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Every city in the state must put together a draft housing element that spells out how it will accommodate new homes. As part of the plan, Alameda officials are proposing allowing multifamily apartments throughout the city and are prioritizing placing denser housing on nearly 100 acres of shopping centers and near bus and ferry connections. They also are encouraging more accessory dwelling units behind single-family homes.

In the past, smaller cities including Alameda have ignored the mandates, bowing to resident opposition. But Alameda officials say this time the state will levy fines or withhold funding for city projects, like infrastructure, if they don’t plan for the required number of units.

But residents are worried about parking, traffic and a loss of “neighborhood character” if more residents are welcomed.

“People want us to do as little as possible,” said Council Member John Knox White. “If there were no state laws that required us to do it .. we would be building little to no housing at all.”

These battles over housing elements have occurred throughout the Bay Area and the state.

When officials in Atherton, an exclusive Peninsula community, proposed building townhomes to meet their state-mandated goals, some residents adamantly opposed the plans — urging the city to pay a $100,000 monthly fine instead. In neighboring Menlo Park, city officials want to build affordable housing on Sand Hill Road, the center of venture capital and some of the most expensive commercial real estate in the world, despite opposition from residents. Critics have said San Francisco — which must plan for 82,000 units — has a draft housing element that’s flawed and could be rejected by the state.

“Look at Alameda, it’s a perfect example of what happens everywhere,” Knox White said. He added that the draft housing element’s proposed density increases would impact only 40% of the city’s residential neighborhoods.

In the past, Alameda has ignored the state’s requirements to zone for new units and even has baked a rule into the City Charter that prohibits multifamily homes, Knox White said.

And Alameda tried to get out from under the state mandates this time around. The city was one of 28 in the state that appealed its regional housing allocation numbers, or RHNA, arguing that it is prone to flooding and severe groundshaking during earthquakes. But the state rejected it.

Allowing multifamily buildings would undo a voter-approved City Charter from the early 1970s that prohibits these buildings. In 2020, city officials tried to convince voters to remove that element from the Charter with a ballot measure, but it failed.

Nearly all of the 100 residents who gathered Tuesday evening at a golf course on Bay Farm Island — a city district separated by an estuary — opposed the idea of adding housing, particularly multifamily buildings.

Residents shouted down Andrew Thomas, the city’s director of planning and building, urging him not to comply with state mandates.

As Thomas laid out the city’s plans, residents grew visibly angry that their nearby shopping center could be home to 300 new units — the only major change to Bay Farm Island’s housing stock based on the draft housing element.

“This sucks,” one woman said, shaking her head.

“What if there’s no room?” one person yelled.

When Thomas responded, “There is room,” people angrily yelled in response.

Thomas said the city plans to prioritize housing in commercial corridors, like shopping centers, and around transit. Though Alameda doesn’t have any BART stations, it has access to bus lines and three ferry terminals, he said.

Thomas said he hopes that some of the residents attending the meeting will be open to adding second units, or accessory dwellings units.

“You’re joking, right?” one person yelled.

Phil Rigano, a retired general contractor from San Diego, complained that the city is already grappling with too much congestion on its roads. Residents nodded in agreement, complaining that it sometimes takes 20 minutes to get off the island.

Rigano said his concerns are rooted in safety. He asked Thomas what the solution is. Thomas said more buses.

“In other words, there is no solution,” Rigano said shaking his head. “I think we should start recalling people.”

Many residents were concerned that the island’s golf course would soon be transformed into housing. Thomas said a developer has submitted a plan to purchase the property and add 400 housing units to the nearly 9 acres of the club, but he said that’s not part of the housing element and any plans would have to go through an environmental review process.

Raychel Cooke, a 36-year-old nurse, also criticized the city’s plans. She told The Chronicle that it’s up to the state to build more housing, not cities. She said the state should focus on creating more RV safe parking sites and Tuff Shed programs, which are similar to tiny homes, for homeless people.

Cooke also suggested that the state dock a cruise ship at the port and transform it into housing — similar to an idea that Oakland Vice Mayor Rebecca Kaplan had in 2019. At the time, the Port of Oakland said it was only equipped to handle cargo ships.

