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It was probably inevitable that debates over food, writing, and gentrification would collide in what is arguably one the country’s best food cities, richest literary cities, and most out-of-its-gourd land-use cities.  The stew in question comes from Soliel Ho, a restaurant critic for the San Francisco Chronicle. They recently wrote an essay that asks, "Have I been actively complicit in normalizing gentrification?" The essay answers mostly in the affirmative.  Food and urbanism have been linked since cities were invented. So, Ho’s inquiry is entirely on-point. Ho is correct that, especially these days, real estate agents refer to restaurants as "amenities" and that "neighborhoods get whiter in addition to more affluent." They admit to "passively casting the surroundings of the restaurants we review as 'changing' or 'up-and-coming,'" which is a woefully glib way that many observers of urban development – myself included – sometimes refer to complex neighborhood changes. But here’s where the souffle collapses. There’s an argument to be made that, at the very least, new restaurants signify gentrification, and they have been routinely indicted by anti-gentrification activists . To wonder whether writing about a restaurant – its menu, service, ambience, mouthfeel, whatever – feeds gentrification seems like a new flavor of liberal guilt.  Ho offers a sweeping economic theory of gentrification centering on "neoliberal policies that prioritize more lucrative land use and endless growth over policies that might ensure existing residents’ right to shelter." Never mind that San Francisco has grown anemically, from 775,000 residents in 1950 to all of 874,000 in 2020, or that building anything in the city -- including, say, a residential tower with 73 affordable units -- is nearly impossible. Ho ignores an entire library of academic research on the incredibly complex topics of gentrification and displacement in favor of a verdict rendered by instinct: "Any random person you talk to might not know exactly how gentrification works, but they can probably talk about what it sounds and tastes like." Even if we can define gentrification -- by instinct or (perhaps better?) by professional consensus -- who’s really to blame for it? Do we blame a food writer who probably makes half the city’s average annual income? A chef-entrepreneur who waited 14 months for permits and is probably six-figures in debt? A young couple who bought a starter condo in the only neighborhood they could afford? An incumbent restauranteur or shopkeeper who offers new dishes or products to appeal to new residents? A developer who thinks 100 rental apartments might improve upon a vacant lot?  The ghost of Adam Smith?  One the one hand, there’s nothing wrong with urban theorizing. If you can criticize pork loin for being oversalted, you can criticize a city for being inequitable. And yet, Ho's mea culpa is itself unwitting. They join a long, nearly sacred tradition of bemoaning gentrification and then completely failing to place blame on the people and entities that most deserve it.  The fact is, the only people who are not flagellating themselves over gentrification are usually the ones who are actually responsible for it. Here are a few suspects that elude Ho’s grasp: Owners of commercial properties who want to prop up their property values by limiting equitable development Longtime, wealthy residential property-owners who want to restrict the city's housing supply (and, in so doing, inflate property values) Old-timers who reflexively fear change, whatever form it may take Radical leftists and fellow travelers who oppose anything that smells of capitalism Planners who don’t have the fortitude, or the permission, to promote managed, equitable growth Attorneys itching for fights (and fees) Organized anti-growth groups Nonprofit developers who want to protect their turf And, of course, elected officials who are aligned with, or at least afraid to take on, any of these constituencies You don’t see any of them accepting blame in the pages of major newspapers. That doesn’t mean they don’t deserve it. What that means is that people thoughtful enough to at least ask the question, like Ho, end up holding the bag. The actual proponents of gentrification probably love her essay, because it distracts from their culpability. They get to pile on and blame those bourgeois restauranteurs and precious coffee roasters. And radical activists, many of whom fancifully believe that all residential development should be 100% affordable, probably loved Ho's piece because it conforms with their critique of "predatory" capitalism. Let's also not forget about San Francisco's notorious permitting process. Only the most deep-pocketed restauranteurs can bear the expense, take the time, and weather the uncertainty required to satisfy the city's fastidiousness. The restaurants that open have to be high-end in order to overcome that barrier (not to mention pay the rent). If Ho and other critics want to support new, but presumably modest, restaurants founded by and appealing to longtime residents of the Mission or SoMa, they might turn their eyes toward the San Francisco Department of Public Health, the San Francisco Office of Small Business, the Board of Supervisors, and all the other city offices whose regulations and procedures routinely threaten to choke off the new businesses that they are supposed to support. Until capitalism crumbles, there will be expensive food and cheap food, and expensive housing and really expensive housing. Taking jabs at restaurants or coffee shops or yoga studios won’t change that. The rise of “gentrification,” however defined, does not mean that that restaurants are evil. It means, in part, that there’s not enough housing, and not enough housing for people of all income levels. It means, fundamentally, that the city isn’t functioning properly. It means that it is inequitable in many ways and failing to serve the highest purpose of a city: to uplift diverse people and unit dives people—at Michelin-starred temples, greasy spoons, and everywhere in between. Author's note: This piece has been updated to reflect Ho's preference for they/them pronouns.

