Archinect - News

Barack Obama calls for a housing revolution at the 2024 Democratic National Convention

2024-08-21T15:54:00-04:00

Calling on lawmakers to do away with the "outdated laws and regulations that made it harder to build homes for working people," former U.S. President Barack Obama thrilled audience members with an impassioned plea for mass-scale housing production at the 2024 Democratic National Convention last night in Chicago. One comment ("Right now, we are building housing this big. But we need to start building housing this big") has earned him a new viral reputation as a "YIMBY."

The rallying cry echoes remarks made two years ago at the 2022 AIA Conference on Architecture, namely about the intersection between housing justice, social inequality, and government policy that architects inhabit being intractable. Both the embattled single-family and expanding multi-family markets shrank by 6% and 14.4%, respectively, last year, according to Census Bureau data.

Presidential candidate Kamala Harris' plan to build three million new homes in four years faces a considerable amount of obstacles related...

Backed by SB4, church groups prepare to make housing their mission in LA

2024-08-20T11:17:00-04:00

The Archdiocese of L.A. announced Wednesday it will partner with a newly formed nonprofit called Our Lady Queen of Angels Housing Alliance to develop affordable housing in Southern California. Their first project — located on Archdiocese land currently used by Catholic Charities — will construct affordable apartments next to L.A. City College for community college students and youth transitioning out of foster care.

The transitional housing project at Los Angeles City College joins another for Pasadena City College that will enable better access to higher education for the 30,000 youths enrolled in L.A. County’s foster care system currently. Statewide there are 171,749 acres of developable land owned by nonprofit colleges or faith-based organizations, according to the UC Berkeley Terner Center for Housing Innovation’s assessment from a year ago.

SB4, motivated by the national “Yes in God’s Backyard” (which began in San Diego, eases the process for churches and nonprofit organizations can build housing at sites that previously had been limited by lot size restrictions and the California Environmental Quality Act (or CEQA).

The article mentions a separate state report, which found that one-quarter of all community college students in California experience homelessness at some point during the school year.

Terner Center's report on construction defect liability turns a new page for California housing reformers

2024-07-26T11:48:00-04:00

The latest report from UC Berkeley’s Terner Center for Housing Innovation on the stasis of multifamily developments in California has identified existing construction defect liability laws as a barrier to enabling housing justice statewide.

This issue involves the risk taken on by developers of condominium projects and particularly affects BIPOC communities who are less likely to be homeowners than their peers. California’s policies are therein compared to others in the United States and Canada. The findings will help lead to legal reforms to increase homeownership and should be considered especially by architects working in the state's surging multifamily market.