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"content": "\u003cp>After weeks of tense negotiations with California lawmakers, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday signed legislation that \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12036917/bill-reform-controversial-environmental-law-faces-first-legislative-hurdle\">promises to make big changes\u003c/a> to the state’s landmark environmental law, calling it the “most consequential housing reform we’ve seen in modern history.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The two bills — AB 609 from Asm. Buffy Wicks, D-Oakland, and SB 607, by Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco — were folded into addendums to the state budget, which was \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2025/06/27/budget/\">approved Friday\u003c/a>. They both take aim at the \u003ca href=\"https://oag.ca.gov/environment/ceqa\">1970 California Environmental Quality Act\u003c/a>, known as CEQA (pronounced “see-kwah” in state legislative parlance), which has been the ire of \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/housing/2025/03/ceqa-infill-housing-wicks/\">housing\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/commentary/2025/06/ceqa-environmental-law-reform/\">advocates\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://lhc.ca.gov/report/california-environmental-quality-act-ceqa/\">oversight agencies\u003c/a> for years. Critics claim its ever-broadening scope and lengthy review process have slowed development and made it too expensive to build.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This budget that is connected to [those reforms] is a budget that builds,” Newsom said Monday. “It’s not just a housing package, it’s also about infrastructure, it’s also about high speed rail.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For years, however, reforming CEQA has been a divisive issue among state Democrats, due to its ardent support among labor, \u003ca href=\"https://ceja.org/what-we-do/green-zones/ceqa-case-studies/\">environmental\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://ceqaworks.org/\">groups\u003c/a> and others, who have heralded it as one of the \u003ca href=\"https://w.ecovote.org/california-environmental-quality-act-the-myths-vs-the-facts/\">most important tools\u003c/a> to fight pollution and sprawl. And they often point to \u003ca href=\"https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3956250\">studies \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.cp-dr.com/articles/how-long-can-the-swiss-cheese-approach-ceqa-go/b24c31e081204b8eb4cbbf4f6313f2db\">calling into question\u003c/a> whether it truly stops development from moving forward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Matt Baker, state policy director for the Planning and Conservation League, an environmental advocacy group, said he was particularly concerned with the provisions in SB 607, which he called “the worst rollback of environmental and public health protections” the state has seen in decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Side-stepping the legislative process in a fast-track budget deal that has had zero transparency for such significant changes to the one law that gives our communities voice in the planning decisions that affect them is just simply a disgrace to our democracy,” he said. “This is the way you do bad things.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12046617\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12046617\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250519-AffordableHousingFile-13-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250519-AffordableHousingFile-13-BL_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250519-AffordableHousingFile-13-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250519-AffordableHousingFile-13-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Construction is underway on an affordable housing apartment building at 2550 Irving Street in San Francisco’s Sunset District on May 19, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But as the state seeks to make housing more affordable and meet its energy goals, Wiener said it needs to be easier for projects to get approved and built.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The high costs devastating our communities stem directly from our extreme shortage of housing, childcare, affordable healthcare, and so many of the other things families need to thrive,” he said in a statement shortly after the Legislature’s vote. “These bills get red tape and major process hurdles out of the way, allowing us to finally start addressing these shortages and securing an affordable California and a brighter future.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For years, legislators have taken a “\u003ca href=\"https://www.cp-dr.com/articles/how-long-can-the-swiss-cheese-approach-ceqa-go/b24c31e081204b8eb4cbbf4f6313f2db\">Swiss cheese\u003c/a>” approach to CEQA reform, bypassing the more onerous requirements by exempting \u003ca href=\"https://www.scag.ca.gov/sites/default/files/2024-05/ceqa_exemptions_for_housing_projects_-_project_eligibility_review_matrix.pdf\">certain kinds of development\u003c/a>, or \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-06-27/california-lawmakers-ceqa-exemption-environmental-law-capitol-annex-renovation\">even\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11959483/legislation-that-could-push-peoples-park-student-housing-project-forward-heads-to-newsom\">specific\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-sac-stadium-bills-failures-20170411-story.html\">projects\u003c/a>. But the two bills included in this year’s budget aim to make bolder moves: AB 609 exempts all urban housing development from individually going through the review process, while SB 607 exempts another nine categories of projects from review under the law, if they meet certain criteria, and narrows its scope for a variety of projects by avoiding what Wiener described as “repetitive” studies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-05-14/newsom-announces-support-for-ceqa-exemption-bills\">publicly supported these bills\u003c/a> when he included them in his revised budget in May, but his strongest endorsement came last week, when he \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB102\">required\u003c/a> the bills to be included in two “trailer bills” — AB 130 and SB 131 — and approved, or the budget would be repealed entirely.[aside postID=news_12046283 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/240718-BerkeleyMissingMiddleHousing-24-BL_qed.jpg']“It was too urgent, too important to allow the process to unfold as it has for the last generation, invariably falling prey to all kinds of pratfall and I was too concerned that that would indeed occur again if we allowed this process to unfold in the traditional way,” Newsom said, addressing criticism that the bills were fast-tracked. “If we can’t address this issue, we’re going to lose trust, and that’s just the truth.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chris Elmendorf, a land-use and housing law expert at the UC Davis School of Law, called the maneuver “pretty bold.” The governor typically remains on the sidelines during legislative battles, he said, especially those involving controversial housing bills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He doesn’t really get involved in arm-twisting in the legislature, [but he] did the most intensive form of arm-twisting which is available to him,” Elmendorf said. “Because we need a budget. And in fact, if the budget isn’t passed on time, legislators don’t get paid.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That arm-twisting is partly what concerns environmental groups that wanted more public discussion about what these bills would do before they got signed into law. Asha Sharma, state policy manager for the Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability, said she wanted to see Newsom taking a stronger stance to uphold environmental protections in California, especially amidst \u003ca href=\"https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-launches-biggest-deregulatory-action-us-history\">federal\u003c/a> rollbacks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“CEQA is really the only way that we have any type of voice or say in what these projects look like,” she said. “It is really concerning that that is where [Newsom’s] priorities are, especially in such a precarious moment at a federal level.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12046618\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1997px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12046618\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/DSC0888_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1997\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/DSC0888_qed.jpg 1997w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/DSC0888_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/DSC0888_qed-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1997px) 100vw, 1997px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A mother and daughter watch the construction from the balcony of their new home, which they helped to build in the Central Commons development in Fremont, California, on June 17, 2019. \u003ccite>(Stephanie Lister/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But housing advocates argue that protecting the environment is at the heart of the two bills featured in the budget.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Language from Wick’s bill is included in trailer bill \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB130\">AB 130\u003c/a>, which exempts infill housing — homes built within an existing city — from lengthy CEQA reviews. If it’s easier for developers to build homes in denser areas, Wicks argues it could help reduce greenhouse gas emissions caused by longer commutes to \u003ca href=\"https://news.berkeley.edu/2014/01/06/suburban-sprawl-cancels-carbon-footprint-savings-of-dense-urban-cores/\">far-off\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://unu.edu/article/suburban-living-worst-carbon-emissions-new-research\">suburbs\u003c/a>. Apartments also tend to \u003ca href=\"https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=11731\">use less energy\u003c/a> than detached homes, according to the US Energy Information Administration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“All these places that are already urban, already developed, already have infrastructure … that type of housing development is by far the most environmentally beneficial,” said Matthew Lewis, spokesperson for the housing lobbying group, CA YIMBY. “What these bills do is they basically codify that by saying, we recognize that these types of homes are good for the environment and therefore do not have to go through these extensive environmental processes.”[aside postID=news_12011579 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/20240930_CEQACHILDCARE_GC-45-KQED.jpg']Trailer bill \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260SB131\">SB 131\u003c/a>, which includes Wiener’s bill, makes more technical changes to CEQA reviews, but ultimately tries to avoid redundancies in the process. Among other provisions, the bill includes a number of CEQA exemptions for certain categories of development, including high-speed rail, trails and wildfire mitigation projects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It also exempts advanced manufacturing facilities in industrial areas, a feature Wiener hopes will spur the production of electronics and semiconductors in the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re seeing a new kind of manufacturing that we’re trying to reshore into the US, whether it’s semiconductors, electronics, other kinds of advanced technology that we want to be produced here,” Wiener told KQED. “And the last thing we want is for California to get skipped over.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But environmental groups say this exemption is precisely what concerns them about the bill. Semiconductor factories often require significant amounts of water to fabricate microchips and can release hazardous chemicals into the air and water supplies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12046616\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12046616\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250618-NewTeacherHousing-19-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250618-NewTeacherHousing-19-BL_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250618-NewTeacherHousing-19-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250618-NewTeacherHousing-19-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Construction workers build at 750 Golden Gate Avenue in San Francisco on June 18, 2025, during a groundbreaking ceremony marking the start of two affordable housing projects. One will deliver 75 units prioritized for SFUSD and City College educators, and the other at 850 Turk will add 92 family apartments. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Silicon Valley garnered international esteem for its semiconductor and microprocessor facilities, but now has \u003ca href=\"https://www.epa.gov/superfund/search-superfund-sites-where-you-live\">23 toxic Superfund sites,\u003c/a> a designation the Environmental Protection Agency gives to the worst hazardous waste sites in the United States.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are examples across the state of how the communities surrounding these facilities have just really experienced a lot of health harm,” Raquel Mason, senior legislative manager with the California Environmental Justice Alliance, said at a press conference opposing the bill. “This is why CEQA [was created], so that we can have this review and make sure that there’s safety and health considerations for projects exactly like that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When it comes to housing, however, some advocates argue those reviews can result in more process than progress. They have criticized \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12002905/it-was-a-sleepy-year-for-housing-legislation-here-are-some-that-made-it-through\">recent legislation as being ineffective\u003c/a> because they made too many concessions to environmental groups and often fell into an \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/02/opinion/democrats-liberalism.html\">everything bagel black hole\u003c/a> of qualifications — an idea central to the burgeoning \u003ca href=\"https://www.abundancenetwork.com/the-movement/\">Abundance\u003c/a> movement. That Newsom fought to get Wicks’ and Wiener’s bills passed so quickly is telling, Lewis said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CEQA has been the third rail of California politics for decades, but Lewis argued the state no longer has the luxury to delay the housing it needs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is just fundamentally irresponsible to be blocking homes in California cities in 2025 when we’re seeing the incredible heat waves across the country. We’re seeing wildfires, we’re seeing flooding, we’re seeing storms destroy entire communities, all because of the pollution caused from sprawl and traffic and other pollution,” he said. “It’s time to get over that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>After weeks of tense negotiations with California lawmakers, Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday signed legislation that \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12036917/bill-reform-controversial-environmental-law-faces-first-legislative-hurdle\">promises to make big changes\u003c/a> to the state’s landmark environmental law, calling it the “most consequential housing reform we’ve seen in modern history.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The two bills — AB 609 from Asm. Buffy Wicks, D-Oakland, and SB 607, by Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco — were folded into addendums to the state budget, which was \u003ca href=\"https://www.gov.ca.gov/2025/06/27/budget/\">approved Friday\u003c/a>. They both take aim at the \u003ca href=\"https://oag.ca.gov/environment/ceqa\">1970 California Environmental Quality Act\u003c/a>, known as CEQA (pronounced “see-kwah” in state legislative parlance), which has been the ire of \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/housing/2025/03/ceqa-infill-housing-wicks/\">housing\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/commentary/2025/06/ceqa-environmental-law-reform/\">advocates\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://lhc.ca.gov/report/california-environmental-quality-act-ceqa/\">oversight agencies\u003c/a> for years. Critics claim its ever-broadening scope and lengthy review process have slowed development and made it too expensive to build.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This budget that is connected to [those reforms] is a budget that builds,” Newsom said Monday. “It’s not just a housing package, it’s also about infrastructure, it’s also about high speed rail.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For years, however, reforming CEQA has been a divisive issue among state Democrats, due to its ardent support among labor, \u003ca href=\"https://ceja.org/what-we-do/green-zones/ceqa-case-studies/\">environmental\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://ceqaworks.org/\">groups\u003c/a> and others, who have heralded it as one of the \u003ca href=\"https://w.ecovote.org/california-environmental-quality-act-the-myths-vs-the-facts/\">most important tools\u003c/a> to fight pollution and sprawl. And they often point to \u003ca href=\"https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3956250\">studies \u003c/a>\u003ca href=\"https://www.cp-dr.com/articles/how-long-can-the-swiss-cheese-approach-ceqa-go/b24c31e081204b8eb4cbbf4f6313f2db\">calling into question\u003c/a> whether it truly stops development from moving forward.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Matt Baker, state policy director for the Planning and Conservation League, an environmental advocacy group, said he was particularly concerned with the provisions in SB 607, which he called “the worst rollback of environmental and public health protections” the state has seen in decades.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Side-stepping the legislative process in a fast-track budget deal that has had zero transparency for such significant changes to the one law that gives our communities voice in the planning decisions that affect them is just simply a disgrace to our democracy,” he said. “This is the way you do bad things.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12046617\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12046617\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250519-AffordableHousingFile-13-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250519-AffordableHousingFile-13-BL_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250519-AffordableHousingFile-13-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250519-AffordableHousingFile-13-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Construction is underway on an affordable housing apartment building at 2550 Irving Street in San Francisco’s Sunset District on May 19, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But as the state seeks to make housing more affordable and meet its energy goals, Wiener said it needs to be easier for projects to get approved and built.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The high costs devastating our communities stem directly from our extreme shortage of housing, childcare, affordable healthcare, and so many of the other things families need to thrive,” he said in a statement shortly after the Legislature’s vote. “These bills get red tape and major process hurdles out of the way, allowing us to finally start addressing these shortages and securing an affordable California and a brighter future.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For years, legislators have taken a “\u003ca href=\"https://www.cp-dr.com/articles/how-long-can-the-swiss-cheese-approach-ceqa-go/b24c31e081204b8eb4cbbf4f6313f2db\">Swiss cheese\u003c/a>” approach to CEQA reform, bypassing the more onerous requirements by exempting \u003ca href=\"https://www.scag.ca.gov/sites/default/files/2024-05/ceqa_exemptions_for_housing_projects_-_project_eligibility_review_matrix.pdf\">certain kinds of development\u003c/a>, or \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-06-27/california-lawmakers-ceqa-exemption-environmental-law-capitol-annex-renovation\">even\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11959483/legislation-that-could-push-peoples-park-student-housing-project-forward-heads-to-newsom\">specific\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-sac-stadium-bills-failures-20170411-story.html\">projects\u003c/a>. But the two bills included in this year’s budget aim to make bolder moves: AB 609 exempts all urban housing development from individually going through the review process, while SB 607 exempts another nine categories of projects from review under the law, if they meet certain criteria, and narrows its scope for a variety of projects by avoiding what Wiener described as “repetitive” studies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-05-14/newsom-announces-support-for-ceqa-exemption-bills\">publicly supported these bills\u003c/a> when he included them in his revised budget in May, but his strongest endorsement came last week, when he \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB102\">required\u003c/a> the bills to be included in two “trailer bills” — AB 130 and SB 131 — and approved, or the budget would be repealed entirely.