If you’re going to build housing close to a highway, you'd better analyze the air pollution impact on the residents. That’s the lesson from a situation in Grass Valley, where an environmental impact report on a mixed-used project 170 feet from State Route 20/49 didn’t pay much attention to the air pollution impact of the project. The other lesson – one that has come up in innumerable cases under the California Environmental Quality Act – is to bring up every issue you can think of during the administrative process. The plaintiffs’ wildfire arguments fell flat because they were only brought up on appeal. The situation involved the Dorsey Marketplace project, a mixed-use project in Grass Valley located on the 27-acre site of a former mine. In 2015, developer Russel Jeter proposed a project with 179,000 square feet of commercial use and 90 multifamily residential units. Subsequently, the project was changed to reduce the commercial space to 104,000 square feet, increase the multifamily residential to 172 units, and add 8,500 square feet of office space. The city approved the project with a mitigations and a statement of overriding consideration in 2020. Subsequently, a group called Community Environmental Advocates sued, claiming a wide range of deficiencies in the environmental impact report. But only the air quality question stuck. The group lost in Superior Court and appealed to the Third District Court of Appeal.

In yet another case suggesting how acrimonious development disputes in California has become, a land-use lobbyist in San Diego have sued each other for libel. The community activist subsequently filed an anti-SLAPP motion against the lobbyist – which has been shot down by both a Superior Court judge an a Court of Appeal panel. The lobbyist’s libel suit will apparently go forward.

