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San Diego Mobility Master Plan Moves Forward
The San Diego City Council unanimously adopted a long-awaited mobility master plan that includes 380 proposed projects aimed at reducing car dependence and making transportation more sustainable. The plan incorporates bike lanes, shuttle services, roundabouts, bus lanes, and other initiatives designed to improve safety and connectivity across the city. It was praised by business and environmental groups for its potential to enhance local transportation and reduce traffic-related issues. The city’s climate action plan aims for biking, walking, and transit to account for 36% of commutes by 2030 and 50% by 2036, up from just 13% last year, with performance indicators tracking progress in shifting San Diego's transportation habits.
Lurie Proposes Financing District to Convert Offices to Housing
San Francisco continues to struggle with converting vacant office buildings into housing, despite policy changes and incentives, with only one adaptive reuse project currently under way. Mayor Daniel Lurie is now proposing a new ordinance to create a special financing district that would fund public improvements necessary for these conversions. The district would cover key downtown areas, including Market Street, the Financial District and Union Square, and would use future property tax increases to finance infrastructure, and an initial study found 1,200 eligible properties within the district, potentially resulting in more than 4,400 units. The bill aims to incentivize developers by offering payouts for up to 30 years to offset development costs.
Cupertino Faces Two Housing Lawsuits
YIMBY Law has filed two lawsuits against Cupertino, accusing the city of violating state housing laws by rejecting proposals for new housing projects. The lawsuits pertain to two preliminary applications submitted under the builder's remedy, and YIMBY Law argues Cupertino is failing to comply with the California Housing Accountability Act, which mandates that cities meet state housing requirements, including 1,880 units for low-income households by 2031. Cupertino maintains that it has approved a significant portion of the required units and follows state laws but is being cautious with developers’ submissions.
San Francisco Prompts Unusually High Rates of Supercommuting
San Francisco experienced the largest increase among major U.S. cities in the percentage of workers living 50 or more miles from their jobs between 2012 and 2022, driven by remote work and high housing costs. By 2022, nearly 19% of the city's workforce lived over 50 miles away, up from 14% a decade earlier, making it harder for officials to encourage a full return to office work. Cities with a high percentage of tech workers, such as San Francisco, saw greater shifts toward remote work, although places like New York and Seattle experienced less worker dispersion due to increased housing construction. Many workers moved to suburbs and exurbs, particularly in areas like Dublin and Sacramento, which offered better schools, open spaces and lower congestion. These trends present challenges for San Francisco’s downtown revival, impacting office occupancy, transit systems and city revenues.
CP&DR Coverage: Fulton on Lessons from Past Wildfires
Ever since the Los Angeles wildfires erupted in January, there’s been a lot of debate about whether, when and how to rebuild after a community suffers from one of California’s increasingly intense conflagrations. Wildfire victims and all the folks involved in recovery – planners, developers, wildfire experts – shouldn’t expect miracles. Some have argued that communities should not be rebuilt, or at least should be rebuilt differently, and new subdivisions should not be built in high fire risk areas. Attorney Jennifer Hernandez advocated for “hardening” existing communities but also said that new communities with tougher standards must be built to withstand wildfires – and even serve as a “refuge” for those from older communities that are more at risk. The bottom line: full recovery could take decades.
Quick Hits & Updates
Menlo Park faces legal challenges over its plan to convert downtown parking lots into affordable housing, with a coalition of developers and residents disputing the city's compliance with state surplus land laws. The city had previously declared these lots as surplus, a move contested by a pro-housing group that filed lawsuits alleging violations of the California Housing Accountability Act.
A newly-proposed bill, SB 789, seeks to tax commercial property owners with vacant spaces for over six months, with proceeds going towards first-time homeowner buyer assistance. Critics argue it could negatively impact landlords, deter investment and exacerbate vacancies in high-cost areas, as leasing commercial properties is a lengthy and costly process.
Representative Kiley (R-CA) has requested that the FBI open a formal investigation into the cost overruns of California's High-Speed Rail Project. Originally projected to cost $33 billion and be completed by 2020, the project's estimated total cost has now increased by over $100 billion, and the California High-Speed Rail Authority is expected to miss its original 2033 deadline.
