.org/advocacy 3. https://yellow.place/es/todco-group-san-francisco-usa https://yellow.place/es/todco-group-san-francisco-usa 4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenants_and_Owners_Development_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenants_and_Owners_Development...

jonny_eh 4y ago
> except you can’t pay them to go away. Has anyone tried?
- michaelt 4y ago
  Because anyone has standing to file objections, even if you paid the first lot a $$$$$$ ransom, surely anyone else could file the same objections in the hopes of also receiving a $$$$$$ payout?
- renewiltord 4y ago
  Mate, the reason TODCO makes money is that they get paid[0] for the government for providing affordable housing. The amount they get paid is proportional to the difference between the rate they charge and the current market rate. This is supposed to last a certain amount of time after which they have to run through some statutory rehab thing which need not do anything meaningful, at which point they just start collecting again. So, to be clear, we are currently paying them to not go away, so you're going to have to come up with something truly exceptional to get them to go away. 0: Tax credits, strictly, which are transferable

ElijahLynn 4y ago

https://web.archive.org/web/20221102211129/https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/openforum/article/california-469-stevenson-court-ceqa-housing-17550982.php https://web.archive.org/web/20221102211129/https://www.sfchr...

astrange 4y ago

> AB2656 made it through the Assembly and the policy committees of the Senate, only to be killed without a vote by the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee. This is a common fate for laws in CA; they don't like voting down things when they can silently kill them. In this case it'd be popular, as all YIMBY laws are, but was killed by building trade unions. Unions and activists alike rely on a lot of "trolling" features in state law where they just annoy developers to death with process and fake lawsuits until they agree to negotiate with whatever their demand is today. It's probably not a good way to do things.

thebradbain 4y ago
AB2656 may have also been killed because it was a victim of compromising too much and the proponents did not see much value in trying to get it across the finish line. A developer having to (1) wait a year after submitting the approval to then "call into question" the deadline and then (2) wait another 3 months for a decision after that and then (3) sue the city for a court order to proceed is not a "streamlined" process. In fact it's more or less what the process already is today in some cities. I'd much rather see a better system introduced, rather than that bandaid solution: "If the completed environmental review is not approved within a year after submission [for some projects which fulfill X criteria], it is assumed compliant." with further safeguards like "a city must start the review process within 90 days and present major findings within another 90 days after that" to avoid the "we just started reviewing it a day before the deadline" delay tactic.
tssva 4y ago
> This is a common fate for laws in CA 1st to be pedantic, this was a bill not a law. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBpdxEMelR0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBpdxEMelR0 2nd, this is the fate of many a bill in all 50 states and is not something unique to the legislative process in CA.

outside1234 4y ago

The judge is up for election in 2025: https://ballotpedia.org/Cynthia_Ming-Mei_Lee https://ballotpedia.org/Cynthia_Ming-Mei_Lee Time to swap her out!

astrange 4y ago
She's not wrong, it's because the law is bad. It'd be better to fix the law. CEQA and NEPA are bad ideas in the first place; they were designed by environmentalists to slow down bad projects, but instead they just slow down everything. Other countries don't make you write 300 page reports and get sued by all your neighbors to install solar panels. In the meantime, this can be appealed.
benj111 4y ago
You elect judges??? Who in hell thought that was a good idea?
- erehweb 4y ago
  The Progressive movement of the early 1900s - see e.g. Pg 4 of https://www.ca-ilg.org/sites/main/files/file-attachments/unit_1.pdf?1564533410 https://www.ca-ilg.org/sites/main/files/file-attachments/uni...
- dkjaudyeqooe 4y ago
  Do you think the outcomes on, say, the US Supreme Court are better?
- thebigman433 4y ago
  What do you think is a better way of doing it? Elections seem like the most fair way to me
  - benj111 4y ago
    Fair? Every politician ever says they're tough on crime, and this basically turns judges into politicians. I don't want a judge that's tough on crime, I want a judge that's impartial. I want a judge judging a case purely on its merits, not with one eye on the upcoming election, and what's popular with voters. I don't know how it's done elsewhere. Probably selection by peers, some kind of veto from the government? You need someone capable of assessing the quality of someone's judgements. The general public ain't it.

outside1234 4y ago

We need to repeal CEQA and replace it with something else. Enough is enough. Can we get a ballot initiative on this for god's sake?