Huntington Beach Sues State over Housing Targets, Flouts Builder's Remedy At the authorization of the Huntington Beach City Council, the Huntington Beach City Attorney announced he is preparing a lawsuit to protest the city's Regional Housing Needs Allocation of 13,368 units. At the same meeting, a council member said the city was working with the Department of Housing and Community Development to meet the allocation requirement. Council members said that, while the the city is working on meeting state requirements, they plan to fight the state on the "unfair" attempt to urbanize the city. At the same time, the city's Planning Commission voted this week to reject all “builder's remedy” applications, even if they comply with state law.. On Feb. 25, , the California Attorney General and Department of Housing and Community Development both wrote urging the city reject a newly proposed ban on ADU housing projects and projects that fall under Senate Bills 9 and 10 . "The City of Huntington Beach continues to attempt to evade their responsibility to build housing, but they will simply not win,” said Governor Gavin Newsom in a statement. (See related CP&DR coverage here and here .) State Allocates $2.5 Billion in Transit Funding, Favoring Los Angeles and Bay Area Gov. Newsom announced awards totaling more than $2.5 billion to 16 ongoing public transportation projects in the first wave of an infusion of state funding to expand transit and passenger rail service throughout the state, helping to cut planet-warming pollution. Today's funding announcement is part of a larger, multiyear, multibillion-dollar investment to upgrade the state's transit system to enhance mobility options, improve service and reduce overdependence on driving. The grants are administered by the California State Transportation Agency (CalSTA) as part of the Transit and Intercity Rail Capital Program (TIRCP). Projects receiving funding include: $600 million for LA Metro's East San Fernando Valley Transit Corridor project to complete the 6.7-mile initial segment between Van Nuys/Orange Line and Van Nuys/San Fernando stations, scheduled by 2030. $407 million for the Inglewood Transit Connector, scheduled to be completed in time for service to support the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. $375 million for the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority's BART Silicon Valley Phase II Extension project, which will bring BART service to downtown San Jose and Santa Clara. $367 million for the Peninsula Corridor Electrification project, which is electrifying Caltrain rail service. $142 million for the Valley Rail project, ensuring completion of nine project components stretching throughout the Altamont Corridor Express and San Joaquin service areas. $19 million for the San Bernardino County Transportation Authority's West Valley Connector Bus Rapid Transit and Zero-Emission Bus Initiative, which will introduce a new 19-mile bus rapid transit system. San Bernardino city official claim the awards are biased towards Los Angeles City and County railway projects; the Gold Line Authority, through LA Metro, requested full funding for the project ($798 million) but was denied. In addition to the $2.54 billion announced today for existing TIRCP projects, CalSTA will award another $1.14 billion to new transit projects and improvements at high-priority intersections by the end of April. The recent announcement represents the first round of awards as part of a sixth cycle of TIRCP investment, which will eventually total $25 billion. Berkeley People's Park Ruling Sparks Calls for CEQA Reform In response to a ruling blocking construction of UC Berkeley student housing on the site of People's Park--ruled in part on the grounds that “noisy” college students qualify as an environmental impact under CEQA, Gov. Gavin Newsom has called for wholesale CEQA reform. In a tweet posted on the governor's official Twitter account, Newsom wrote, “Our CEQA process is clearly broken when a few wealthy Berkelely homeowners can block desperately needed student housing for years and even decades. California cannot afford to be held hostage by NIMBYs who weaponize CEQA to block student and affordable housing. This selfish mindset is driving up housing process, and making our state less affordable. The law needs to change, and I am committed to working with lawmakers to making more changes so our state can build the housing we desperately need.” Assembly Bill 1700 , sponsored by Joshua Hoover (AD 7, Folsom), may be a frontrunner for addressing the issues in the People's Park case; it “would specify that population growth, in and of itself, resulting from a housing project and noise impacts of a housing project are not an effect on the environment for purposes of CEQA.” (See related CP&DR coverage .) San Diego Authorizes Taller Buildings Farther from Transit Stations The San Diego City Council voted , 5-4, to enable the construction of taller buildings and more backyard housing units further away from transit lines than was previously allowed. The limit for more backyard units had been one half-mile from a transit station. The loosened regulations allow for denser housing citywide; proponents hope it will help address the housing shortages. With the expansion of the ADU zone to a full mile radius, the total acreage expanding to 5,224 additional acres of homes for a developer density bonus. Another 4,612 acres are now eligible for San Diego's backyard apartment bonus program. But most residents who spoke at the meeting opposed the changes to the ruling, citing people will not walk a mile to transit and will consequently reduce the use of public transit. They also site the lack of city infrastructure plans to match the dense housing, and pointed to wildfire-prone areas where higher density housing can now be built. CP&DR Coverage: Battles Rage over Bay Area Housing Elements No fewer than 12 jurisdictions are facing lawsuits from a loose coalition of housing advocacy groups, and many more--presumably all of the noncompliant cities--were instantly made subject to "Builder's Remedy" provisions, by which developers can essentially force the approval of projects that have a sufficient amount of affordable housing, regardless of the projects' mass and density. Californians for Homeownership, California Housing Defense Fund and YIMBY Law have each filed a handful of suits. Defendants include Santa Clara County and the following cities: Belvedere, Burlingame, Cupertino, Daly City, Fairfax, Martinez, Novato, Palo Alto, Pinole, Pleasant Hill, and Richmond. Five of the twelve jurisdictions are on the San Francisco Peninsula, where resistance to new housing has historically been fierce. Quick Hits & Updates The city of Oakland will turn over 380 loading zones into “smart zones,” using a contactless payment method for commercial deliveries. The housing nonprofit Californians for Homeownership is suing the city of Beverly Hills over its housing policies, hoping to enforce the builder's remedy. Californians for Homeownership believes the city must start approving any housing project with a certain amount of low-income housing, per the remedy. Acrisure Arena in the Coachella Valley city of Palm Desert opened recently as both the home of the AHL's newest Coachella Valley Firebirds and a large music venue, hosting approximately 11,000 concert-goers or 10,500 hockey fans. Riverside-San Bernardino County - in addition to Palm Beach, Tampa, Phoenix and Fort Worth - is now one of the most undersupplied housing markets in the country, according to John Burns Real Estate Consulting. The housing market in the area is measured by vacancy rates as well as overcrowding conditions in family homes. An old Honda dealership on Market street and South Van Ness avenue in San Francisco will be home to a 55 story tower , but the developer, Crescent Heights, was afforded a four-year extension by the City Planning Commission to start construction. Crescent Heights has already spent $40 million to fulfill its affordable housing requirement, and say that they could break ground sooner. The scooter company Bird - previously permitted to operated 1,500 scooters in San Francisco - is now leaving the city, citing low profit in the city and burdensome business regulations.California High-Speed Rail Authority now reports the cost of the bullet train construction between Merced and Bakersfield has increased by billions of dollars due to inflation. The completion of construction is also now estimated between 2030 and 2033.A new study claims that San Francisco is losing billions in economic activity due to work-from-home policies, as workers' spend on average $3,567 less per year per person on businesses near their places of work.The Apartment Association of Orange County, a group of landlords, is set to sue the city of Santa Ana over housing policies first approved in 2021, including protections for tenants against rent increases and evictions.According to a new study by the Public Policy Institute of California, rates of homeless continue to rise throughout the state, particularly in urban areas, with 30% of the nation's homeless population residing in California.