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“It was too urgent, too important to allow the process to unfold as it has for the last generation, invariably falling prey to all kinds of pratfall and I was too concerned that that would indeed occur again if we allowed this process to unfold in the traditional way,” Newsom said, addressing criticism that the bills were fast-tracked. “If we can’t address this issue, we’re going to lose trust, and that’s just the truth.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Chris Elmendorf, a land-use and housing law expert at the UC Davis School of Law, called the maneuver “pretty bold.” The governor typically remains on the sidelines during legislative battles, he said, especially those involving controversial housing bills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He doesn’t really get involved in arm-twisting in the legislature, [but he] did the most intensive form of arm-twisting which is available to him,” Elmendorf said. “Because we need a budget. And in fact, if the budget isn’t passed on time, legislators don’t get paid.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That arm-twisting is partly what concerns environmental groups that wanted more public discussion about what these bills would do before they got signed into law. Asha Sharma, state policy manager for the Leadership Counsel for Justice and Accountability, said she wanted to see Newsom taking a stronger stance to uphold environmental protections in California, especially amidst \u003ca href=\"https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-launches-biggest-deregulatory-action-us-history\">federal\u003c/a> rollbacks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“CEQA is really the only way that we have any type of voice or say in what these projects look like,” she said. “It is really concerning that that is where [Newsom’s] priorities are, especially in such a precarious moment at a federal level.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12046618\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1997px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12046618\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/DSC0888_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1997\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/DSC0888_qed.jpg 1997w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/DSC0888_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/DSC0888_qed-1536x1025.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1997px) 100vw, 1997px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A mother and daughter watch the construction from the balcony of their new home, which they helped to build in the Central Commons development in Fremont, California, on June 17, 2019. \u003ccite>(Stephanie Lister/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>But housing advocates argue that protecting the environment is at the heart of the two bills featured in the budget.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Language from Wick’s bill is included in trailer bill \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB130\">AB 130\u003c/a>, which exempts infill housing — homes built within an existing city — from lengthy CEQA reviews. If it’s easier for developers to build homes in denser areas, Wicks argues it could help reduce greenhouse gas emissions caused by longer commutes to \u003ca href=\"https://news.berkeley.edu/2014/01/06/suburban-sprawl-cancels-carbon-footprint-savings-of-dense-urban-cores/\">far-off\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://unu.edu/article/suburban-living-worst-carbon-emissions-new-research\">suburbs\u003c/a>. Apartments also tend to \u003ca href=\"https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=11731\">use less energy\u003c/a> than detached homes, according to the US Energy Information Administration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“All these places that are already urban, already developed, already have infrastructure … that type of housing development is by far the most environmentally beneficial,” said Matthew Lewis, spokesperson for the housing lobbying group, CA YIMBY. “What these bills do is they basically codify that by saying, we recognize that these types of homes are good for the environment and therefore do not have to go through these extensive environmental processes.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Trailer bill \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260SB131\">SB 131\u003c/a>, which includes Wiener’s bill, makes more technical changes to CEQA reviews, but ultimately tries to avoid redundancies in the process. Among other provisions, the bill includes a number of CEQA exemptions for certain categories of development, including high-speed rail, trails and wildfire mitigation projects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It also exempts advanced manufacturing facilities in industrial areas, a feature Wiener hopes will spur the production of electronics and semiconductors in the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re seeing a new kind of manufacturing that we’re trying to reshore into the US, whether it’s semiconductors, electronics, other kinds of advanced technology that we want to be produced here,” Wiener told KQED. “And the last thing we want is for California to get skipped over.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But environmental groups say this exemption is precisely what concerns them about the bill. Semiconductor factories often require significant amounts of water to fabricate microchips and can release hazardous chemicals into the air and water supplies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12046616\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12046616\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250618-NewTeacherHousing-19-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250618-NewTeacherHousing-19-BL_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250618-NewTeacherHousing-19-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250618-NewTeacherHousing-19-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Construction workers build at 750 Golden Gate Avenue in San Francisco on June 18, 2025, during a groundbreaking ceremony marking the start of two affordable housing projects. One will deliver 75 units prioritized for SFUSD and City College educators, and the other at 850 Turk will add 92 family apartments. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Silicon Valley garnered international esteem for its semiconductor and microprocessor facilities, but now has \u003ca href=\"https://www.epa.gov/superfund/search-superfund-sites-where-you-live\">23 toxic Superfund sites,\u003c/a> a designation the Environmental Protection Agency gives to the worst hazardous waste sites in the United States.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are examples across the state of how the communities surrounding these facilities have just really experienced a lot of health harm,” Raquel Mason, senior legislative manager with the California Environmental Justice Alliance, said at a press conference opposing the bill. “This is why CEQA [was created], so that we can have this review and make sure that there’s safety and health considerations for projects exactly like that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When it comes to housing, however, some advocates argue those reviews can result in more process than progress. They have criticized \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12002905/it-was-a-sleepy-year-for-housing-legislation-here-are-some-that-made-it-through\">recent legislation as being ineffective\u003c/a> because they made too many concessions to environmental groups and often fell into an \u003ca href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/02/opinion/democrats-liberalism.html\">everything bagel black hole\u003c/a> of qualifications — an idea central to the burgeoning \u003ca href=\"https://www.abundancenetwork.com/the-movement/\">Abundance\u003c/a> movement. That Newsom fought to get Wicks’ and Wiener’s bills passed so quickly is telling, Lewis said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>CEQA has been the third rail of California politics for decades, but Lewis argued the state no longer has the luxury to delay the housing it needs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It is just fundamentally irresponsible to be blocking homes in California cities in 2025 when we’re seeing the incredible heat waves across the country. We’re seeing wildfires, we’re seeing flooding, we’re seeing storms destroy entire communities, all because of the pollution caused from sprawl and traffic and other pollution,” he said. “It’s time to get over that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>Updated 9:57 a.m. Tuesday\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A bill to exempt some housing projects from a controversial California law that \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12033092/housing-legislation-snips-away-californias-red-tape\">pro-building activists blame for slowing down development\u003c/a> cleared its first legislative hurdle this week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Monday, the State Assembly’s Natural Resources Committee approved AB 609, introduced by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Berkeley), which would exempt infill housing projects built within existing cities from review under the California Environmental Quality Act.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Why does it take so long to build housing in California? CEQA, the California Environmental Quality Act, America’s premier environmental protection law, which for over 50 years has helped slow or stall countless bad projects that would have harmed the environment,” Wicks said during the hearing. “But it’s a very blunt tool. And in that time, it has also helped slow or stall countless good projects as well.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Originally passed in 1970, the landmark law requires developers to study any potential impact their project might have on the environment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But in recent years, CEQA has become a political lightning rod as housing activists have \u003ca href=\"https://cayimby.org/blog/how-nimbys-hijacked-ceqa/\">argued it has been used to slow or stop housing projects\u003c/a> from moving forward, while defenders \u003ca href=\"https://ceqaworks.org/ceqa-and-housing/\">say it hasn’t played a major role in deterring housing production\u003c/a> in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12037002\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12037002 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/saccapitoldome090911_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/saccapitoldome090911_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/saccapitoldome090911_qed-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/saccapitoldome090911_qed-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/saccapitoldome090911_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/saccapitoldome090911_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/saccapitoldome090911_qed-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The California State Capitol on Feb. 19, 2009, in Sacramento. \u003ccite>(Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>AB 609 is part of a package of bills authored by several legislators seeking to remove red tape at almost every step of the housing development process. SB 607, authored by Sen. Scott Wiener, would remove some of the work required by CEQA that proponents say is redundant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But not everyone is on board with the proposed changes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We just have blinders on in terms of how much good CEQA — and looking at the environmental reviews — has done to preserve safety and safety for water and safety from fire,” said Susan Kirsch, president of Catalysts for Local Control.[aside postID=news_12033092 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/construction072011_qed-1020x645.jpg']Her group argues that local communities should have a say in what gets built in their neighborhoods. She said the bills from Wicks and Wiener take away power from local residents and give it to the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The danger we’re running into is that the state is continuing to try to do things from the top-down, one-size-fits-all point of view and that some of these things should be left to local decision-making with local zoning and local wisdom and stewardship,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>AB 609 now heads to the Assembly Committee on Housing and Community Development for its next hearing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Matthew Lewis, a spokesperson for pro-housing group California YIMBY, said he felt optimistic about AB 609, but that any effort to reform CEQA would face strong opposition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Former Gov. Jerry Brown called CEQA reform ‘the lord’s work’ and there’s a reason that he framed it that way,” he said. “I would anticipate that, while this first hurdle is important, I don’t think it’s going to be the last one.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>Updated 9:57 a.m. Tuesday\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A bill to exempt some housing projects from a controversial California law that \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12033092/housing-legislation-snips-away-californias-red-tape\">pro-building activists blame for slowing down development\u003c/a> cleared its first legislative hurdle this week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On Monday, the State Assembly’s Natural Resources Committee approved AB 609, introduced by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Berkeley), which would exempt infill housing projects built within existing cities from review under the California Environmental Quality Act.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Why does it take so long to build housing in California? CEQA, the California Environmental Quality Act, America’s premier environmental protection law, which for over 50 years has helped slow or stall countless bad projects that would have harmed the environment,” Wicks said during the hearing. “But it’s a very blunt tool. And in that time, it has also helped slow or stall countless good projects as well.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Originally passed in 1970, the landmark law requires developers to study any potential impact their project might have on the environment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But in recent years, CEQA has become a political lightning rod as housing activists have \u003ca href=\"https://cayimby.org/blog/how-nimbys-hijacked-ceqa/\">argued it has been used to slow or stop housing projects\u003c/a> from moving forward, while defenders \u003ca href=\"https://ceqaworks.org/ceqa-and-housing/\">say it hasn’t played a major role in deterring housing production\u003c/a> in California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12037002\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12037002 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/saccapitoldome090911_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/saccapitoldome090911_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/saccapitoldome090911_qed-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/saccapitoldome090911_qed-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/saccapitoldome090911_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/saccapitoldome090911_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/saccapitoldome090911_qed-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The California State Capitol on Feb. 19, 2009, in Sacramento. \u003ccite>(Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>AB 609 is part of a package of bills authored by several legislators seeking to remove red tape at almost every step of the housing development process. SB 607, authored by Sen. Scott Wiener, would remove some of the work required by CEQA that proponents say is redundant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But not everyone is on board with the proposed changes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We just have blinders on in terms of how much good CEQA — and looking at the environmental reviews — has done to preserve safety and safety for water and safety from fire,” said Susan Kirsch, president of Catalysts for Local Control.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Her group argues that local communities should have a say in what gets built in their neighborhoods. She said the bills from Wicks and Wiener take away power from local residents and give it to the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The danger we’re running into is that the state is continuing to try to do things from the top-down, one-size-fits-all point of view and that some of these things should be left to local decision-making with local zoning and local wisdom and stewardship,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>AB 609 now heads to the Assembly Committee on Housing and Community Development for its next hearing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Matthew Lewis, a spokesperson for pro-housing group California YIMBY, said he felt optimistic about AB 609, but that any effort to reform CEQA would face strong opposition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Former Gov. Jerry Brown called CEQA reform ‘the lord’s work’ and there’s a reason that he framed it that way,” he said. “I would anticipate that, while this first hurdle is important, I don’t think it’s going to be the last one.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>Updated 2:23 p.m. Tuesday\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California lawmakers are introducing a bill that would allow drivers for ride-hailing apps to bargain collectively over pay and working conditions, even as they remain classified as independent contractors for companies such as \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12033648/uber-lyft-withheld-billions-in-pay-california-alleges-settlement-talks-are-underway\">Uber and Lyft\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under the measure, announced Tuesday at a rally with dozens of drivers near the state Capitol, unions that are certified by the state would be able to negotiate with app-based transportation companies on behalf of drivers to resolve disputes and improve working conditions. The California Labor and Workforce Development Agency would enforce the provisions, though details on the process have not yet been worked out, according to a draft of the bill reviewed by KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Independent contractors are not entitled to employee benefits such as minimum wage and overtime. They are also excluded from the National Labor Relations Act, a federal law that grants most private-sector employees the right to collectively bargain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The proposed legislation, AB 1340, would not cover delivery drivers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Assemblymembers Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland) and Marc Berman (D-Menlo Park), who are among several Democratic co-authors of the bill, spoke at Tuesday’s rally.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We stand for the right of every worker to truly have a voice,” Wicks told the crowd of people holding signs that read “Gig Drivers Union Now.” “We’re here today to talk about respecting the voices of our rideshare drivers and offering you the choice to build power in your union. To build power for better wages, to build power for better working conditions, to build power for financial stability in your homes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12033651\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12033651\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/240625-UBERSANJOSE-JG-1-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/240625-UBERSANJOSE-JG-1-1.