Archinect - News

New Terner Center study assesses the impact of SB 4's implementation in California

2023-09-16T10:37:00-04:00

A new study from the University of California, Berkeley’s Terner Center for Housing Innovation has uncovered over 171,749 acres of developable land owned by nonprofit colleges or faith-based organizations in the state, bolstering the aims of the “Yes in God’s Backyard” movement as it pushes Governor Gavin Newsom to sign SB 4 by the end of next month.

The bill passed the state senate along with the related SB 423 on Monday. If signed into law, it would streamline the process by which churches and other nonprofit organizations can enact housing at sites that previously had been limited by local land use restrictions and the California Environmental Quality Act (or CEQA).

Supporters of the measure have said it will help increase housing in much-needed communities where displacement and homelessness have become the norm as rising expenses and pushback on the part of local municipalities in the wake of SB 9 threaten to derail efforts statewide.

Previously on Archinect: Plan to let churc...

California passes law allowing affordable housing to bypass approval processes

2022-10-04T12:27:00-04:00

California Governor Gavin Newsom has signed into law a major reform to homebuilding in the state. The Affordable Housing and High Road Jobs Act, signed on September 28th, will override local zoning codes to allow for more affordable housing units to be built on land previously zoned for commercial use.

From July 1, 2023, certain residential projects comprised of 100% affordable housing will be granted “by right,” overriding local zoning laws and bypassing the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) approval process. To qualify, the affordable housing project must be located in commercial corridors, occupying land otherwise typically used for strip malls and parking lots.

Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, a leading proponent of the legislation, celebrated the bill’s passage into law by citing an independent analysis claiming it has the capacity to produce between 30...

California passes new copyright protection law for publicly-available architectural drawings

2022-09-21T15:00:00-04:00

California’s state legislature has passed a bill sponsored by the American Institute of Architects California (AIACA) that will limit public access to copyrighted architectural drawings for the first time.

The recently-signed SB 1214 concerns drawings that were submitted to local and state government offices and will take effect on January 1st, 2023. San Francisco-based architect Cary Bernstein is the member who initiated the act and says it will enhance the protections already provided by the Federal Copyright Act that are not properly being upheld by planning processes within the state.

“The law balances California's Ralph M. Brown Act which ensures the public's right ‘to attend and participate in meetings of local legislative bodies’ with long-standing federal copyright laws that protect architectural drawings,” Bernstein said in a statement. “I happen to love law, and this issue allowed me to indulge my interest through a project for [the chapter].”

Drawings, site plans, and ot...

'Despair is useless': Mike Davis reflects on California, the climate crisis, life, and legacy as he faces his own mortality

2022-09-13T18:44:00-04:00

I’ve seen miracles happen. I’ve seen ordinary people do the most heroic things. When you’ve had the privilege of knowing so many great fighters and resisters, you can’t lay down the sword, even if things seem objectively hopeless.

The terminally-ill City of Quartz author sat down recently with The Guardian to discuss his waning health and look back at prescient early warnings of the state’s slow-motion social and ecological demise that has taken three decades to manifest. True to form, Davis was critical of everything: from “fascist” LA novelist Raymond Chandler to Governor Gavin Newsom’s penchant for arrogating his administration’s response to the climate crisis that has been exacerbated by even increasingly harmful and foolhardy attempts to mitigate the housing crisis in Los Angels and other non-urban areas across the state.

Related Feature Interview on Archinect: Meeting Mike Davis

“Our ruling classes everywhere have no rational analysis or explanation for the immediate future,” he said. “A small group of people have more concentrated power over the human future than ever before in human history, and they have no vision, no strategy, no plan. It’s not just global warming, and drought, it’s the fact that two...

LA County may soon have a new dedicated agency to address its affordable housing woes

2022-08-30T10:00:00-04:00

The ongoing housing crisis in Los Angeles County may soon become the subject of a new dedicated government agency after the California State Assembly voted on Wednesday to approve SB 679.

If signed into law, the bill would authorize the county to create an entity called the Los Angeles County Affordable Housing Solutions Agency (or LACAHSA) that seeks to address the crisis through a consolidated approach the bill’s author, Democratic State Senator Sydney Kamlager, described as “clear, focused, [and] integrated” when compared to the current system’s diffuse and ineffective nature.

A recent LA Times editorial op-ed mentioned that the bill was amended to include provisions for union contractors in line with the city’s Project Labor Agreement as well as an exemption from the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), which is often used cynically as a means of preventing such developments. The editorial also pointed out that funding for the agency, to which the bill allocates a tota...