Apparently Marilyn Monroe violates the California Motor Vehicle Code and the California Environmental Quality Act. Overturning the decision of a Riverside County judge, an appellate court has ruled that the City of Palm Springs’ decision to close off a street for three years to display a statue of Marilyn violates both laws.

More homeless people isn’t an environmental impact, but noisy drunken students are. Gov. Newsom wants to do something about that.

CP&DR Vol. 38 No. 2 February 2023

The City of Weed – 3,000 people located along I-5 more than 200 miles north of Sacramento – isn’t usually front and center in California planning and development news. But a dispute over water – and over motivations behind subsequent lawsuits – has brought Weed to the fore.

If you’re going to file a lawsuit under the California Environmental Quality Act, you’ve got to bring up issues during administrative review – and do so very specifically.

Property Owners Sue San Francisco over Vacancy Tax A group of landlords and property owners along with the San Francisco Apartment Association are suing the city over "The Empty Home Tax," a citywide tax on empty properties. The claimants assert the tax is a violation of their constitutional right to property ownership. "The Empty Home Tax," or Proposition M, passed in November with 54% of voter support, will start charging property owners a tax on units sitting vacant for over 182 days, taking effect in 2024. The taxes start at $2,500 for smaller units and $5,000 for units over 1,000 square feet and will be enforced on buildings with three or more units. The tax is an incentivizing effort to make sure thytatt property owners and landlords are renting out available housing. The San Francisco Supervisor pushed back on the lawsuit in a statement, saying "San Francisco voters delivered a clear mandate that it is completely unacceptable to have tens of thousands of vacant homes as more than 4,000 people are living on our streets." The same claimants previous sued the city and lost over a law banning evictions during the pandemic. Several Land Use Bills Introduced in Legislature; "Cannabis Cafes" Could be Legalized A flurry of bills related to land use were introduced in both chambers of the California legislature recently. One bill could legalize the sale of beverages and food at cannabis retailers, enabling them to operate like cafes, in the hopes of helping the legal cannabis industry survive in California. (See related CP&DR coverage .) Senator Scott Wiener's new bill makes 2017 Senate Bill 35 - the law that requires local city governments to streamline building if affordable housing goals have not been met - permanent in the state while also removing a requirement to use unionized workers, hoping to expand its reach. SB 423 , as proposed by Senator Scott Wiener, is a permanent amendment to SB 35, expanding the original provision to include mixed-use housing developments. The original SB 35 was set to expire in two years, but Senator Wiener ensured the bill would continue to streamline housing projects permanently in California. Assembly Bill 930 would enable two or more legislative bodies (including city or county government, special districts or transit agencies) to together form a Reinvestment in Infrastructure for a Sustainable and Equitable California district (RISE district) and provide low- and moderate-income housing bonds for the combined area. 24,000 New Homes Coming to San Diego's Mira Mesa Neighborhood The San Diego City Council unanimously approved a blueprint for Mira Mesa with a big plan to ditch the car-dependent neighborhood and construct pedestrian-friendly urban villages with 24,000 new homes, mostly in high-rise housing. While other San Diego neighborhoods would remain unchanged for the moment, the city plans to rezone Mira Mesa's commercial land for high-density housing. Meanwhile, lawmakers hope to build walking bridges over car-centric streets, and several lanes primarily used by vehicles would turn into pathways for buses and bicycles. The plan's opponents are concerned that the blueprint will attract too many residents and not enough infrastructure or green space, and environmental advocates say proposals for reducing auto-dependency are inadequate. Report Estimates Effect of CEQA Suits on Housing Production The Center for Jobs and the Economy released a new report that analyzes the damaging impact of CEQA lawsuits on housing production. While the 3.5 million-home statewide shortfall intensifies, lawsuits against new housing that prevent upzoning, transit accessibility, and housing affordability under the guise of environmental violations continue to grow. The report illuminates that anti-housing lawsuits have impacted nearly half of the state's annual housing production, which totals an average of 110,784 homes. The authors conclude that CEQA has acted as a form of population reduction by driving out residents. While the researchers intend to analyze two more years of CEQA lawsuit data, they do not expect results to