thaumasiotes 4y ago
The ballot initiative would lose; CEQA is notionally an environmental protection measure.
jeffbee 4y ago
It doesn't need to be repealed. It can be narrowly amended such that it does not apply to residential projects within existing urban growth boundaries, on previously-developed parcels.

hendrikrassmann 4y ago

> warned that they may have violated the Housing Accountability Act, which says that cities generally can’t deny or downsize housing projects that comply with whatever rules are in place at the time the project application was submitted. This sounds like a law which states that you can't break the law.

bombcar 4y ago
It specifically sets the grandfather date to the project application date - so if I roll into your town and submit a proposal for a building, you can't tomorrow add a "hendrikrassmann law" that requires me to do something additional. Note that this is NOT the case usually - if you propose a building today and construction starts in 4 years you often have to code-update everything to the construction start date; or even the construction end date. So the law has a purpose.
- jonny_eh 4y ago
  Another way to say it: You can't move the goal post once you've started running towards it.

mensetmanusman 4y ago

California’s _Tax revenue alone_ ($250B) is about the size of Finland’s GDP. Imagine if they spent that on improving the housing situation.

jeffbee 4y ago
Try to keep the scale in mind. Even if the state spent 100% of that revenue building housing the most optimistic production rate would be half a million dwellings per year which, while substantial, is essentially treading water and will do nothing to address the accumulated deficit from the last 40 years of under-building. Whenever someone says "image a billion dollars" just remember that amounts to 1000-2000 small apartments at best.
- WillPostForFood 4y ago
  Whenever someone says "image a billion dollars" just remember that amounts to 1000-2000 small apartments at best. A billion dollars for a thousand apartments is one million per apartment. Even in corrupt, dysfunctional California that's crazy high. The cost should be a few hundred dollars per square foot to build, plus land cost. Anything over that is overhead California forced on itself.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    And you can find houses for $500k in California right now, so clearly they can build them, but where people want? Don't know if this will work, but Zillow found 285 properties between 475-500k built in 2022 that are houses: https://www.zillow.com/ca/?searchQueryState=%7B%22pagination%22%3A%7B%7D%2C%22usersSearchTerm%22%3A%22CA%22%2C%22mapBounds%22%3A%7B%22west%22%3A-125.63741038941119%2C%22east%22%3A-116.56270335816119%2C%22south%22%3A32.07021441557542%2C%22north%22%3A42.526142779897874%7D%2C%22regionSelection%22%3A%5B%7B%22regionId%22%3A9%2C%22regionType%22%3A2%7D%5D%2C%22isMapVisible%22%3Atrue%2C%22filterState%22%3A%7B%22sort%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3A%22days%22%7D%2C%22ah%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3Atrue%7D%2C%22price%22%3A%7B%22min%22%3A475000%2C%22max%22%3A500000%7D%2C%22mp%22%3A%7B%22min%22%3A2485%2C%22max%22%3A2616%7D%2C%22tow%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3Afalse%7D%2C%22mf%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3Afalse%7D%2C%22con%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3Afalse%7D%2C%22land%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3Afalse%7D%2C%22apa%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3Afalse%7D%2C%22manu%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3Afalse%7D%2C%22apco%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3Afalse%7D%2C%22built%22%3A%7B%22min%22%3A2022%7D%7D%2C%22isListVisible%22%3Atrue%2C%22mapZoom%22%3A7%7D https://www.zillow.com/ca/?searchQueryState=%7B%22pagination...

ars 4y ago

Am I understanding this right - cities in CA are fighting the State of CA? Isn't the State of CA supposed to be made of the cities in CA, rather than in opposition to their desires? If the city doesn't want housing, that should be fought at the city level, rather than the state stepping in. The whole thing just seems upside down to me.

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Karrot_Kream 4y ago
That's not what's happening here. The actual party challenging this project is TODCO [1], a non-profit housing organization that actually hasn't built any housing in the last 20 years and has spent its revenue in the form of appreciating property values in fighting new housing projects by challenging them on environmental issues. The Californian law in question that allows this challenge is a state (not city) law known as CEQA [2]. This issue is much more complicated than a mere issue of power delegation between states and cities. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenants_and_Owners_Development_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tenants_and_Owners_Development... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Environmental_Quality_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Environmental_Quali...
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raldi 4y ago
We both agree that a government is made up of citizens, yes? Absent any enforcement mechanism, it would be the natural and logical choice for any one of these citizens to decline to pay their taxes, a classic example of the free-rider problem. The classic solution to this problem is to create a central authority with the power to compel each citizen to do their fair share. Similarly, the people of California have shown through their votes that they believe the state should take collective action to build enough housing to allow the next generation to move out of their parents' houses. Absent state action, no city would volunteer to do their share; they would prefer to keep their abundant parking availability and endlessly-rising property values. And so the state steps in to ensure that voters' goal of increased housing production is achieved.