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/240625-UBERSANJOSE-JG-1-1-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/240625-UBERSANJOSE-JG-1-1-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/240625-UBERSANJOSE-JG-1-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/240625-UBERSANJOSE-JG-1-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/240625-UBERSANJOSE-JG-1-1-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Uber drivers and advocates rally outside the company’s driver support center in South San José on June 25, 2024. \u003ccite>(Joseph Geha/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The Service Employees International Union, which supports AB 1340, backed a similar initiative in Massachusetts that \u003ca href=\"https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/massachusetts-voters-allow-uber-lyft-drivers-unionize-2024-11-06/#:~:text=BOSTON%2C%20Nov%206%20(Reuters),based%20companies%20like%20Uber%20(UBER.\">voters approved\u003c/a> last fall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In California, Uber, Lyft and other gig companies spent more than $200 million to back \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12002988/some-gig-workers-say-they-are-seeing-little-of-prop-22-promises-and-lack-of-enforcement-from-state\">Proposition 22\u003c/a>, a 2020 ballot initiative that exempted them from having to classify their drivers as employees. Studies show employers often save money by hiring independent contractors, as they generally avoid paying for payroll taxes and employee benefits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Drivers overwhelmingly voted for and continue to support Prop. 22 because it is their preferred way to structure benefits and protections,” a Lyft spokesperson said in a statement. “And for years, we’ve been building upon this framework to roll out new products and features designed to improve the driver experience.”[aside postID=news_12034478 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/FederalEmployeeLayoffsGetty-1020x680.jpg']As part of Proposition 22, the gig companies promised that drivers would receive at least 120% of the local minimum wage while giving a ride or doing a delivery, a health care stipend of up to $426 for those that qualified, and accident insurance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An Uber spokesperson said AB 1340, if implemented, would end up increasing the price of rides and suggested that most drivers’ voices may be left out of a union process because only a small proportion work a significant number of hours.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They pointed to \u003ca href=\"https://protectdriversandservices.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/BRG-Economic-Impact-Analysis_FINAL_1.21.25.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a report (PDF)\u003c/a> by the Berkeley Research Group, a consulting firm, that found only 7% of drivers for app-based ride and delivery platforms worked more than 20 hours per week. The research was commissioned by Protect App-Based Drivers & Services, a group that counts Uber and Lyft among its members.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Californians are already feeling the squeeze — and this proposal would drive up rideshare costs even more while threatening the flexible jobs thousands depend on,” the Uber spokesperson said. “Drivers have been clear: they want to stay independent and keep the freedom to choose when and how they work, with access to meaningful benefits.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, at the Sacramento rally, several drivers said their payment for rides has dropped as Uber and Lyft keep a greater share of what customers pay. A \u003ca href=\"https://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/gig-passenger-and-delivery-driver-pay-in-five-metro-areas/\">report by the UC Berkeley Labor Center\u003c/a> last year found that ride-hail drivers in the San Francisco Bay and four other metro areas made less than minimum wage after taking into account expenses and wait times.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11770515\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11770515\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/08/RS38759__M6A2447-qut.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1457\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/08/RS38759__M6A2447-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/08/RS38759__M6A2447-qut-160x121.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/08/RS38759__M6A2447-qut-800x607.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/08/RS38759__M6A2447-qut-1020x774.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/08/RS38759__M6A2447-qut-1200x911.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Uber and Lyft drivers rallied at Uber headquarters in San Francisco in August 2019 before heading to Sacramento to push for legislation classifying them as employees. \u003ccite>(Sruti Mamidanna/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Nick Calabar Jr. of Stockton said that when he started driving for Uber and Lyft 16 years ago, the pay was decent, but now it’s a struggle to survive. During a ride last week that cost the customer $60, Lyft only paid him $14, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“How is that fair? I do all the work, pay for the cost of my car payment each month, cost of charging my vehicle, and not to mention taking all the risks,” Calabar said. “Like thousands of rideshare drivers, working for Uber or Lyft isn’t just a side gig, it’s our job.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The effort to carve a new path for ride-hail drivers to collectively bargain in California comes as attorneys for the state and the cities of San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego are meeting Tuesday for a closed-door \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12033648/uber-lyft-withheld-billions-in-pay-california-alleges-settlement-talks-are-underway\">mediation session\u003c/a> with Lyft. Another is planned with Uber for next month.[aside postID=news_12033648 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/240625-UBERSANJOSE-JG-1-1-1020x680.jpg']The negotiations stem from yearslong lawsuits by the California labor commissioner’s office, as well as the attorney general’s office and the three cities. Those legal challenges allege Uber and Lyft owe potentially billions of dollars in wages and damages to drivers misclassified as independent contractors before Proposition 22 passed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last fall, Massachusetts \u003ca href=\"https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/massachusetts-voters-allow-uber-lyft-drivers-unionize-2024-11-06/#:~:text=BOSTON%2C%20Nov%206%20(Reuters),based%20companies%20like%20Uber%20(UBER.\">became the first state\u003c/a> to allow ride-hail drivers to unionize as independent contractors. The companies did not formally oppose that measure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Massachusetts Department of Labor is drafting regulations on the nuts and bolts of how the measure will work, including what happens if negotiations break down or what behavior constitutes as an unfair labor practice, said Maria O’Brien, who teaches employment law at Boston University.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Even though Uber and Lyft did not formally oppose this, I would be very surprised if they simply rolled over once the regs are issued,” O’Brien said, pointing to companies’ track record of fighting policies they perceived as threats to their revenue and profits. “It wouldn’t surprise me, depending on what the regulations say, if you were to see lawsuits from Uber and Lyft.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For the estimated 70,000 ride-hail drivers in that state, an option to engage in collective negotiations could build on gains achieved through a \u003ca href=\"https://www.mass.gov/info-details/uber-and-lyft-settlement-information-and-frequently-asked-questions\">settlement \u003c/a>between the Massachusetts attorney general’s office and Uber and Lyft last year, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In that deal, the companies agreed to pay a combined total of $175 million, most of it in restitution to drivers who were underpaid. Uber and Lyft must also compensate drivers at least $33.48 per hour for time spent picking up and driving a customer, an amount that will be adjusted annually for inflation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think that the drivers themselves view the settlement as a promising first step, but view the union as a mechanism by which they’re going to get increases going forward,” O’Brien said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>Updated 2:23 p.m. Tuesday\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California lawmakers are introducing a bill that would allow drivers for ride-hailing apps to bargain collectively over pay and working conditions, even as they remain classified as independent contractors for companies such as \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12033648/uber-lyft-withheld-billions-in-pay-california-alleges-settlement-talks-are-underway\">Uber and Lyft\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under the measure, announced Tuesday at a rally with dozens of drivers near the state Capitol, unions that are certified by the state would be able to negotiate with app-based transportation companies on behalf of drivers to resolve disputes and improve working conditions. The California Labor and Workforce Development Agency would enforce the provisions, though details on the process have not yet been worked out, according to a draft of the bill reviewed by KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Independent contractors are not entitled to employee benefits such as minimum wage and overtime. They are also excluded from the National Labor Relations Act, a federal law that grants most private-sector employees the right to collectively bargain.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The proposed legislation, AB 1340, would not cover delivery drivers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Assemblymembers Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland) and Marc Berman (D-Menlo Park), who are among several Democratic co-authors of the bill, spoke at Tuesday’s rally.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We stand for the right of every worker to truly have a voice,” Wicks told the crowd of people holding signs that read “Gig Drivers Union Now.” “We’re here today to talk about respecting the voices of our rideshare drivers and offering you the choice to build power in your union. To build power for better wages, to build power for better working conditions, to build power for financial stability in your homes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12033651\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12033651\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/240625-UBERSANJOSE-JG-1-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/240625-UBERSANJOSE-JG-1-1.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/240625-UBERSANJOSE-JG-1-1-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/240625-UBERSANJOSE-JG-1-1-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/240625-UBERSANJOSE-JG-1-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/240625-UBERSANJOSE-JG-1-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/240625-UBERSANJOSE-JG-1-1-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Uber drivers and advocates rally outside the company’s driver support center in South San José on June 25, 2024. \u003ccite>(Joseph Geha/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The Service Employees International Union, which supports AB 1340, backed a similar initiative in Massachusetts that \u003ca href=\"https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/massachusetts-voters-allow-uber-lyft-drivers-unionize-2024-11-06/#:~:text=BOSTON%2C%20Nov%206%20(Reuters),based%20companies%20like%20Uber%20(UBER.\">voters approved\u003c/a> last fall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In California, Uber, Lyft and other gig companies spent more than $200 million to back \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12002988/some-gig-workers-say-they-are-seeing-little-of-prop-22-promises-and-lack-of-enforcement-from-state\">Proposition 22\u003c/a>, a 2020 ballot initiative that exempted them from having to classify their drivers as employees. Studies show employers often save money by hiring independent contractors, as they generally avoid paying for payroll taxes and employee benefits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Drivers overwhelmingly voted for and continue to support Prop. 22 because it is their preferred way to structure benefits and protections,” a Lyft spokesperson said in a statement. “And for years, we’ve been building upon this framework to roll out new products and features designed to improve the driver experience.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>As part of Proposition 22, the gig companies promised that drivers would receive at least 120% of the local minimum wage while giving a ride or doing a delivery, a health care stipend of up to $426 for those that qualified, and accident insurance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>An Uber spokesperson said AB 1340, if implemented, would end up increasing the price of rides and suggested that most drivers’ voices may be left out of a union process because only a small proportion work a significant number of hours.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They pointed to \u003ca href=\"https://protectdriversandservices.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/BRG-Economic-Impact-Analysis_FINAL_1.21.25.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a report (PDF)\u003c/a> by the Berkeley Research Group, a consulting firm, that found only 7% of drivers for app-based ride and delivery platforms worked more than 20 hours per week. The research was commissioned by Protect App-Based Drivers & Services, a group that counts Uber and Lyft among its members.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Californians are already feeling the squeeze — and this proposal would drive up rideshare costs even more while threatening the flexible jobs thousands depend on,” the Uber spokesperson said. “Drivers have been clear: they want to stay independent and keep the freedom to choose when and how they work, with access to meaningful benefits.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, at the Sacramento rally, several drivers said their payment for rides has dropped as Uber and Lyft keep a greater share of what customers pay. A \u003ca href=\"https://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/gig-passenger-and-delivery-driver-pay-in-five-metro-areas/\">report by the UC Berkeley Labor Center\u003c/a> last year found that ride-hail drivers in the San Francisco Bay and four other metro areas made less than minimum wage after taking into account expenses and wait times.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11770515\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11770515\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/08/RS38759__M6A2447-qut.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1457\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/08/RS38759__M6A2447-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/08/RS38759__M6A2447-qut-160x121.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/08/RS38759__M6A2447-qut-800x607.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/08/RS38759__M6A2447-qut-1020x774.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/08/RS38759__M6A2447-qut-1200x911.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Uber and Lyft drivers rallied at Uber headquarters in San Francisco in August 2019 before heading to Sacramento to push for legislation classifying them as employees. \u003ccite>(Sruti Mamidanna/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Nick Calabar Jr. of Stockton said that when he started driving for Uber and Lyft 16 years ago, the pay was decent, but now it’s a struggle to survive. During a ride last week that cost the customer $60, Lyft only paid him $14, he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“How is that fair? I do all the work, pay for the cost of my car payment each month, cost of charging my vehicle, and not to mention taking all the risks,” Calabar said. “Like thousands of rideshare drivers, working for Uber or Lyft isn’t just a side gig, it’s our job.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The effort to carve a new path for ride-hail drivers to collectively bargain in California comes as attorneys for the state and the cities of San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego are meeting Tuesday for a closed-door \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12033648/uber-lyft-withheld-billions-in-pay-california-alleges-settlement-talks-are-underway\">mediation session\u003c/a> with Lyft. Another is planned with Uber for next month.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The negotiations stem from yearslong lawsuits by the California labor commissioner’s office, as well as the attorney general’s office and the three cities. Those legal challenges allege Uber and Lyft owe potentially billions of dollars in wages and damages to drivers misclassified as independent contractors before Proposition 22 passed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last fall, Massachusetts \u003ca href=\"https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/massachusetts-voters-allow-uber-lyft-drivers-unionize-2024-11-06/#:~:text=BOSTON%2C%20Nov%206%20(Reuters),based%20companies%20like%20Uber%20(UBER.\">became the first state\u003c/a> to allow ride-hail drivers to unionize as independent contractors. The companies did not formally oppose that measure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Massachusetts Department of Labor is drafting regulations on the nuts and bolts of how the measure will work, including what happens if negotiations break down or what behavior constitutes as an unfair labor practice, said Maria O’Brien, who teaches employment law at Boston University.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Even though Uber and Lyft did not formally oppose this, I would be very surprised if they simply rolled over once the regs are issued,” O’Brien said, pointing to companies’ track record of fighting policies they perceived as threats to their revenue and profits. “It wouldn’t surprise me, depending on what the regulations say, if you were to see lawsuits from Uber and Lyft.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For the estimated 70,000 ride-hail drivers in that state, an option to engage in collective negotiations could build on gains achieved through a \u003ca href=\"https://www.mass.gov/info-details/uber-and-lyft-settlement-information-and-frequently-asked-questions\">settlement \u003c/a>between the Massachusetts attorney general’s office and Uber and Lyft last year, she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In that deal, the companies agreed to pay a combined total of $175 million, most of it in restitution to drivers who were underpaid. Uber and Lyft must also compensate drivers at least $33.48 per hour for time spent picking up and driving a customer, an amount that will be adjusted annually for inflation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I think that the drivers themselves view the settlement as a promising first step, but view the union as a mechanism by which they’re going to get increases going forward,” O’Brien said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "Progress By 1,000 Cuts? Housing Legislation Snips Away at California’s Red Tape",