California unveils water security strategy to prevent 10% loss in supply by 2040

2022-08-16T11:20:00-04:00

California Governor Gavin Newsom has unveiled a new plan to enable the state to secure its water supply in the face of a hotter, drier climate. The strategy is in response to a prediction that California’s existing water supply could diminish by up to 10% by 2040, the equivalent of losing more than the full volume of the state’s largest reservoir, Shasta Lake.

The strategy, contained in a 16-page document, includes four pillars. New storage space for up to 4 million acre-feet of water will be created, allowing the state to collect water during storms to store and use during drier periods. The state will also aim to recycle and reuse at least 800,000 acre-feet of water per year by 2030, water that is currently discharged to the ocean.

Meanwhile, 500,000 acre-feet of water will be unlocked by permanently eliminating water waste and using water more efficiently, while new water will also be made available by capturing stormwater, as well as desalinating ocean water and salty water in ...

California high-speed rail project secures critical $4.2B for Central Valley line

2022-07-06T13:41:00-04:00

After wrangling over the future of California’s high-speed rail, state lawmakers plan to release a critical batch of money to finish a bullet train in the Central Valley while also establishing an inspector general to audit the beleaguered project and authorizing billions of dollars in new money for rail plans across the state.

Following a sizable $97.5 billion state budget surplus, California lawmakers last week agreed to allocate $4.2 billion in bond funds needed to finish the ambitious high-speed rail project's 171-mile Central Valley portion which is expected to connect Bakersfield with Merced by 2030, according to current estimates.

Can the pace of San Francisco's affordable housing development help it pass state hurdles?

2022-04-08T12:59:00-04:00

San Francisco’s housing element, which will be before the planning commission for a hearing Thursday, must meet a tall order. Not only must it plan for 82,000 units but it also must create a blueprint for “fair housing.” That means that a significant amount of the new residential development must occur in “well-resourced” neighborhoods where discrimination and zoning rules have historically combined to keep out newcomers and new buildings.

The city’s compliance with the recommendations in the state-manded RHNA (or Regional Housing Needs Assessment) plan would mean tripling its current housing stock by the year 2031. It would also change the socio-economic fabric of the shifting neighborhood schematic, as a total of 85% of all new developments have gone into just seven of San Francisco’s 36 official districts since Gavin Newsome’s first year as mayor in 2005.

“This is the first plan that is treating housing as a right, as a foundation for health and the economy,” planning director Miriam Chion boasted. “We have produced substantial housing around downtown. Now there is a different demand, a different ask, a different requirement, which is to create a different housing footprint of mid-sized and small multi-family housing throughout high-resource neighborhoods.”

Previously on Archinect: California demands Los Angeles County rezone for 255,000 new housing units... by mid-October

The draft report is due to the California D...

California's high-speed rail project could be going in a new direction

2022-03-15T12:12:00-04:00

14 years after voters approved a nearly $10 billion bond to start building the rail system that would whisk riders from Los Angeles to San Francisco at speeds of more than 200 miles per hour, many California residents have long since lost track of what is being built where, and when or if it will ever be completed. “We’re teetering on the edge,” said Ashley Swearengin, a former mayor of Fresno who now leads the Central Valley Community Foundation. “We could get it right.”

The budget for the California high-speed rail project has now swelled to more than double its originally proposed cost of $40 billion from fourteen years ago. Construction on a 31-mile segment of the project has already begun near Fresno in the Central Valley.

The fight now is over whether or not to complete the segment, which would run through only three counties; or, as the state’s Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon is calling for, to focus on the “bookends” (San Fransico and Los Angeles) in a cost-saving venture that would maintain at least some portion of the rail’s original intent and purpose to unite the two most populous nodes.

“The project is by all objective measures in distress,” Rendon told the Times. “Connecting the two largest urban areas in the state is the best thing we can do from an environmental standpoint and an economic development standpoint. To link two cities in the Central Valley would doom the project.”

...

Gov. Newsom orders two-month delay on evictions in California

2020-03-30T11:23:00-04:00

With April 1 fast approaching, Gov. Gavin Newsom and the L.A. City Council on Friday expanded efforts to prevent residential evictions during the coronavirus pandemic.... Through an executive order, Newsom announced a two-month delay on residential evictions for those who can’t pay their rent as a result of the virus — the first statewide action he has taken on evictions during the outbreak.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the City Council voted to prevent landlords from evicting tenants affected by the coronavirus. The order covers those who have lost their jobs because of the coronavirus and those who need to take care of their children due to school closures. However, renters will have to pay back the rent they miss in the subsequent months after the order expires, the Los Angeles Times reports.