Michael Marx, who has lived in Alameda for 38 years and is a retired consultant for Visa, said he worries about the traffic and neighborhood character. But, he said, he hopes the city and its residents can find a compromise so that no particular neighborhood feels a “disproportionate brunt.”

“We feel we live in paradise and we are fearful paradise will go away with these changes,” Marx said.

Thomas acknowledged residents’ concerns, but emphasized, “The consequences of not doing it are going to be much more painful.”

The city will hold another community meeting June 9 and must finalize its housing element by the end of the year.

Located in the affluent Silicon Valley outpost of Los Altos, the home sits on a “quiet cul-de-sac with a personalized soundwall.” It’s perhaps not what you’d expect from a house that the controversial CEO referred to as “Casa de Facebook,” with interns and employees flowing in and out at a rapid clip. 

The house, landlord Judy Fusco told the New York Post last year, was also the location of a sort-of postscript to the movie. Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss were on the home’s balcony arguing with Zuckerberg, she told the Post.

“I didn’t know who they were at the time,” she said. “But I saw them yelling at Mark on the balcony. They were not happy.”

Crystal Souza, the home’s listing agent, told McClatchy that the house has a techie pedigree that goes far beyond Facebook. LinkedIn and Apple executives have been past residents, and startups like Shopkick got their start in the home, she said.

But beyond the home’s place in Silicon Valley lore, it has the aforementioned balcony, bay windows, a breakfast nook and an entertainment room with plenty of natural light, according to the listing.

Article source: https://www.sfgate.com/realestate/article/Mark-Zuckerberg-Facebook-house-for-sale-17172132.php

In a separate report, Apartment List put median rent for a one-bedroom in San Francisco at $2,390 in April — a mere 0.7% month-over-month increase, but a 12.1% increase year-over-year. 

Experts predict there are a number of factors affecting these still-shrunken prices, one of which being that the Bay Area has one of the most remote-friendly workforces. Tech companies led the way at adopting work from home amid the pandemic and many are continuing to allow flexible or permanent work-from-home options. 

San Francisco doesn’t dominate the highest of those one-bedroom median numbers in the region though, according to Apartment List. San Mateo rents are about 1% higher, with a median one-bedroom running at $2,440. Fremont, Union City and Dublin also all have higher one-bedroom median rental prices.

Zumper, another apartment rental marketplace, conversely still has rents in San Francisco as the highest in the area. Median one-bedroom rent was $2,900 in April, according to their most recent report, far above San Mateo’s $2,510 median one-bedroom rent. 

Notably, rents are still far below New York City averages, Zumper reports, which took the top spot in the nation yet again at $3,420 for a one-bedroom apartment. 

Oakland prices grew even more modestly in April, with a minor 0.3% month-over-month growth and only a 5.3% year-over-year growth. It’s still one of the least expensive cities in the San Francisco metro area, with a one-bedroom median of $1,660.

While prices in the Bay Area seem “discounted,” Apartment List senior economist Chris Salviati said they aren’t likely to stay that way for long. Still, the Bay Area is consistently trailing the national average, and Salviati attributes much of that to the region’s lack of affordability before the pandemic began.

“San Francisco is still the nation’s most expensive market,” he said. “It’s a little bit of a discount but this is far from enough of a reset to make San Francisco an affordable market by any stretch of the imagination.”

Article source: https://www.sfgate.com/realestate/article/Bay-Area-rental-prices-below-pandemic-17172167.php

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San Francisco supervisors unanimously adopted legislation that will offer all people experiencing homelessness in the city a safe place to sleep.

A Place for All, the ordinance by gay District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, was two years in the making. At the supervisors June 7 meeting, board members did make some changes before voting 11-0 for the ordinance.

The original proposal, introduced back in 2020, failed to make it out of the Board of Supervisors Budget and Finance Committee, which instead supported safe sleeping sites, or sanctioned outdoor camping spaces. This newer version includes a broader array of options while placing less emphasis on, but not doing away with, congregate housing such as shelters.

This time around, when the proposed ordinance went through the Public Safety and Neighborhood Services committee last month, it picked up a few amendments that Mandelman felt took away from the original intent of the legislation. Enough so, he was left wondering whether even he would support the proposal.