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"content": "\u003cp>When it comes to building California out of its \u003ca href=\"https://lao.ca.gov/LAOEconTax/Article/Detail/793\">housing shortage\u003c/a>, some lawmakers say the devil is most often in the details.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To begin untangling what they describe as a knotted web of regulation, Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, D-Oakland, on Thursday announced an ambitious and wide-ranging package of more than 20 bills from over a dozen authors. Together, the package seeks to surgically remove red tape at nearly every stage of the permitting journey, from application through construction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The goal, Wicks said, is “clearer rules when it comes to housing, faster timelines and fewer bureaucratic hoops.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The package, which includes at least one Republican-authored bill, is mostly technical in nature: cleaning up or extending prior legislation, expanding existing law to additional agencies and closing loopholes. However, it also includes several proposals that touch on third-rail topics in California, including bills to streamline or exempt certain housing projects from environmental or Coastal Commission review.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This bill package represents iteration,” Wicks said of the overall vision. “Taking a deep dive into the weeds and trying to understand what have been the hurdles? Why has this been so hard? Why is it so difficult to actually permit housing and entitle housing and get it up and running?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wicks led that deep dive last year, when she helmed an \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/committees/1470#bills-and-hearings\">Assembly Select Committee\u003c/a> that invited practitioners, experts and others to share their experiences and describe the barriers that come with building new housing, transit and clean energy projects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11914459\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11914459\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/05/Buffy-Wicks-scaled-e1652831452424.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1371\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Assemblymember Buffy Wicks speaks on the floor of the state Assembly in January 2020. \u003ccite>(Krishnia Parker/California State Assembly Democratic Caucus)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Wicks’ report on the committee’s findings, released \u003ca href=\"https://a14.asmdc.org/sites/a14.asmdc.org/files/2025-02/assemblyselectcommitteeonpermittingreform-finalreportwithoutappendices-march2025.pdf\">earlier this month\u003c/a>, outlined a goal: that permitting — any “decision point” where a government must give permission for a new project to proceed — should be timely, transparent and consistently applied.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, perhaps above all, the report noted, it should result in actually getting the project built.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ve become victims in California of making the process the objective; the process is sacred,” said Matt Regan, a policy lead at the business-oriented Bay Area Council, which helped facilitate the hearings, tours and interviews that informed the committee’s white paper. “What [Wicks is] saying is maybe, the end product is more important.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Republican Asm. Josh Hoover, of Folsom, said there’s a lot in the package with which people in his party can agree. Hoover pins some of the blame for California’s spiraling home costs on an “anti-housing majority” that overregulated the industry into gridlock and said this bill package is a welcome retreat from that trend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So, I’ve actually really appreciated the work Asm. Wicks is doing because she really is pushing back against a lot of that,” he said. “The only way we’re actually going to build the homes that we need in California is by reforming a lot of these things and getting rid of a lot of these barriers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Third-rail politics\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>While many of the bills in the package are more narrowly focused on the minutiae of the state’s permitting labyrinths, others take aim at issues long seen as sacrosanct.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of Wicks’ own bills, \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB609\">AB 609\u003c/a>, would exempt infill housing projects, if they’re consistent with local regulations, from review under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). Another bill, \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260SB607\">SB 607\u003c/a> from Democratic San Francisco state Sen. Scott Wiener, removes what proponents describe as duplicative work that’s currently required under CEQA.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12033318\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12033318 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/Bay-Meadows-Sales-Sign.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1500\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/Bay-Meadows-Sales-Sign.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/Bay-Meadows-Sales-Sign-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/Bay-Meadows-Sales-Sign-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/Bay-Meadows-Sales-Sign-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/Bay-Meadows-Sales-Sign-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/Bay-Meadows-Sales-Sign-1920x1440.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Bay Meadows, San Mateo’s largest new development, is transforming a former racetrack into a vibrant community with 1,100 new housing units, commercial spaces, parks and a high school — all still under construction — on Jan. 20, 2015. \u003ccite>(Rachael Myrow/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The landmark \u003ca href=\"https://www.sierraclub.org/sites/www.sierraclub.org/files/sce/sierra-club-california/PDFs/CEQA_Fact_Sheet.pdf\">1970 environmental regulation\u003c/a>, pronounced \u003cem>sea-kwah\u003c/em> in the state’s housing parlance, requires developers to study potential negative impacts for all kinds of projects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But in the half-century since its passage, it’s become a lightning rod in the \u003ca href=\"https://www.califaep.org/docs/CEQA_and_Housing_Report_1-30-19.pdf\">housing debate\u003c/a> — fiercely defended by those who say it has \u003ca href=\"https://ceja.org/what-we-do/green-zones/ceqa-and-housing-development/#:~:text=While%20CEQA%20%E2%80%9Cstreamlining%E2%80%9D%20policies%20have,state's%20housing%20and%20affordability%20crisis.\">very little impact on development\u003c/a> and blasted by those who claim it’s been \u003ca href=\"https://cayimby.org/blog/how-nimbys-hijacked-ceqa/\">hijacked and distorted\u003c/a> to NIMBYists’ ends.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Regan described Wicks’ bill as a “blanket exemption” from the hotly-debated law that gives infill development — housing built within existing urban areas — a “fighting chance to get through the process.”[aside postID=news_12031813 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/240409-SJEncampmentBan-045-BL_qed-1020x680.jpg']A representative of the California Environmental Justice Alliance, which \u003ca href=\"https://ceja.org/what-we-do/green-zones/ceqa-case-studies/\">supports robust CEQA protections\u003c/a>, said the organization was still digesting the bill package and deferred comment to a later date.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Debates over those two bills, however, will likely be rivaled by discussions over a separate yet \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/housing/2024/03/california-coastal-commission-protections/\">equally\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/commentary/2024/06/coastal-housing-protections-california-debate/\">contentious\u003c/a> subject within California housing politics: the Coastal Commission. \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB357\">AB 357\u003c/a> by Asm. David Alvarez, D-Chula Vista, would allow public colleges and universities to forgo commission approval before building student or faculty and staff housing on its properties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alvarez anticipates there’ll be pushback but said the proposal was “the minimum” policymakers could do to address \u003ca href=\"https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/03/29/housing-demand-far-exceeds-supply-california-colleges#:~:text=In%20California%2C%20where%20public%20in,year%20institution%20or%20graduate%20school.\">rising student\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/the-fastest-growing-college-expense-may-not-be-what-people-think/#:~:text=Yet%20neighborhood%20opposition%2C%20zoning%20restrictions,per%20year%20to%203%2C500%20students.&text=%E2%80%9CI%20expect%20you're%20going,monthly%20rent%20there%20is%20%242%2C299.\">housing costs\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Nobody’s saying that you don’t have to go through a process, you do,” Alvarez said of his bill. “Go through the regular process that everybody else goes through, but not the additional process of review by the Coastal Commission.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There will likely be dissent from both state and local governments, too, over bills that impact them, Wicks said, but she welcomed it. “We’re gonna have some really important conversations this year that may touch on some third-rail politics in California,” Wicks said, “but I think it’s time that we have them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Improving the process\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The bulk of the bills are less likely to draw the same kind of attention and are focused on reforming the state’s byzantine permitting processes, which vary from city to city and agency to agency.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB1294\">AB 1294\u003c/a>, from San Francisco Democratic Asm. Matt Haney seeks to smooth some of that variability by requiring the state’s housing department to craft a simplified, universal application, making it easier for developers to operate in a wider range of jurisdictions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12027566\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12027566\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250218-SFDowntown-14-BL.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250218-SFDowntown-14-BL.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250218-SFDowntown-14-BL-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250218-SFDowntown-14-BL-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250218-SFDowntown-14-BL-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250218-SFDowntown-14-BL-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250218-SFDowntown-14-BL-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Assemblymember Matt Haney speaks during a press conference announcing legislation to increase nightlife in Downtown San Francisco to help the recovery of the neighborhood, in Union Square, San Francisco, on Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We have far too complex of a system for folks who want to build new homes in California,” Haney said. “There are still many cities and counties across the state that ask you for all sorts of things up front that cost huge sums of money, take a ton of time and make it very complex and complicated to build new homes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A spokesperson for the League of California Cities declined to comment, saying the organization is “still reviewing the bill package in its totality and considering its potential impact on local governments.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fifteen of the bills aim to improve two other crucial steps in the permitting process: the entitlement and post-entitlement phases, when government agencies give developers the green light to move forward with a proposed project and then supply them with the permits to actually begin building.[aside postID=news_12032734 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/005_KQED_WoodStreet_12162022_qed-1020x680.jpg']Within that cadre, there are two bills — \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB920\">AB 920\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260SB489\">SB 489\u003c/a> — that require either larger cities or state agencies, respectively, to post certain information online.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Others — such as \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB1007\">AB 1007\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB1026\">AB 1026\u003c/a> — shorten the time it takes to approve or deny housing applications or building permits for local governments or investor-owned utilities, respectively.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Corey Smith, executive director of the pro-housing lobbying group, Housing Action Coalition, which is sponsoring AB 1026, described the bill as a “good governance measure” aimed at “getting parity across the board for permit reviews.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB557\">AB 557\u003c/a> expedites factory-built housing by allowing the state, which already conducts building inspections on modular homes, to also oversee installations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All told, Dan Dunmoyer, president and CEO of the California Building Industry Association, which is sponsoring at least seven bills in the package, said most are not “rock-the-world” bills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are chipping away at all the different layers that local governments in the state and others have added,” he said. “There isn’t an omnibus fix-it bill, but there are a collection of measures to, in fact, improve the overarching process.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED housing reporter \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/abandlamudi\">\u003cem>Adhiti Bandlamudi\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> contributed to this report. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfZ-ZKtuSHdeWqxooQwfEcr-oiOpdpJcf2RLZInU7aqjjQlRQ/viewform?embedded=true\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>When it comes to building California out of its \u003ca href=\"https://lao.ca.gov/LAOEconTax/Article/Detail/793\">housing shortage\u003c/a>, some lawmakers say the devil is most often in the details.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To begin untangling what they describe as a knotted web of regulation, Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, D-Oakland, on Thursday announced an ambitious and wide-ranging package of more than 20 bills from over a dozen authors. Together, the package seeks to surgically remove red tape at nearly every stage of the permitting journey, from application through construction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The goal, Wicks said, is “clearer rules when it comes to housing, faster timelines and fewer bureaucratic hoops.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The package, which includes at least one Republican-authored bill, is mostly technical in nature: cleaning up or extending prior legislation, expanding existing law to additional agencies and closing loopholes. However, it also includes several proposals that touch on third-rail topics in California, including bills to streamline or exempt certain housing projects from environmental or Coastal Commission review.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This bill package represents iteration,” Wicks said of the overall vision. “Taking a deep dive into the weeds and trying to understand what have been the hurdles? Why has this been so hard? Why is it so difficult to actually permit housing and entitle housing and get it up and running?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wicks led that deep dive last year, when she helmed an \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/committees/1470#bills-and-hearings\">Assembly Select Committee\u003c/a> that invited practitioners, experts and others to share their experiences and describe the barriers that come with building new housing, transit and clean energy projects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11914459\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11914459\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/05/Buffy-Wicks-scaled-e1652831452424.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1371\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Assemblymember Buffy Wicks speaks on the floor of the state Assembly in January 2020. \u003ccite>(Krishnia Parker/California State Assembly Democratic Caucus)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Wicks’ report on the committee’s findings, released \u003ca href=\"https://a14.asmdc.org/sites/a14.asmdc.org/files/2025-02/assemblyselectcommitteeonpermittingreform-finalreportwithoutappendices-march2025.pdf\">earlier this month\u003c/a>, outlined a goal: that permitting — any “decision point” where a government must give permission for a new project to proceed — should be timely, transparent and consistently applied.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, perhaps above all, the report noted, it should result in actually getting the project built.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ve become victims in California of making the process the objective; the process is sacred,” said Matt Regan, a policy lead at the business-oriented Bay Area Council, which helped facilitate the hearings, tours and interviews that informed the committee’s white paper. “What [Wicks is] saying is maybe, the end product is more important.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Republican Asm. Josh Hoover, of Folsom, said there’s a lot in the package with which people in his party can agree. Hoover pins some of the blame for California’s spiraling home costs on an “anti-housing majority” that overregulated the industry into gridlock and said this bill package is a welcome retreat from that trend.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So, I’ve actually really appreciated the work Asm. Wicks is doing because she really is pushing back against a lot of that,” he said. “The only way we’re actually going to build the homes that we need in California is by reforming a lot of these things and getting rid of a lot of these barriers.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Third-rail politics\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>While many of the bills in the package are more narrowly focused on the minutiae of the state’s permitting labyrinths, others take aim at issues long seen as sacrosanct.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of Wicks’ own bills, \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB609\">AB 609\u003c/a>, would exempt infill housing projects, if they’re consistent with local regulations, from review under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). Another bill, \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260SB607\">SB 607\u003c/a> from Democratic San Francisco state Sen. Scott Wiener, removes what proponents describe as duplicative work that’s currently required under CEQA.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12033318\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12033318 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/Bay-Meadows-Sales-Sign.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1500\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/Bay-Meadows-Sales-Sign.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/Bay-Meadows-Sales-Sign-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/Bay-Meadows-Sales-Sign-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/Bay-Meadows-Sales-Sign-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/Bay-Meadows-Sales-Sign-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/Bay-Meadows-Sales-Sign-1920x1440.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Bay Meadows, San Mateo’s largest new development, is transforming a former racetrack into a vibrant community with 1,100 new housing units, commercial spaces, parks and a high school — all still under construction — on Jan. 20, 2015. \u003ccite>(Rachael Myrow/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The landmark \u003ca href=\"https://www.sierraclub.org/sites/www.sierraclub.org/files/sce/sierra-club-california/PDFs/CEQA_Fact_Sheet.pdf\">1970 environmental regulation\u003c/a>, pronounced \u003cem>sea-kwah\u003c/em> in the state’s housing parlance, requires developers to study potential negative impacts for all kinds of projects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But in the half-century since its passage, it’s become a lightning rod in the \u003ca href=\"https://www.califaep.org/docs/CEQA_and_Housing_Report_1-30-19.pdf\">housing debate\u003c/a> — fiercely defended by those who say it has \u003ca href=\"https://ceja.org/what-we-do/green-zones/ceqa-and-housing-development/#:~:text=While%20CEQA%20%E2%80%9Cstreamlining%E2%80%9D%20policies%20have,state's%20housing%20and%20affordability%20crisis.\">very little impact on development\u003c/a> and blasted by those who claim it’s been \u003ca href=\"https://cayimby.org/blog/how-nimbys-hijacked-ceqa/\">hijacked and distorted\u003c/a> to NIMBYists’ ends.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Regan described Wicks’ bill as a “blanket exemption” from the hotly-debated law that gives infill development — housing built within existing urban areas — a “fighting chance to get through the process.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>A representative of the California Environmental Justice Alliance, which \u003ca href=\"https://ceja.org/what-we-do/green-zones/ceqa-case-studies/\">supports robust CEQA protections\u003c/a>, said the organization was still digesting the bill package and deferred comment to a later date.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Debates over those two bills, however, will likely be rivaled by discussions over a separate yet \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/housing/2024/03/california-coastal-commission-protections/\">equally\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/commentary/2024/06/coastal-housing-protections-california-debate/\">contentious\u003c/a> subject within California housing politics: the Coastal Commission. \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB357\">AB 357\u003c/a> by Asm. David Alvarez, D-Chula Vista, would allow public colleges and universities to forgo commission approval before building student or faculty and staff housing on its properties.