ProAm 4y ago

When a city becomes unlivable the smart decision is to move. It's the easiest answer for all parties involved.

mdavidn 4y ago
Proposition 13 makes that option untenable for many homeowners. They cannot sell and buy a house elsewhere in the state without significantly increasing their property tax burden.
- Cupertino95014 4y ago
  No longer true. You can move anywhere in the state and keep your tax bill, as long as it's not a more expensive house.
  - mdavidn 4y ago
    If you are referring to Prop 19, that only applies in limited situations. The homeowner must be over 55, disabled, or a victim of natural disaster.
    - Cupertino95014 4y ago
      yeah, as I was running, I was wondering if I'd misremembered. Still, this does handle the supposed problem of aging Boomers being stuck in their houses because of Prop. 13.
      - mistrial9 4y ago
        "stuck" ? under Prop19, property tax on a paid-off 3-bedroom home in a wealthy area is less than rent in the ghetto. It has been that way for twenty years.
        Cupertino95014 4y ago
        Please don't call me "dude." Supposedly, Boomers in a paid off house in a wealthy area were dissuaded from moving, because their property taxes would skyrocket. Unless they moved to a county that accepted the Prop 13 swap for over-55's, which not all counties did. Now that is eliminated. Dude.

NotYourLawyer 4y ago

> it would be fairer to call the judge’s decision tone deaf rather than outrageously wrong It isn’t a court’s job to evaluate tone or make policy decisions. If laws lead to bad outcomes, the laws are the problem. Not the courts.

anm89 4y ago

tracker1 4y ago

Just start filling the thing with garbage and/or shipping containers... whatever the ugliest most foul thing they can legally do with the property in the interim.

acchow 4y ago

“ Any city may now pick up the 469 Stevenson St. manual and use it to impose an unreviewable death by delay on almost any housing project it wants to kill.” Anyone who doesn’t understand California housing politics won’t understand why every city would want to arbitrarily kill every housing project. California cities don’t want housing in THEIR city. They want housing in their neighboring city and want the commercial buildings in their own city. This is because Prop 13 prevents cities from collecting RISING taxes from residential properties (but they can collect rising taxes from commercial properties) This is why California looks obscenely underdeveloped despite its GDP per capita rising 15x in 50 years.

HanayamaTriplet 4y ago
>This is because Prop 13 prevents cities from collecting RISING taxes from residential properties (but they can collect rising taxes from commercial properties) The parenthetical here is incorrect - all property taxes, regardless if they are for residential, commercial, or industrial properties, have capped yearly increases under Prop 13. In 2020, there was a ballot initiative, Prop 15, which proposed a "split roll" to remove the Prop 13 rate caps from certain types of businesses, but it did not pass. You can read more about Prop 15 here: https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_15,_Tax_on_Commercial_and_Industrial_Properties_for_Education_and_Local_Government_Funding_Initiative_(2020) https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_15,_Tax_on_Co...
- MaysonL 4y ago
  Prop 13, however, doesn’t apply to sales tax.
  - Ar-Curunir 4y ago
    This means that really the best way to increase income is to approve more mixed-use zoning. Hopefully we will see a push for that moving forward.
  - neilparikh 4y ago
    And also payroll and gross receipts tax.

givemeethekeys 4y ago

At this point any San Francisco company that requires its employees to come to the office is enabling NIMBYism.

rdl 4y ago

I've always wondered what would happen if you simply ignored zoning laws in construction, assuming you could exceed the legitimate safety requirements and use modern technology (modular construction, etc.) to do it quickly (weeks) and fund everything from cash vs. bank finance. Would SFPD actually send armed police to intervene (on camera, livestreamed...) or just a bunch of stupid civil actions?

larryliu 4y ago
They don't even have to use cops. They are able to let you lose your cash. They can prevent you from selling the apartments by refusing to issue titles to buyers. They can stop you from connecting to city-owned utilities. They can write you a big ticket for zoning violation and put a lien on your land title if you don't pay the fine.