change. State Allocates $825 Million for Affordable Housing California Governor Gavin Newsom announced this week upwards of $825-million in awards over 9,500 homes in 58 communities to build affordable housing, along with a streamlined application process for local governments. This new process was made possible by Assembly Bill 434 , which allowed for multiple housing applications to be narrowed down into a single award process. Under this new approach, requests for housing development funds have soared. The first round of new Multifamily Finance Super Notice of Funding Availability ("Super NOFA") received more than $3.5 billion in developer requests. CP&DR Coverage: TOD Arrives in the Suburbs While many big-city transit districts have gotten in on transit-oriented development, the suburbs have been slow to catch on -- until recently. The North San Diego County Transit District , which runs the buses and trains in the region, is in the midst of planning for reuse of a dozen underutilized parking lots that are next to the region's train and bus stations. NCTD transit goes to San Diego and from the north county coastal cities to inland communities such as Escondido. When completed in a decade, those redeveloped parking lots should contain hundreds of new housing units, retail, and offices, all of which are expected to create more riders for the transit systems. Quick Hits & Updates Los Angeles City Mayor Karen Bass ordered city officials to provide a comprehensive list of vacant properties across the city by Mar. 31, one of the largest steps Bass has taken yet in her term to address the homelessness crisis in Los Angeles. Bass, in her campaign promises, ensured she will find housing for 17,000 in her first year in office. She hopes to use vacant land to build temporary or permanent housing in the city. The California Department of Housing and Community Development in partnership with the Strategic Growth Council announced the release of the Affordable Housing and Sustainable Communities Notice of Funding Availability for approximately $750 million. The application is open now through April 4. Cal Poly Humboldt, currently facing a student housing crisis, is looking into temporarily housing approximately 600 students on a barge in Humboldt Bay. The consideration follows a large-scale student body protest over a lack of on-campus housing. Under the proposed Western Joshua Tree Conservation Act , housing and renewable energy developments potentially disruptive to the endangered local Joshua trees will pay to relocate the trees elsewhere in order to approve more projects in the high desert. San Francisco's plan to build tiny homes for the homeless in the Mission district faces fierce criticism from community members, as well as mounting internal concern about cost, although funding has already been secured for the project. Even some proponents of the plan are shifting position. State Sen. Scott Wiener introduced a plan to strip down the San Francisco Central Freeway that cuts through SoMa and connects travelers between the Bay Bridge and the city's downtown. Thus far, Wiener has requested that Caltrans conduct a study of the impact of demolition, part of which has already been reimagined into Octavia Boulevard, which is now home to apartment buildings and new amenities. BART and San Francisco developer Bridge Housing have entered a two-year Exclusive Negotiating Agreement to construct a transit-oriented housing development near the North Berkeley Station. The 5.5-acre site could hold 500 to 1,200 homes, 35% of which would be affordable. Bay Area airports may see flooding damage to runways if local governments do not mitigate the impacts of sea level rise and storm surge, according to a new study from UC Berkeley. Researchers found that 39 out of 43 coastal airports would be at-risk to flooding by 2100, including all Bay Area airports, half of which are expected to face flooding in the next 20 years. The city of Rancho Mirage faces a lawsuit by a lone resident claiming officials are not following through on a promise to adapt a city-owned mobile home park into affordable housing. The commitment dates back to the land purchase in 2009 by the city, when officials claimed the space was soon to be “uninhabitable” and they would adapt the land into affordable senior housing.

Two weeks ago, dozens of Bay Area jurisdictions failed, in one way or another, to meet the state-mandated deadline for adopting housing elements compliant with the sixth cycle of the Regional Housing Needs Assessment process and certified by the Department of Housing and Community Development.

While the City of San Diego has made aggressive moves recently to increase density, reduce parking requirements, and take advantage of its increasingly robust transit network, the city’s suburbs have traditionally been less enthusiastic about new development. Affluent coastal cities in north San Diego County, such as Del Mar and Encinitas have balked at state-mandated housing requirements and passed slow-growth ballot measures.