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alvarez anticipates there’ll be pushback but said the proposal was “the minimum” policymakers could do to address \u003ca href=\"https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/03/29/housing-demand-far-exceeds-supply-california-colleges#:~:text=In%20California%2C%20where%20public%20in,year%20institution%20or%20graduate%20school.\">rising student\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://hechingerreport.org/the-fastest-growing-college-expense-may-not-be-what-people-think/#:~:text=Yet%20neighborhood%20opposition%2C%20zoning%20restrictions,per%20year%20to%203%2C500%20students.&text=%E2%80%9CI%20expect%20you're%20going,monthly%20rent%20there%20is%20%242%2C299.\">housing costs\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Nobody’s saying that you don’t have to go through a process, you do,” Alvarez said of his bill. “Go through the regular process that everybody else goes through, but not the additional process of review by the Coastal Commission.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There will likely be dissent from both state and local governments, too, over bills that impact them, Wicks said, but she welcomed it. “We’re gonna have some really important conversations this year that may touch on some third-rail politics in California,” Wicks said, “but I think it’s time that we have them.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Improving the process\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The bulk of the bills are less likely to draw the same kind of attention and are focused on reforming the state’s byzantine permitting processes, which vary from city to city and agency to agency.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB1294\">AB 1294\u003c/a>, from San Francisco Democratic Asm. Matt Haney seeks to smooth some of that variability by requiring the state’s housing department to craft a simplified, universal application, making it easier for developers to operate in a wider range of jurisdictions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12027566\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12027566\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250218-SFDowntown-14-BL.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250218-SFDowntown-14-BL.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250218-SFDowntown-14-BL-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250218-SFDowntown-14-BL-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250218-SFDowntown-14-BL-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250218-SFDowntown-14-BL-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250218-SFDowntown-14-BL-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Assemblymember Matt Haney speaks during a press conference announcing legislation to increase nightlife in Downtown San Francisco to help the recovery of the neighborhood, in Union Square, San Francisco, on Tuesday, Feb. 18, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We have far too complex of a system for folks who want to build new homes in California,” Haney said. “There are still many cities and counties across the state that ask you for all sorts of things up front that cost huge sums of money, take a ton of time and make it very complex and complicated to build new homes.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A spokesperson for the League of California Cities declined to comment, saying the organization is “still reviewing the bill package in its totality and considering its potential impact on local governments.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fifteen of the bills aim to improve two other crucial steps in the permitting process: the entitlement and post-entitlement phases, when government agencies give developers the green light to move forward with a proposed project and then supply them with the permits to actually begin building.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Within that cadre, there are two bills — \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB920\">AB 920\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260SB489\">SB 489\u003c/a> — that require either larger cities or state agencies, respectively, to post certain information online.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Others — such as \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB1007\">AB 1007\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB1026\">AB 1026\u003c/a> — shorten the time it takes to approve or deny housing applications or building permits for local governments or investor-owned utilities, respectively.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Corey Smith, executive director of the pro-housing lobbying group, Housing Action Coalition, which is sponsoring AB 1026, described the bill as a “good governance measure” aimed at “getting parity across the board for permit reviews.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260AB557\">AB 557\u003c/a> expedites factory-built housing by allowing the state, which already conducts building inspections on modular homes, to also oversee installations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All told, Dan Dunmoyer, president and CEO of the California Building Industry Association, which is sponsoring at least seven bills in the package, said most are not “rock-the-world” bills.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are chipping away at all the different layers that local governments in the state and others have added,” he said. “There isn’t an omnibus fix-it bill, but there are a collection of measures to, in fact, improve the overarching process.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED housing reporter \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/abandlamudi\">\u003cem>Adhiti Bandlamudi\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> contributed to this report. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cdiv class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__shortcodes__shortcodeWrapper'>\n \u003ciframe\n src='https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfZ-ZKtuSHdeWqxooQwfEcr-oiOpdpJcf2RLZInU7aqjjQlRQ/viewform?embedded=true?embedded=true'\n title='https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfZ-ZKtuSHdeWqxooQwfEcr-oiOpdpJcf2RLZInU7aqjjQlRQ/viewform?embedded=true'\n width='760' height='500'\n frameborder='0'\n marginheight='0' marginwidth='0'>\u003c/iframe>\u003c/div>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "California's Deal With Big Tech on Newsroom Funding Kills Revenue-Sharing Legislation",
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"content": "\u003cp>The Newsom administration, news publishers and major tech players, most notably Google and OpenAI, have reached a deal that will kill two state bills that would have forced tech platforms to share ad revenues with news organizations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The $250 million agreement promises to provide funding over the next five years to newsrooms across California and launch a “National AI Innovation Accelerator.” The accelerator would provide financial resources “and other support” to enable newsrooms to experiment with AI to bolster their work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement, Gov. Gavin Newsom wrote the agreement leverages “substantial tech industry resources without imposing new taxes on Californians.” As part of the deal, the Newsom administration is committing $70 million from the state’s general fund.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You know, politics is about the art of the possible,” said Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland), whose bill, \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB886\">AB 886\u003c/a>, would have forced large tech platforms to pay California newsrooms a portion of their online advertising revenues in exchange for using their content. \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB1327\">SB 1327\u003c/a>, by state Sen. Steve Glazer (D-East Bay), would have levied a 7.25% tax on digital advertising revenue to create a tax credit for newsrooms. This deal effectively tables both bills less than two weeks before the deadline for both to make it to the governor’s desk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I did not want to do something that was going to spend five years in the courts being litigated,” Wicks told KQED. “I’ve taken on tech before, and I’ve had other bills sit in court cases for a long time and in the court system.” \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She added that the state of California is losing newsrooms “every single day. We don’t have time for that. This really, I think, will enable us to get resources into newsrooms quickly.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Glazer was less conciliatory. “This agreement, unfortunately, seriously undercuts our work toward a long term solution to rescue independent journalism,” he wrote in a statement. “There is a stark absence in this announcement of any support for journalism from Meta and Amazon. These platforms have captured the intimate data from Californians without paying for it. Their use of that data in advertising is the harm to news outlets that this agreement should mitigate.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The “News Transformation Fund” established by the deal will be administered by the UC Berkeley School of Journalism, which would distribute funding to California-based state and local news organizations, particularly those serving “news deserts” and underserved and underrepresented communities. “The University and specifically the UC Berkeley School of Journalism stand ready to support this endeavor,” UC President Michael V. Drake said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the first year, Google will deposit $15 million into the new journalism fund, $5 million into the AI accelerator and $10 million toward existing journalism grants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement, Kent Walker, president of global affairs and chief legal officer for Alphabet, the umbrella company that owns Google, wrote, “California lawmakers have worked with the tech and news sectors to develop a collaborative framework to accelerate AI innovation and support local and national businesses and nonprofit organizations.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Google ran an aggressive lobbying campaign against both bills in Sacramento and\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11983333/why-is-google-removing-news-links-for-some-californians\"> even temporarily removed news links\u003c/a> from its search engine in California in reaction to AB 886.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company made similar threats in both \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/google-news-canada-0c12334603bad9d150e6a7ade7002eb1\">Canada\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-55760673#\">Australia\u003c/a> before coming to agreements to contribute to news organizations in both countries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meta followed through on threats to remove news links in both Australia and Canada in response to specific legislative actions in order to influence the terms of legislation. Meta did not respond to a request for comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The agreement has the support of the California News Publishers Association, which represents 700-plus member newsrooms. “This is a first step toward what we hope will become a comprehensive program to sustain local news in the long term, and we will push to see it grow in future years,” CEO Chuck Champion and Board Chair Julie Makinen wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the deal has critics, including Free Press Action Co-CEO Jessica J. Gonzàlez, who wrote: “We are disappointed in this outcome and this process. Good policy is made out in the open, where people can see and participate in the democratic process.” \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The group said the agreement fails to address the harms Silicon Valley has done to journalism in California, noting that “Since 2004, the state has lost 25 percent of its newspapers, total news circulation has plummeted more than 50 percent, and many ethnic media outlets and nonprofit newsrooms have struggled to survive.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Work will begin immediately to set up the AI accelerator and the UC Berkeley-administered fund, with plans to go live in 2025.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The Newsom administration, news publishers and major tech players, most notably Google and OpenAI, have reached a deal that will kill two state bills that would have forced tech platforms to share ad revenues with news organizations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The $250 million agreement promises to provide funding over the next five years to newsrooms across California and launch a “National AI Innovation Accelerator.” The accelerator would provide financial resources “and other support” to enable newsrooms to experiment with AI to bolster their work.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement, Gov. Gavin Newsom wrote the agreement leverages “substantial tech industry resources without imposing new taxes on Californians.” As part of the deal, the Newsom administration is committing $70 million from the state’s general fund.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You know, politics is about the art of the possible,” said Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland), whose bill, \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB886\">AB 886\u003c/a>, would have forced large tech platforms to pay California newsrooms a portion of their online advertising revenues in exchange for using their content. \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB1327\">SB 1327\u003c/a>, by state Sen. Steve Glazer (D-East Bay), would have levied a 7.25% tax on digital advertising revenue to create a tax credit for newsrooms. This deal effectively tables both bills less than two weeks before the deadline for both to make it to the governor’s desk.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I did not want to do something that was going to spend five years in the courts being litigated,” Wicks told KQED. “I’ve taken on tech before, and I’ve had other bills sit in court cases for a long time and in the court system.” \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She added that the state of California is losing newsrooms “every single day. We don’t have time for that. This really, I think, will enable us to get resources into newsrooms quickly.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Glazer was less conciliatory. “This agreement, unfortunately, seriously undercuts our work toward a long term solution to rescue independent journalism,” he wrote in a statement. “There is a stark absence in this announcement of any support for journalism from Meta and Amazon. These platforms have captured the intimate data from Californians without paying for it. Their use of that data in advertising is the harm to news outlets that this agreement should mitigate.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The “News Transformation Fund” established by the deal will be administered by the UC Berkeley School of Journalism, which would distribute funding to California-based state and local news organizations, particularly those serving “news deserts” and underserved and underrepresented communities. “The University and specifically the UC Berkeley School of Journalism stand ready to support this endeavor,” UC President Michael V. Drake said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the first year, Google will deposit $15 million into the new journalism fund, $5 million into the AI accelerator and $10 million toward existing journalism grants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a statement, Kent Walker, president of global affairs and chief legal officer for Alphabet, the umbrella company that owns Google, wrote, “California lawmakers have worked with the tech and news sectors to develop a collaborative framework to accelerate AI innovation and support local and national businesses and nonprofit organizations.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Google ran an aggressive lobbying campaign against both bills in Sacramento and\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11983333/why-is-google-removing-news-links-for-some-californians\"> even temporarily removed news links\u003c/a> from its search engine in California in reaction to AB 886.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company made similar threats in both \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/google-news-canada-0c12334603bad9d150e6a7ade7002eb1\">Canada\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-55760673#\">Australia\u003c/a> before coming to agreements to contribute to news organizations in both countries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Meta followed through on threats to remove news links in both Australia and Canada in response to specific legislative actions in order to influence the terms of legislation. Meta did not respond to a request for comment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The agreement has the support of the California News Publishers Association, which represents 700-plus member newsrooms. “This is a first step toward what we hope will become a comprehensive program to sustain local news in the long term, and we will push to see it grow in future years,” CEO Chuck Champion and Board Chair Julie Makinen wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the deal has critics, including Free Press Action Co-CEO Jessica J. Gonzàlez, who wrote: “We are disappointed in this outcome and this process. Good policy is made out in the open, where people can see and participate in the democratic process.” \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The group said the agreement fails to address the harms Silicon Valley has done to journalism in California, noting that “Since 2004, the state has lost 25 percent of its newspapers, total news circulation has plummeted more than 50 percent, and many ethnic media outlets and nonprofit newsrooms have struggled to survive.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Work will begin immediately to set up the AI accelerator and the UC Berkeley-administered fund, with plans to go live in 2025.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>A $10 billion statewide affordable housing bond has failed to make it to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11992997/here-are-the-state-ballot-measures-californians-will-vote-on-in-november\">the November ballot\u003c/a>, raising worries from housing advocates about funding after the state cut more than a billion dollars from such programs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>AB 1657, introduced by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Berkeley), was poised to be the largest housing-related bond in decades and was widely supported by housing advocates and city officials across California. It would have authorized general obligation bonds to be used for affordable rental housing programs for lower income families and supportive housing for people experiencing homelessness, among other uses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the Legislature had other bonds to consider and a limited capacity for authorizing new borrowing as the state faces a multibillion-dollar budget deficit. Ultimately, two measures dedicating $10 billion each for supporting the renovation of K-12 schools and helping the state \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1991836/can-californias-climate-bond-weather-the-storm-of-state-deficits\">prepare for climate change\u003c/a> won spots on the November ballot, and AB 1657 died in the appropriations committee last week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Corey Smith, executive director of advocacy group Housing Action Coalition, said his organization supported the affordable housing bond.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I would argue housing is a climate issue,” he said to KQED. “It’s a bummer for housing advocates but frankly understandable that the Legislature did need to make tough decisions.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said his organization is still hopeful to get much-needed funding for affordable housing through a $20 billion \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11992046/20-billion-affordable-housing-bond-heads-to-bay-area-voters\">regional bond measure\u003c/a> that will appear on the November ballot after a unanimous vote in late June by the Bay Area Housing Finance Authority. In San Francisco alone, there are hundreds of units already entitled and ready to build but without the funding to start construction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We don’t have a pipeline problem; we just need more money [to build the] housing,” he said. “I fully expect the queue of projects to go faster than the dollars will come in.