Eventually, he came around.

“There were some amendments proposed that would have fundamentally undermined the legislation, but the amendments that were actually made did not,” he told the Bay Area Reporter via text a few hours after the board passed the ordinance. “At worst, they muddied up the intent of the legislation and complicated implementation, but it’s still, as I said, a step forward.”

Specifically, one amendment added by District 7 Supervisor Myrna Melgar watered down the emphasis on immediate shelter with a stronger emphasis on permanent supportive housing.

The ordinance requires the San Francisco Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing to prepare a strategy for implementation by December 31, including estimates for how many people might accept offered shelter, how much that would cost, and the total annual cost of the program once it was put into effect. The city agency is led by bisexual Executive Director Shireen McSpadden, who grew up in San Francisco and previously led the city’s Department of Disability and Aging Services.

To increase transparency about shelter availability, the ordinance will require the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing to maintain a dashboard on its website displaying the total number of shelters citywide, broken down by shelter type, number of shelter units, and occupancy rate, according to a news release from Mandelman’s office.

It also directs the director of real estate to identify locations throughout the city that might be appropriate for use as shelters — such as the small cabins in use at 33 Gough Street and safe sleeping sites — and then submit those findings along with the homeless department’s implementation plan.

Notably, too, while the ordinance was passed unanimously, it wasn’t passed enthusiastically among all the supervisors. (It will need a second and final vote at the board’s June 14 meeting.)

During the board meeting, District 9 Supervisor Hillary Ronen was the first to really voice her misgivings about the legislation, noting that issues such as homelessness aren’t just a San Francisco issue and would be better dealt with on a regional basis, just as District 1 Supervisor Connie Chan later pointed out, the nine counties of the Bay Area came together in lockstep to handle COVID-19.

“I’m voting for it,” she told her fellow board members, but, she added, “I believe it will do nothing.”

Chan was slightly more enthusiastic but largely because of the amendments that had been added.

“We’re voting on asking [DHSH] to have a plan and do their job,” she said, referring to the homelessness department. “I think that with Melgar’s amendments and suggestions, we give pretty good parameters. I also agree with Ronen that this really is a regional issue and it’s got to have a regional approach.”

Chan said she, too, would vote “reluctantly” for the ordinance.

Melgar encouraged everyone to support the measure stating, “I think it’s a pretty significant shift in policy. It is not something we’ve done before.”

Melgar also noted that her amendments, particularly one placing permanent supportive housing as one of the priorities of the ordinance, had caused problems for the measure.

But the ordinance now includes people living in their cars, she said.

“We need shelter beds for transitional age youth, we need cabin homes, we need places for people to park safely,” Melgar said. “We need a bunch of different alternatives. But we need a plan.”

And then, she acknowledged Mandelman for all the work he had put into the legislation.

“I thank you for carrying this boulder uphill for the past two years,” she said.

District 5 Supervisor Dean Preston had his own misgivings, but they were mostly about the priorities of Mayor London Breed.

“We just got a budget from the mayor that zeros out housing,” said Preston, referring to Breed’s balanced budget proposal she released June 1. His constituents, he added, “are begging for these things. … We can’t get the administration to purchase a damn $5 million building to house people in our district.”

Eventually, all 11 supervisors voted for the ordinance. Mandelman, a pragmatist to the end, was just happy it had passed.

“Yeah, I didn’t love all of the amendments, but even with them, I think the legislation moves San Francisco meaningfully toward being a shelter-for-all city,” he told the B.A.R. after the meeting. “Now we need to see what the administration comes up with in terms of a proposed budget and implementation plan. This is a step in the right direction but just a step.”

From this point, he said, his plan was to follow up with DSHS to ensure the plan they come up with “meets the intent of the legislation and, in the meantime, continue to push for more shelter and more effective and consistent encampment resolutions.”

Help keep the Bay Area Reporter going in these tough times. To support local, independent, LGBTQ journalism, consider becoming a BAR member.

Article source: http://www.ebar.com/news/latest_news/316320

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Article source: https://www.realtor.com/news/trends/housing-market-showing-signs-of-correction-what-buyers-sellers-need-to-know/