Gov. Newsom releases executive order that allows California to commandeer hotels and medical facilities

2020-03-12T18:02:00-04:00

California Gov. Gavin Newsom released a sweeping executive order on Thursday that allows the state to commandeer hotels and medical facilities to treat coronavirus patients and permits government officials to hold teleconferences in private without violating open meeting laws. Newsom issued the order hours after he called for the cancellation of gatherings of 250 or more people, marking the first time he has applied so-called social distancing practices to the entire state of California.

According to the Los Angeles Times, the governor said 198 people tested positive for COVID-19 in California and that the executive order will enhance the state's ability to fight the pandemic going forward. Additionally, the order also granted a 60-day extension for people or businesses to file state taxes if they are unable to do so due to the outbreak, the Los Angeles Times reports.

Gehry-designed Second Century Project for Warner Bros. breaks ground

2020-01-16T15:02:00-05:00

Warner Bros. on Tuesday officially broke ground on a pair of Frank Gehry-designed office towers, which when completed will mark a major expansion of the Burbank-based movie and TV studio’s headquarters. [...] The construction endeavor is part of a larger expansion of Warner Bros.’ footprint in the area that includes the acquisition of Burbank Studios.

The groundbreaking ceremony for the high-profile Second Century Project was joined by California Governor Gavin Newsom, Burbank's new Mayor Sharon Springer, Warner Bros. Chair and CEO Ann Sarnoff, and architect Frank Gehry himself.

Yesterday, Gov. @GavinNewsom and Burbank Mayor Sharon Springer joined Warner Bros. Chair and CEO Ann Sarnoff, architect @frankogehry and Worthe Real Estate’s Jeffrey Worthe at groundbreaking on two new Gehry-designed office buildings for Warner Bros.’ expanded campus. pic.twitter.com/b5mFWNj8Tq
— Warner Bros. (@warnerbros) January 15, 2020

"It’s a legendary site," L.A. Daily News quotes Frank Gehry, who will be 91 next month, saying at the event. "I’ve been here many times over the years — not as a movie star or anything like that — and Warner Bros. is a legendary company. We have to create a legendary building for all this legendary history."

Rendering: Sora, image courtesy of Gehry Partners, LLP.

The two office towers, designed to appear as "icebergs flo...

CA Gov. Gavin Newsom proposes $1.4 billion solution to help the homeless

2020-01-10T10:58:00-05:00

Citing the need to act quickly to get homeless Californians off the streets, Gov. Gavin Newsom will ask lawmakers this week to allocate more than $1.4 billion to a variety of local and state-run efforts, with much of the money earmarked as subsidies for immediate housing and community healthcare services.

The $1.4 billion will be used to pay for monthly rents, construct shelters, and provide treatment to those in need. “Homelessness is a national crisis, one that’s spreading across the West Coast and cities across the country,” Newsom said in a statement, according to the Los Angeles Times. “The state of California is treating it as a real emergency — because it is one. Californians are demanding that all levels of government — federal, state and local — do more to get people off the streets and into services — whether that’s emergency housing, mental health services, substance abuse treatment or all of the above.”

Plans for LA Clippers arena in Inglewood move ahead

2020-01-03T14:27:00-05:00

Gov. Gavin Newsom has approved fast-tracking the billion-dollar arena complex the Clippers want to build in Inglewood, as plans for the project continue to advance. [...] The Madison Square Garden Co., which owns the Forum less than two miles away, called the arena plan “deeply flawed” and pledged to continue its fight against the project.

Designs for the proposed $1.2 billion basketball arena by AECOM were first unveiled in July last year.

"The Clippers, owned by billionaire Steve Ballmer, will install 330 electric vehicle chargers at the arena, fund 1,000 residential chargers in the surrounding area, purchase two electric buses and 10 electric vehicles for Inglewood’s municipal fleet, and plant 1,000 trees as part of its agreement with CARB," Daily Breeze reports. "The arena is expected to meet a Gold standard under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification program."

Image courtesy of the Los Angeles Clippers

If approved and completed, the 18,000-seat venue would become the new Inglewood home of the Los Angeles Clippers, just in time for the 2024-25 NBA season and coinciding with the end of the team's lease with its current home, the Staples Center in Downtown Los Angeles.

The planned arena is located near the currently under-construction Los Angeles Rams football stadium designed by HKS...