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label='Related Coverage' tag='affordable-housing']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The potential bond borrowing comes as the state faces a \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/capitol/2024/06/california-budget-deal-4/\">$56 billion revenue gap\u003c/a>, expected to last over the next two years. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s recently signed budget deal cut about $1.1 billion in funding for affordable housing programs and $500 million for student housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In November, Bay Area voters will also vote on whether to make it easier for local municipalities to pass bonds and taxes that fund affordable housing and infrastructure. Right now, those kinds of measures require a two-thirds supermajority, or 66% of residents voting in favor, to pass. Proposition 5 would lower that threshold to 55%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Proposition 33, also appearing in November, would ask voters to decide on expanding rent control. Many local governments are prevented from enacting rent control measures on single family homes and units built after 1955, thanks to the controversial Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act. Voters have already rejected attempts to appeal this act twice in 2018 and 2020, but the AIDS Healthcare Foundation is hoping the third time’s the charm.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>A $10 billion statewide affordable housing bond has failed to make it to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11992997/here-are-the-state-ballot-measures-californians-will-vote-on-in-november\">the November ballot\u003c/a>, raising worries from housing advocates about funding after the state cut more than a billion dollars from such programs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>AB 1657, introduced by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Berkeley), was poised to be the largest housing-related bond in decades and was widely supported by housing advocates and city officials across California. It would have authorized general obligation bonds to be used for affordable rental housing programs for lower income families and supportive housing for people experiencing homelessness, among other uses.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the Legislature had other bonds to consider and a limited capacity for authorizing new borrowing as the state faces a multibillion-dollar budget deficit. Ultimately, two measures dedicating $10 billion each for supporting the renovation of K-12 schools and helping the state \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/science/1991836/can-californias-climate-bond-weather-the-storm-of-state-deficits\">prepare for climate change\u003c/a> won spots on the November ballot, and AB 1657 died in the appropriations committee last week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Corey Smith, executive director of advocacy group Housing Action Coalition, said his organization supported the affordable housing bond.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I would argue housing is a climate issue,” he said to KQED. “It’s a bummer for housing advocates but frankly understandable that the Legislature did need to make tough decisions.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said his organization is still hopeful to get much-needed funding for affordable housing through a $20 billion \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11992046/20-billion-affordable-housing-bond-heads-to-bay-area-voters\">regional bond measure\u003c/a> that will appear on the November ballot after a unanimous vote in late June by the Bay Area Housing Finance Authority. In San Francisco alone, there are hundreds of units already entitled and ready to build but without the funding to start construction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We don’t have a pipeline problem; we just need more money [to build the] housing,” he said. “I fully expect the queue of projects to go faster than the dollars will come in.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The potential bond borrowing comes as the state faces a \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/politics/capitol/2024/06/california-budget-deal-4/\">$56 billion revenue gap\u003c/a>, expected to last over the next two years. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s recently signed budget deal cut about $1.1 billion in funding for affordable housing programs and $500 million for student housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In November, Bay Area voters will also vote on whether to make it easier for local municipalities to pass bonds and taxes that fund affordable housing and infrastructure. Right now, those kinds of measures require a two-thirds supermajority, or 66% of residents voting in favor, to pass. Proposition 5 would lower that threshold to 55%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Proposition 33, also appearing in November, would ask voters to decide on expanding rent control. Many local governments are prevented from enacting rent control measures on single family homes and units built after 1955, thanks to the controversial Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act. Voters have already rejected attempts to appeal this act twice in 2018 and 2020, but the AIDS Healthcare Foundation is hoping the third time’s the charm.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Controversial California Law Meant to Spur New Housing Could Get More Teeth",
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"content": "\u003cp>A controversial California law meant to scare cities into allowing more housing could grow a few more teeth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Attorney General Rob Bonta announced Tuesday that he is sponsoring AB 1893, a bill by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland) that would update the builder’s remedy. The law allows developers to bypass local building rules and receive automatic approval for dense housing developments in jurisdictions that are out of compliance with state housing law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB1893\">AB 1893\u003c/a> updates the original law to reduce the amount of affordable housing required for builder’s remedy projects — from 20% to 10% — and exempt developments with 10 or fewer units from providing any affordable housing at all. It also clarifies where the projects can be located and establishes standards for how large they can be, among other changes.[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Adam Mayberry, architect\"]‘A bill like this would lessen the uncertainty and the risk that developers that have submitted projects are going through.’[/pullquote]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bonta said the bill clarifies “how the builder’s remedy will work in different situations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It provides clear and objective standards, to provide greater guidance, more clarity, more certainty as to when the builder’s remedy applies and when projects must be approved,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By reducing the bill’s requirements and providing legal clarity on a law filled with ambiguities could empower more developers to use the law. And since the builder’s remedy only applies to cities or counties that don’t comply with state housing law, Wicks said the bill should further incentivize those jurisdictions to get in line.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The message to local jurisdictions is very clear: The days of shirking your responsibility to your neighbors are over,” she said. “This bill is not about taking away local control. It’s about creating consequences for ignoring the law.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=\"news_11945744,news_11938267\" label=\"Related Stories\"]Though the builder’s remedy has been on the books since 1990, developers have only recently been willing to use it. That changed, in part, due to a bevy of new housing laws that have been approved over the past half-decade as the state seeks to spur the construction of some \u003ca href=\"https://statewide-housing-plan-cahcd.hub.arcgis.com/\">2.5 million new homes by 2031\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In particular, jurisdictions are required to submit plans to the state every eight years detailing where developers can build new housing. But, because of those recent changes to state law, cities and counties not only have to plan for more housing than ever before, they also have to locate more of that housing in neighborhoods with access to highly-rated schools, grocery stores and transportation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s meant that cities and counties have often had to resubmit plans multiple times.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As of Tuesday, 40% of cities and counties across the state were \u003ca href=\"https://www.hcd.ca.gov/planning-and-community-development/housing-open-data-tools/housing-element-review-and-compliance-report\">out of compliance\u003c/a> with state housing law, and in the Bay Area, 37% were out of compliance — making them potentially vulnerable to builder’s remedy projects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the past two years, \u003ca href=\"https://airtable.com/app9RDx8iUzQMybXB/shrOu16SXIFWr5Bsy/tblCmd5iq08cbtxR8/viwdVopcBuGou2AfK?backgroundColor=green\">at least 93 builder’s remedy projects\u003c/a>, representing 17,000 potential new homes or apartments, have been proposed across California, according to the pro-housing advocacy organization, YIMBY Law, which keeps a running tally — though Sonja Trauss, the organization’s executive director, admits the tally is an undercount.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When a jurisdiction is in compliance with housing element law, that means they’ve made it possible to build the housing that we need,” Wicks said. “That means that they have zoned to ensure there’s enough land where it’s legal to build housing. They’ve removed constraints so that their approval process is more efficient and objective.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even without the update proposed under AB 1893, Trauss said the law has been successful “at motivating cities to get in compliance” with state housing laws.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re looking forward to continuing to see positive results in the courts on projects using the existing program, and also looking forward to the improvements this bill promises in making the builder’s remedy even easier to use to build housing faster,” she wrote in an email.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The projects, however, have faced opposition from cities that have sought to block approvals under the builder’s remedy. In the wealthy Los Angeles-area city of La Cañada Flintridge, for instance, city officials denied an application for a project with 80 mixed-income apartment units, along with hotel and office space, arguing it had “self-certified” its own housing plan, making it immune to the law. Last month, a court \u003ca href=\"https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/attorney-general-bonta-court-orders-la-ca%C3%B1ada-flintridge-follow-state-housing#:~:text=OAKLAND%20%E2%80%94%20California%20Attorney%20General%20Rob,did%20not%20have%20a%20compliant\">ruled against the city\u003c/a>, forcing it to proceed with processing the application.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>AB 1893 clarifies where housing could be built, designating sites already used for housing, retail or office as appropriate and prohibiting projects on or adjacent to industrial sites. It also provides clearer objective standards for development, allowing projects to more than double or sometimes triple the density of housing the jurisdiction currently allows.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All of which should make it easier for developers to make sure their projects can’t be challenged in court, said Muhammad Alameldin, a policy associate with the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It establishes a definitive objective standard,” he said. “This also diminishes the ability for local governments to disapprove projects by adding onerous standards or refusing to process applications.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alameldin said the projects are more likely to be financially feasible by lowering the requirements to provide affordable housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So what the bill hopes to do is that by lowering the threshold, more projects will be proposed,” he said. “By making [the affordable housing requirement] 10%, then projects could start penciling across the state.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One developer, Sasha Zbrozek, wasted no time submitting an application to build a five-unit townhouse on his property in the Bay Area’s Los Altos Hills. But just a month after he submitted it, city officials found it incomplete.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A year later, his project still hasn’t broken ground — a result, he said, of a combination of factors, including high-interest rates and regulatory hurdles. Even with the changes proposed to the builder’s remedy, Zbrozek said it’s unlikely to spur enough housing to make a dent in the state’s affordability crisis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’ve realized that if I want to build homes, that it will need to be in a different state that has fewer and more favorable laws,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>A controversial California law meant to scare cities into allowing more housing could grow a few more teeth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Attorney General Rob Bonta announced Tuesday that he is sponsoring AB 1893, a bill by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland) that would update the builder’s remedy. The law allows developers to bypass local building rules and receive automatic approval for dense housing developments in jurisdictions that are out of compliance with state housing law.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB1893\">AB 1893\u003c/a> updates the original law to reduce the amount of affordable housing required for builder’s remedy projects — from 20% to 10% — and exempt developments with 10 or fewer units from providing any affordable housing at all. It also clarifies where the projects can be located and establishes standards for how large they can be, among other changes.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘A bill like this would lessen the uncertainty and the risk that developers that have submitted projects are going through.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bonta said the bill clarifies “how the builder’s remedy will work in different situations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It provides clear and objective standards, to provide greater guidance, more clarity, more certainty as to when the builder’s remedy applies and when projects must be approved,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>By reducing the bill’s requirements and providing legal clarity on a law filled with ambiguities could empower more developers to use the law. And since the builder’s remedy only applies to cities or counties that don’t comply with state housing law, Wicks said the bill should further incentivize those jurisdictions to get in line.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The message to local jurisdictions is very clear: The days of shirking your responsibility to your neighbors are over,” she said. “This bill is not about taking away local control. It’s about creating consequences for ignoring the law.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Though the builder’s remedy has been on the books since 1990, developers have only recently been willing to use it. That changed, in part, due to a bevy of new housing laws that have been approved over the past half-decade as the state seeks to spur the construction of some \u003ca href=\"https://statewide-housing-plan-cahcd.hub.arcgis.com/\">2.5 million new homes by 2031\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In particular, jurisdictions are required to submit plans to the state every eight years detailing where developers can build new housing. But, because of those recent changes to state law, cities and counties not only have to plan for more housing than ever before, they also have to locate more of that housing in neighborhoods with access to highly-rated schools, grocery stores and transportation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s meant that cities and counties have often had to resubmit plans multiple times.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As of Tuesday, 40% of cities and counties across the state were \u003ca href=\"https://www.hcd.ca.gov/planning-and-community-development/housing-open-data-tools/housing-element-review-and-compliance-report\">out of compliance\u003c/a> with state housing law, and in the Bay Area, 37% were out of compliance — making them potentially vulnerable to builder’s remedy projects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the past two years, \u003ca href=\"https://airtable.com/app9RDx8iUzQMybXB/shrOu16SXIFWr5Bsy/tblCmd5iq08cbtxR8/viwdVopcBuGou2AfK?backgroundColor=green\">at least 93 builder’s remedy projects\u003c/a>, representing 17,000 potential new homes or apartments, have been proposed across California, according to the pro-housing advocacy organization, YIMBY Law, which keeps a running tally — though Sonja Trauss, the organization’s executive director, admits the tally is an undercount.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When a jurisdiction is in compliance with housing element law, that means they’ve made it possible to build the housing that we need,” Wicks said. “That means that they have zoned to ensure there’s enough land where it’s legal to build housing. They’ve removed constraints so that their approval process is more efficient and objective.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even without the update proposed under AB 1893, Trauss said the law has been successful “at motivating cities to get in compliance” with state housing laws.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re looking forward to continuing to see positive results in the courts on projects using the existing program, and also looking forward to the improvements this bill promises in making the builder’s remedy even easier to use to build housing faster,” she wrote in an email.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The projects, however, have faced opposition from cities that have sought to block approvals under the builder’s remedy. In the wealthy Los Angeles-area city of La Cañada Flintridge, for instance, city officials denied an application for a project with 80 mixed-income apartment units, along with hotel and office space, arguing it had “self-certified” its own housing plan, making it immune to the law. Last month, a court \u003ca href=\"https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/attorney-general-bonta-court-orders-la-ca%C3%B1ada-flintridge-follow-state-housing#:~:text=OAKLAND%20%E2%80%94%20California%20Attorney%20General%20Rob,did%20not%20have%20a%20compliant\">ruled against the city\u003c/a>, forcing it to proceed with processing the application.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>AB 1893 clarifies where housing could be built, designating sites already used for housing, retail or office as appropriate and prohibiting projects on or adjacent to industrial sites. It also provides clearer objective standards for development, allowing projects to more than double or sometimes triple the density of housing the jurisdiction currently allows.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>All of which should make it easier for developers to make sure their projects can’t be challenged in court, said Muhammad Alameldin, a policy associate with the Terner Center for Housing Innovation at UC Berkeley.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It establishes a definitive objective standard,” he said. “This also diminishes the ability for local governments to disapprove projects by adding onerous standards or refusing to process applications.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alameldin said the projects are more likely to be financially feasible by lowering the requirements to provide affordable housing.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So what the bill hopes to do is that by lowering the threshold, more projects will be proposed,” he said. “By making [the affordable housing requirement] 10%, then projects could start penciling across the state.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One developer, Sasha Zbrozek, wasted no time submitting an application to build a five-unit townhouse on his property in the Bay Area’s Los Altos Hills. But just a month after he submitted it, city officials found it incomplete.