The Trump Administration is set to revoke the Conservation and Landscape Health Rule, which aimed to prioritize environmental protection alongside mining, ranching, and timber activities on public lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). While the move has been praised by some state officials, environmental groups argue it undermines protections for ecosystems, wildlife, and public lands, and criticize the lack of public input in the decision.
Fremont has become the first U.S. city to purchase a citywide flood insurance policy, which automatically triggers payouts in the case of a severe flood, offering more reliable and immediate disaster relief. This move comes as traditional insurance options are becoming less accessible due to private insurers withdrawing from some markets and federal disaster relief is cut.
A new bill in the House of Representatives proposes a $15 billion federal tax credit program to support converting vacant or underused commercial buildings into affordable housing, helping address the housing crisis while revitalizing struggling urban centers. The Revitalizing Downtowns and Main Streets Act aims to incentivize conversions in both urban and rural areas—particularly economically distressed ones—the bill aims to repurpose underperforming office space, though concerns remain about potential conflicts with existing tax credits like the historic tax credit and low-income housing tax credit.
The Redwood City Council voted 6-1 to begin an environmental review of the proposed Redwood LIFE redevelopment, allowing both the original and scaled-down versions of the project to be studied despite resident requests for delay. While developers claim the revised plan addresses community concerns, many residents and environmental advocates argue the changes are minimal and fail to adequately mitigate potential harm to local wildlife and the environment.
Assemblymember Matt Haney introduced AB 342, a bill that would allow California cities to create "Hospitality Zones" where bars could extend last call to 4 a.m. on weekends and holidays, aiming to revitalize downtown nightlife and economic activity. This latest effort builds on a decade of failed attempts by San Francisco legislators and follows a limited exception granted to Inglewood’s Intuit Dome — the only venue in the state currently allowed to serve alcohol past 2 a.m.
A developer is proposing to build over 1,000 affordable homes on the 86-acre Rockaway Quarry site in Pacifica utilizing builder's remedy to bypass zoning restrictions. The site, located between the Pacific Ocean and Highway 1, has been vacant since 1987 and requires significant reclamation work to restore the excavated quarry face and previous development attempts, including a failed luxury hotel plan in 2006, were rejected or withdrawn.
A newly-proposed Senate bill aims to reform federal forest management to reduce wildfire risks, particularly in wildfire-prone areas like California. The Fix Our Forests Act would create a wildfire intelligence center, streamline wildfire risk reduction for communities and fund research into mitigation technologies, though it has faced opposition from environmental groups concerned about weakened protections for endangered species and public input on land management.
A $200 million proposal aims to transform the long-abandoned Riverside Golf Club into the Riverside Adventure Center, a 126-acre sports complex featuring activities like kayaking, surfing and climbing—and a potential space to host events for the 2028 Olympics. The privately funded project also includes biking trails, picnic areas, a grocery store and housing.
California continues to experience net out-migration, with residents—especially high-income earners—favoring nearby states and those without income taxes, such as Texas, Nevada and Florida. While the pace of departures has slowed since the height of the pandemic, the state still loses more people than it gains, particularly to smaller neighboring states where the impact is more pronounced. High-income earners primarily relocate to no-tax states to escape California’s progressive tax system, while lower-income movers are more evenly split between tax-free and taxed states. (See related CP&DR coverage.)
A federal judge recently rejected a proposed $5.4 million settlement between the developers behind the former Hunters Point Shipyard in San Francisco and 6,000 plaintiffs, calling the settlement unfair and "collusive," as it would have left the residents with minimal payouts and included provisions that could have limited future lawsuits. The lawsuit stems from claims that the cleanup was fraudulent, including the substitution of fake soil samples, and led to health issues and environmental harm for local residents.
A proposed warehouse development on the former Guadalupe Quarry site in Brisbane has sparked controversy, as it could significantly harm San Bruno Mountain’s endangered wildlife, including rare butterflies. While developers argue the project would bring jobs and tax revenue, environmentalists fear it would damage critical habitat and pollution, with several groups fighting to preserve the area as open space instead.