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A year later, his project still hasn’t broken ground — a result, he said, of a combination of factors, including high-interest rates and regulatory hurdles. Even with the changes proposed to the builder’s remedy, Zbrozek said it’s unlikely to spur enough housing to make a dent in the state’s affordability crisis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’ve realized that if I want to build homes, that it will need to be in a different state that has fewer and more favorable laws,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>California’s oil industry has once again quashed an attempt in the state Capitol to increase penalties on refineries that violate air quality laws.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s the fourth time in a decade that the industry has successfully killed or delayed such an endeavor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The latest proposal was put on hold last week, just days before the Legislature finishes its work for the year on Sept. 14. Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland), who authored the \u003ca href=\"https://legiscan.com/CA/bill/AB1465/2023\">bill\u003c/a>, said the move was prompted by concerns some lawmakers would vote against it because it wasn’t weakened enough to satisfy California’s main oil industry group, the Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It became apparent that we were going to need more time to work on AB 1465 with our sponsor, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, and with opposition groups who engaged us on the possibility of additional amendments,” Wicks said in an email on Friday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>WSPA represents the oil companies that own all of the Bay Area’s petroleum refineries. The region’s Chevron, Valero, PBF, Marathon and Phillips 66 plants have for decades produced gasoline and jet fuels that have powered major components of the region’s transportation sector. But they have also received \u003ca href=\"https://www.baaqmd.gov/rules-and-compliance/compliance-assistance/notices-of-violations/novs-issued\">hundreds of notices of violations\u003c/a> from local air regulators in recent years, stemming from minor flaring incidents to severe accidents that forced nearby residents to stay indoors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those incidents prompted Wicks to propose tripling the maximum penalty amounts oil companies would pay when their refineries violate air quality regulations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Asm. Buffy Wicks at a July 11 hearing\"]‘This morning in Martinez, which I drive through on my way here, there was a toxic dust release. This is happening in our communities all the time.’[/pullquote]There are a variety of fine amounts refineries can face, but the general limit on those fines is currently $10,000. Environmentalists and some Bay Area elected leaders have described those penalties as part of the mere cost of doing business for companies like \u003ca href=\"https://chevroncorp.gcs-web.com/static-files/359d5f9b-5519-476e-976c-8ace50143c49\">Chevron, which earned $6 billion in the second quarter of this year\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wicks’ bill would increase the ceiling on fines to $30,000 per violation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But WSPA has opposed any attempts to crack down on air quality violations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And even before Wicks sidelined the bill last week, the industry group had already convinced legislators to significantly change the proposal several months ago by expanding its scope. Under the changes, the fines would also apply to dozens of industrial facilities that release chemicals into the air, including refineries, that are covered by Title V of the federal Clean Air Act. In the Bay Area there are \u003ca href=\"https://www.baaqmd.gov/permits/major-facility-review-title-v/title-v-permits\">dozens of such sites\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is no public policy rationale for singling out refineries,” wrote Shant Apekian, vice president of California policy and strategic affairs at WSPA, in a letter to Wicks in April.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While that complaint arose this spring, lawmakers did not amend the bill until June — and not everyone was happy with the change. Several industry and public agency associations, including the California Association of Sanitation Agencies, urged legislators to vote “no” on the bill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Unlike refineries, which are privately held for-profit corporations, public wastewater agencies provide an essential public service and all costs to the agency, including penalties, are borne by the rate-paying public,” the group wrote to legislators.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But even though lawmakers in the Senate approved the change, WSPA continued to fight against the bill. It’s a debate that has taken place behind closed doors — not in public committees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In fact, the bill has \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billVotesClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB1465\">sailed through all of its legislative votes\u003c/a> and was headed for a full vote in the state Senate when, last week, Wicks abruptly asked that the proposal be moved to the “inactive file,” essentially scuttling any debate or votes until next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those involved in conversations with Wicks and WSPA say that decision was driven by a push by the petroleum association to make the proposal effective only in rare cases — in WSPA’s words, only when “discharge results in a significant increase in hospitalizations, residential displacement, shelter in place, evacuation or destruction of property.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But air district officials say that definition is too narrow, because refineries often violate air regulations in less extreme incidents that are still dangerous to human health. They argue the standard the industry is arguing for won’t actually provide a deterrent or change how refineries do business.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label='Related Stories' tag='refineries']For example, last November the PBF refinery in Martinez \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11952517/martinez-refinery-chemical-release-poses-no-long-term-hazard-tests-find\">released nearly 50,000 pounds of powdered, industrial chemicals, much of it landing on residential neighborhoods\u003c/a>. The accident led to investigations by the EPA, FBI, Contra Costa County regulators and the air district.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under the changes the oil industry wants to make, that release would not be covered by the proposed fine increases, local air regulators said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In our view, the purpose of the bill is to strengthen penalties for those types of events, not to protect them,” said air district spokeswoman Kristine Roselius, adding that the changes proposed by WSPA “would have provided an economic incentive to large facilities such as refineries, to downplay events as they were happening if they felt they could avoid higher penalties.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If this kind of successful pushback sounds similar, that’s because it has happened every time a refinery fine increase proposal has emerged in Sacramento over the last decade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last year, just as another Wicks bill to do something similar was about to get a vote in the state Senate, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11923242/watered-down-state-bill-to-punish-refinery-pollution-gets-scrapped-after-oil-industry-pushback\">she killed it because it was watered down so much\u003c/a> that even the industry dropped its opposition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2018, Sen. Bill Dodd (D-Napa) proposed tripling some of the most serious penalties for refineries. Amid opposition from the oil industry — and, on the other side, pushback from environmentalists and the mayors of Richmond and Benicia, who said the proposal wasn’t strong enough — \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11660005/facing-widespread-opposition-lawmaker-ends-effort-to-increase-refinery-penalties\">that bill never even got a hearing\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2013, then state Sen. Loni Hancock (D-Berkeley) introduced legislation to raise such penalties on the heels of a major fire at Richmond’s Chevron refinery, the worst refinery accident in the Bay Area in the last few decades. That bill died on the Assembly floor, also after opposition from oil companies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But even as the debate rages on in Sacramento, the problem for communities around these refineries persists. The day Wicks presented this year’s bill — at its final hearing before a Senate committee — the Contra Costa County refinery owned by PBF Energy released petroleum coke dust. Some residents described the dust as a “flaky ash.” The pollution came eight months after a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11952517/martinez-refinery-chemical-release-poses-no-long-term-hazard-tests-find\">much more severe chemical release from the same facility\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This morning in Martinez, which I drive through on my way here, there was a toxic dust release,” Wicks said at the July 11 hearing. “This is happening in our communities all the time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>California’s oil industry has once again quashed an attempt in the state Capitol to increase penalties on refineries that violate air quality laws.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s the fourth time in a decade that the industry has successfully killed or delayed such an endeavor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The latest proposal was put on hold last week, just days before the Legislature finishes its work for the year on Sept. 14. Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland), who authored the \u003ca href=\"https://legiscan.com/CA/bill/AB1465/2023\">bill\u003c/a>, said the move was prompted by concerns some lawmakers would vote against it because it wasn’t weakened enough to satisfy California’s main oil industry group, the Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It became apparent that we were going to need more time to work on AB 1465 with our sponsor, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, and with opposition groups who engaged us on the possibility of additional amendments,” Wicks said in an email on Friday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>WSPA represents the oil companies that own all of the Bay Area’s petroleum refineries. The region’s Chevron, Valero, PBF, Marathon and Phillips 66 plants have for decades produced gasoline and jet fuels that have powered major components of the region’s transportation sector. But they have also received \u003ca href=\"https://www.baaqmd.gov/rules-and-compliance/compliance-assistance/notices-of-violations/novs-issued\">hundreds of notices of violations\u003c/a> from local air regulators in recent years, stemming from minor flaring incidents to severe accidents that forced nearby residents to stay indoors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those incidents prompted Wicks to propose tripling the maximum penalty amounts oil companies would pay when their refineries violate air quality regulations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>There are a variety of fine amounts refineries can face, but the general limit on those fines is currently $10,000. Environmentalists and some Bay Area elected leaders have described those penalties as part of the mere cost of doing business for companies like \u003ca href=\"https://chevroncorp.gcs-web.com/static-files/359d5f9b-5519-476e-976c-8ace50143c49\">Chevron, which earned $6 billion in the second quarter of this year\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wicks’ bill would increase the ceiling on fines to $30,000 per violation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But WSPA has opposed any attempts to crack down on air quality violations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And even before Wicks sidelined the bill last week, the industry group had already convinced legislators to significantly change the proposal several months ago by expanding its scope. Under the changes, the fines would also apply to dozens of industrial facilities that release chemicals into the air, including refineries, that are covered by Title V of the federal Clean Air Act. In the Bay Area there are \u003ca href=\"https://www.baaqmd.gov/permits/major-facility-review-title-v/title-v-permits\">dozens of such sites\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is no public policy rationale for singling out refineries,” wrote Shant Apekian, vice president of California policy and strategic affairs at WSPA, in a letter to Wicks in April.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While that complaint arose this spring, lawmakers did not amend the bill until June — and not everyone was happy with the change. Several industry and public agency associations, including the California Association of Sanitation Agencies, urged legislators to vote “no” on the bill.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Unlike refineries, which are privately held for-profit corporations, public wastewater agencies provide an essential public service and all costs to the agency, including penalties, are borne by the rate-paying public,” the group wrote to legislators.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But even though lawmakers in the Senate approved the change, WSPA continued to fight against the bill. It’s a debate that has taken place behind closed doors — not in public committees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In fact, the bill has \u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billVotesClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB1465\">sailed through all of its legislative votes\u003c/a> and was headed for a full vote in the state Senate when, last week, Wicks abruptly asked that the proposal be moved to the “inactive file,” essentially scuttling any debate or votes until next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those involved in conversations with Wicks and WSPA say that decision was driven by a push by the petroleum association to make the proposal effective only in rare cases — in WSPA’s words, only when “discharge results in a significant increase in hospitalizations, residential displacement, shelter in place, evacuation or destruction of property.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But air district officials say that definition is too narrow, because refineries often violate air regulations in less extreme incidents that are still dangerous to human health. They argue the standard the industry is arguing for won’t actually provide a deterrent or change how refineries do business.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>For example, last November the PBF refinery in Martinez \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11952517/martinez-refinery-chemical-release-poses-no-long-term-hazard-tests-find\">released nearly 50,000 pounds of powdered, industrial chemicals, much of it landing on residential neighborhoods\u003c/a>. The accident led to investigations by the EPA, FBI, Contra Costa County regulators and the air district.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under the changes the oil industry wants to make, that release would not be covered by the proposed fine increases, local air regulators said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In our view, the purpose of the bill is to strengthen penalties for those types of events, not to protect them,” said air district spokeswoman Kristine Roselius, adding that the changes proposed by WSPA “would have provided an economic incentive to large facilities such as refineries, to downplay events as they were happening if they felt they could avoid higher penalties.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If this kind of successful pushback sounds similar, that’s because it has happened every time a refinery fine increase proposal has emerged in Sacramento over the last decade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last year, just as another Wicks bill to do something similar was about to get a vote in the state Senate, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11923242/watered-down-state-bill-to-punish-refinery-pollution-gets-scrapped-after-oil-industry-pushback\">she killed it because it was watered down so much\u003c/a> that even the industry dropped its opposition.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2018, Sen. Bill Dodd (D-Napa) proposed tripling some of the most serious penalties for refineries. Amid opposition from the oil industry — and, on the other side, pushback from environmentalists and the mayors of Richmond and Benicia, who said the proposal wasn’t strong enough — \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11660005/facing-widespread-opposition-lawmaker-ends-effort-to-increase-refinery-penalties\">that bill never even got a hearing\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2013, then state Sen. Loni Hancock (D-Berkeley) introduced legislation to raise such penalties on the heels of a major fire at Richmond’s Chevron refinery, the worst refinery accident in the Bay Area in the last few decades. That bill died on the Assembly floor, also after opposition from oil companies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But even as the debate rages on in Sacramento, the problem for communities around these refineries persists. The day Wicks presented this year’s bill — at its final hearing before a Senate committee — the Contra Costa County refinery owned by PBF Energy released petroleum coke dust. Some residents described the dust as a “flaky ash.” The pollution came eight months after a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11952517/martinez-refinery-chemical-release-poses-no-long-term-hazard-tests-find\">much more severe chemical release from the same facility\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This morning in Martinez, which I drive through on my way here, there was a toxic dust release,” Wicks said at the July 11 hearing. “This is happening in our communities all the time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "Newsom Signs Bill Paving Way to Build New Student Housing at People's Park in Berkeley",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was first published Aug. 30 and updated Friday, Sept. 8 at 3:45 p.m.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill this week aimed at clearing the way for construction of a controversial UC Berkeley \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/health-california-berkeley-university-of-c0b263490acde542c3a67a656a56d02e\">student housing project in Berkeley’s historic People’s Park\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billVotesClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB1307\">AB 1307\u003c/a>, which takes effect immediately, amends California’s sweeping Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) by no longer requiring housing developers to first study potential noise levels generated by future tenants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“California will not allow NIMBYism to take hold, blocking critically needed housing for years and even decades,” Newsom said in a statement about the new law, which both houses of the state Legislature unanimously approved last month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bill, introduced by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland), whose district includes Berkeley, also eliminates the need for universities to prepare an environmental impact report that considers alternative housing sites for residential or mixed-use housing projects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The law makes it clear that “people are not pollution,” Wicks said in a statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>https://youtu.be/W6X3EI70U5g\u003c/p>\n\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wicks authored the legislation after an appeals court in February blocked the university from breaking ground on the project, ruling that it had failed to study potential noise issues and consider alternative sites. The state Supreme Court in May agreed to hear the case and will make the final ruling on whether the university can resume construction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The controversial $312 million project would create sorely needed housing for some 1,100 UC Berkeley students. A separate facility would also house roughly 125 of the unhoused people that currently live on the 2.8-acre site south of campus that is owned by the university.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom filed an amicus brief in April urging the state Supreme Court to allow UC Berkeley to continue with the housing project.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A UC Berkeley spokesperson said the university will ask the Supreme Court to consider the new law in its ruling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The campus will resume construction of the People’s Park project when the lawsuit is resolved and hopes that the new law will substantially hasten the resolution of the lawsuit,” UC spokesperson Dan Mogulof said in a statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last month, Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguín called the passage of the bill a big win.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is a victory for affordable housing and that means it’s a victory in our ongoing efforts to tackle homelessness,” he said in a press release on Aug. 28. “These laws were designed to protect the environment, but they’re most often used to stop dense, infill projects which add affordable housing while reducing sprawl and pollution. These are the types of projects which, at scale, help fight the housing crisis which has been a leading cause of homelessness.”[aside label=\"more people's park coverage\" tag=\"peoples-park\"]But opponents of the project say the bill effectively rewards UC Berkeley for its failure to comply with longstanding state environmental regulations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People’s Park is a National Register of Historic Places site and deserves individual and special attention, and therefore this should be required in an analysis of alternative sites, which would not in any conceivable way obstruct California’s housing needs — needs that we acknowledge to be real,” leaders of the People’s Park Historic District Advocacy Group and the Make UC A Good Neighbor, the two main opposition groups that have been embroiled in ongoing litigation with the university over the project, wrote in a letter to the state Assembly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the letter, the two groups argue that the university has identified other locations for student housing that would provide more units than what is currently proposed for the park. They also emphasize that, despite their opposition to the project, they support the development of more housing for students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is no need for this legislation since there is a path forward for UCB to build the much-needed student and supportive housing on a site other than People’s Park, thus preserving a nationally recognized historical resource and a valuable public open space,” the groups stated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The university has tried for decades to build housing at the park, but those efforts have been met with fierce resistance from opponents. The latest failed attempt to break ground, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11921415/protesters-block-construction-at-berkeleys-peoples-park-after-standoff-with-police\">last August\u003c/a>, spurred major protests, including several violent clashes with law enforcement and the wholesale destruction of major construction equipment that had been brought onto the site.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“While CEQA was a groundbreaking law developed to protect the environment at the time of its passage in 1970, in recent decades the process has been used to block projects for non-environmental reasons,” the city said in a statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story includes reporting from Bay City News, The Associated Press and KQED’s Marnette Federis.\u003c/em>\u003cbr>\n[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was first published Aug. 30 and updated Friday, Sept. 8 at 3:45 p.m.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill this week aimed at clearing the way for construction of a controversial UC Berkeley \u003ca href=\"https://apnews.com/article/health-california-berkeley-university-of-c0b263490acde542c3a67a656a56d02e\">student housing project in Berkeley’s historic People’s Park\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billVotesClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240AB1307\">AB 1307\u003c/a>, which takes effect immediately, amends California’s sweeping Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) by no longer requiring housing developers to first study potential noise levels generated by future tenants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“California will not allow NIMBYism to take hold, blocking critically needed housing for years and even decades,” Newsom said in a statement about the new law, which both houses of the state Legislature unanimously approved last month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bill, introduced by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland), whose district includes Berkeley, also eliminates the need for universities to prepare an environmental impact report that considers alternative housing sites for residential or mixed-use housing projects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The law makes it clear that “people are not pollution,” Wicks said in a statement.\u003c/p>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutube'>\n \u003cspan class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__embedYoutubeInside'>\n \u003ciframe\n loading='lazy'\n class='utils-parseShortcode-shortcodes-__youtubeShortcode__youtubePlayer'\n type='text/html'\n src='//www.youtube.com/embed/W6X3EI70U5g'\n title='//www.youtube.com/embed/W6X3EI70U5g'\n allowfullscreen='true'\n style='border:0;'>\u003c/iframe>\n \u003c/span>\n \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\u003cp>\u003cp> \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Wicks authored the legislation after an appeals court in February blocked the university from breaking ground on the project, ruling that it had failed to study potential noise issues and consider alternative sites. The state Supreme Court in May agreed to hear the case and will make the final ruling on whether the university can resume construction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The controversial $312 million project would create sorely needed housing for some 1,100 UC Berkeley students. A separate facility would also house roughly 125 of the unhoused people that currently live on the 2.8-acre site south of campus that is owned by the university.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom filed an amicus brief in April urging the state Supreme Court to allow UC Berkeley to continue with the housing project.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A UC Berkeley spokesperson said the university will ask the Supreme Court to consider the new law in its ruling.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The campus will resume construction of the People’s Park project when the lawsuit is resolved and hopes that the new law will substantially hasten the resolution of the lawsuit,” UC spokesperson Dan Mogulof said in a statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last month, Berkeley Mayor Jesse Arreguín called the passage of the bill a big win.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is a victory for affordable housing and that means it’s a victory in our ongoing efforts to tackle homelessness,” he said in a press release on Aug. 28. “These laws were designed to protect the environment, but they’re most often used to stop dense, infill projects which add affordable housing while reducing sprawl and pollution. These are the types of projects which, at scale, help fight the housing crisis which has been a leading cause of homelessness.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>But opponents of the project say the bill effectively rewards UC Berkeley for its failure to comply with longstanding state environmental regulations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“People’s Park is a National Register of Historic Places site and deserves individual and special attention, and therefore this should be required in an analysis of alternative sites, which would not in any conceivable way obstruct California’s housing needs — needs that we acknowledge to be real,” leaders of the People’s Park Historic District Advocacy Group and the Make UC A Good Neighbor, the two main opposition groups that have been embroiled in ongoing litigation with the university over the project, wrote in a letter to the state Assembly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the letter, the two groups argue that the university has identified other locations for student housing that would provide more units than what is currently proposed for the park. They also emphasize that, despite their opposition to the project, they support the development of more housing for students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is no need for this legislation since there is a path forward for UCB to build the much-needed student and supportive housing on a site other than People’s Park, thus preserving a nationally recognized historical resource and a valuable public open space,” the groups stated.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The university has tried for decades to build housing at the park, but those efforts have been met with fierce resistance from opponents. The latest failed attempt to break ground, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11921415/protesters-block-construction-at-berkeleys-peoples-park-after-standoff-with-police\">last August\u003c/a>, spurred major protests, including several violent clashes with law enforcement and the wholesale destruction of major construction equipment that had been brought onto the site.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“While CEQA was a groundbreaking law developed to protect the environment at the time of its passage in 1970, in recent decades the process has been used to block projects for non-environmental reasons,” the city said in a statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>This story includes reporting from Bay City News, The Associated Press and KQED’s Marnette Federis.\u003c/em>\u003cbr>\n\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"source": "City Arts & Lectures"
},
"link": "https://www.cityarts.net",
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},
"closealltabs": {
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"order": 1
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"title": "Code Switch / Life Kit",
"info": "\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em>, which listeners will hear in the first part of the hour, has fearless and much-needed conversations about race. Hosted by journalists of color, the show tackles the subject of race head-on, exploring how it impacts every part of society — from politics and pop culture to history, sports and more.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em>, which will be in the second part of the hour, guides you through spaces and feelings no one prepares you for — from finances to mental health, from workplace microaggressions to imposter syndrome, from relationships to parenting. The show features experts with real world experience and shares their knowledge. Because everyone needs a little help being human.\u003cbr />\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510312/codeswitch\">\u003cem>Code Switch\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />\u003ca href=\"https://www.npr.org/lifekit\">\u003cem>Life Kit\u003c/em> offical site and podcast\u003c/a>\u003cbr />",
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"id": "commonwealth-club",
"title": "Commonwealth Club of California Podcast",
"info": "The Commonwealth Club of California is the nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum. As a non-partisan forum, The Club brings to the public airwaves diverse viewpoints on important topics. The Club's weekly radio broadcast - the oldest in the U.S., dating back to 1924 - is carried across the nation on public radio stations and is now podcasting. Our website archive features audio of our recent programs, as well as selected speeches from our long and distinguished history. This podcast feed is usually updated twice a week and is always un-edited.",
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"source": "Commonwealth Club of California"
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5jb21tb253ZWFsdGhjbHViLm9yZy9hdWRpby9wb2RjYXN0L3dlZWtseS54bWw",
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"title": "Forum",
"tagline": "The conversation starts here",
"info": "KQED’s live call-in program discussing local, state, national and international issues, as well as in-depth interviews.",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Forum-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"order": 9
},
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM5NTU3MzgxNjMz",
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"meta": {
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},
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/freakonomics-radio/id354668519",
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},
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"id": "fresh-air",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=214089682&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"hidden-brain": {
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"info": "Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7pm-8pm",
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"source": "NPR"
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"how-i-built-this": {
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"title": "How I Built This with Guy Raz",
"info": "Guy Raz dives into the stories behind some of the world's best known companies. How I Built This weaves a narrative journey about innovators, entrepreneurs and idealists—and the movements they built.",
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"airtime": "SUN 7:30pm-8pm",
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"link": "/radio/program/how-i-built-this",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/how-i-built-this-with-guy-raz/id1150510297?mt=2",
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"hyphenacion": {
"id": "hyphenacion",
"title": "Hyphenación",
"tagline": "Where conversation and cultura meet",
"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
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"order": 15
},
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},
"jerrybrown": {
"id": "jerrybrown",
"title": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown",
"tagline": "Lessons from a lifetime in politics",
"info": "The Political Mind of Jerry Brown brings listeners the wisdom of the former Governor, Mayor, and presidential candidate. Scott Shafer interviewed Brown for more than 40 hours, covering the former governor's life and half-century in the political game – and Brown has some lessons he'd like to share. ",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-Political-Mind-of-Jerry-Brown-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"meta": {
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"order": 18
},
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},
"latino-usa": {
"id": "latino-usa",
"title": "Latino USA",
"airtime": "MON 1am-2am, SUN 6pm-7pm",
"info": "Latino USA, the radio journal of news and culture, is the only national, English-language radio program produced from a Latino perspective.",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/latinoUsa.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "http://latinousa.org/",
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"link": "/radio/program/latino-usa",
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"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?s=143441&mt=2&id=79681317&at=11l79Y&ct=nprdirectory",
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"rss": "https://feeds.npr.org/510016/podcast.xml"
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},
"marketplace": {
"id": "marketplace",
"title": "Marketplace",
"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 4pm-4:30pm, MON-WED 6:30pm-7pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Marketplace-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.marketplace.org/",
"meta": {
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"source": "American Public Media"
},
"link": "/radio/program/marketplace",
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},
"masters-of-scale": {
"id": "masters-of-scale",
"title": "Masters of Scale",
"info": "Masters of Scale is an original podcast in which LinkedIn co-founder and Greylock Partner Reid Hoffman sets out to describe and prove theories that explain how great entrepreneurs take their companies from zero to a gazillion in ingenious fashion.",
"airtime": "Every other Wednesday June 12 through October 16 at 8pm (repeats Thursdays at 2am)",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://mastersofscale.com/",
"meta": {
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"rss": "https://rss.art19.com/masters-of-scale"
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},
"mindshift": {
"id": "mindshift",
"title": "MindShift",
"tagline": "A podcast about the future of learning and how we raise our kids",
"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/Mindshift-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
"imageAlt": "KQED MindShift: How We Will Learn",
"officialWebsiteLink": "/mindshift/",
"meta": {
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 12
},
"link": "/podcasts/mindshift",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vS1FJTkM1NzY0NjAwNDI5",
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},
"morning-edition": {
"id": "morning-edition",
"title": "Morning Edition",
"info": "\u003cem>Morning Edition\u003c/em> takes listeners around the country and the world with multi-faceted stories and commentaries every weekday. Hosts Steve Inskeep, David Greene and Rachel Martin bring you the latest breaking news and features to prepare you for the day.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3am-9am",
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"link": "/radio/program/morning-edition"
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"onourwatch": {
"id": "onourwatch",
"title": "On Our Watch",
"tagline": "Deeply-reported investigative journalism",
"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/On-Our-Watch-Podcast-Tile-703x703-1.jpg",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
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"source": "kqed",
"order": 11
},
"link": "/podcasts/onourwatch",
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"google": "https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5ucHIub3JnLzUxMDM2MC9wb2RjYXN0LnhtbD9zYz1nb29nbGVwb2RjYXN0cw",
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},
"on-the-media": {
"id": "on-the-media",
"title": "On The Media",
"info": "Our weekly podcast explores how the media 'sausage' is made, casts an incisive eye on fluctuations in the marketplace of ideas, and examines threats to the freedom of information and expression in America and abroad. For one hour a week, the show tries to lift the veil from the process of \"making media,\" especially news media, because it's through that lens that we see the world and the world sees us",
"airtime": "SUN 2pm-3pm, MON 12am-1am",
"imageSrc": "https://ww2.kqed.org/radio/wp-content/uploads/sites/50/2018/04/onTheMedia.png",
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"meta": {
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"source": "wnyc"
},
"link": "/radio/program/on-the-media",
"subscribe": {
"apple": "https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/on-the-media/id73330715?mt=2",
"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/On-the-Media-p69/",
"rss": "http://feeds.wnyc.org/onthemedia"
}
},
"pbs-newshour": {
"id": "pbs-newshour",
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"info": "Analysis, background reports and updates from the PBS NewsHour putting today's news in context.",
"airtime": "MON-FRI 3pm-4pm",
"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/PBS-News-Hour-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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},
"link": "/radio/program/pbs-newshour",
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"tuneIn": "https://tunein.com/radio/PBS-NewsHour---Full-Show-p425698/",
"rss": "https://www.pbs.org/newshour/feeds/rss/podcasts/show"
}
},
"perspectives": {
"id": "perspectives",
"title": "Perspectives",
"tagline": "KQED's series of daily listener commentaries since 1991",
"info": "KQED's series of daily listener commentaries since 1991.",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "/perspectives/",
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"order": 14
},
"link": "/perspectives",
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