Archinect - News

Your next career could be Staff Architect at Habitat for Humanity in Indianapolis

2024-03-08T11:25:00-05:00

Following last week’s look at an opening for a Japanese-speaking Retail Architect at O’Neil Langan Architects, we are using this week’s edition of our Job Highlights series to explore an open role on Archinect Jobs for a Staff Architect at Greater Indy Habitat for Humanity.

Based in Indianapolis, the role calls for an individual “responsible for overseeing the design and modifications of house plans and layouts to provide a cost-effective product that will serve the homebuyers' needs.” Among the requirements for the role are a college degree or commensurate residential construction-related experience with 5-10 years of specifically related experience and education.

Related on Archinect: Mississippi State University studio teaches the value of collaboration between its architecture and building construction science students. Photo: Megan Bean, courtesy of MSU College of Art, Architecture, and Design.

Why the role interests us

The open role at Greater Indy Habitat for Humanity offers u...

Mayors across U.S. voice their struggles in tackling housing crisis and homelessness

2023-01-20T12:29:00-05:00

Mayors across a variety of American towns and cities have used the U.S. Conference of Mayors to voice concerns about their ability to address the dual crises of housing affordability and homelessness. As reported by Politico, specific struggles shared by mayors include attracting investors, housing density, and racial disparities.

“At the end of the day, as mayors, people aren’t looking to their senators to solve homelessness,” San Francisco Mayor London Breed told the conference in Washington, D.C. “They’re not looking to their state legislators to solve homelessness. They’re looking to their mayor.”

Meanwhile, Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney warned that “parasitic” investors, who either undervalue or abandon properties, exclusively operate short-term rentals, flip homes, or price individual families out of the housing market, are having a detrimental impact across the city, including in low-income an...

Stefano Boeri releases documentary about 'world’s first social housing vertical forest'

2021-12-22T14:59:00-05:00

Stefano Boeri Architetti has released a short documentary on the Trudo Vertical Forest, which the firm bills as “the first social housing vertical forest in the world.” Built in the Dutch city of Eindhoven, the project draws its inspiration from the firm’s Bosco Verticale in Milan.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Stefano Boeri Architetti (@stefanoboeriarchitetti)

The 19-story tower rises 230 feet (70 meters) and contains 125 apartments designed to accommodate long-income users, particularly young couples. In addition, thirty homes in the building have been reserved for asylum seekers, political refugees, and people with disabilities.

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Stefano Boeri Architetti (@stefanoboeriarchitetti)

The facades are adorned with 135 trees of various species as well as 10,000 shrubs and plants. To service the extensive greenery, the scheme contains four collection tanks housing 20,000 liters of rainwater eac...

White House announces measures to encourage US affordable housing delivery

2021-09-02T14:52:00-04:00

The Biden administration has announced a range of measures intended to address the US housing crisis. The measures, which do not require congressional approval, and are separate from measures included in the pending infrastructure bill, aim to built and preserve 100,000 affordable homes over the next three years.

Among the measures would be an expansion in the Capital Magnet Fund grant program to support Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) seeking to build affordable homes. Both CDFIs and non-profit housing groups would be eligible for funding from the program, which this year made $383 million available for affordable housing production.

The measures would also seek to accelerate the development of manufactured housing, which are factory-built before transported to site. To aid this, the Biden administration will encourage state and local governments to reduce zoning and financing re...

Berlin to vote on radical idea to fight housing crisis

2021-07-01T12:10:00-04:00

Berlin is to hold a referendum on a grassroots proposal that would force major property companies to sell thousands of their apartments to a public-owned body. A public petition for the idea, fueled by anger over surging housing prices, has gathered 183,711 valid signatures, which is more than the 172,000 required to put the question to a public vote in the city.

The idea, proposed by the “Expropriate Deutsche Wohnen & Co." initiative, would target companies with more than 3,000 apartments in their portfolio, and would likely see more than 240,000 homes placed under a public agency that would be required to administer the homes “democratically, transparently, and in the public interest.”

The campaign comes after rising anger in the German capital over the cost of housing. More than 80% of Berlin’s 3.7 million residents are renters, rather than homeowners. Property prices in the city have risen by nearly 85% between 2007 and 2019, driven by the capital’s attractiveness to investor...

7 steps for ending homelessness proposed by AIA Los Angeles

2021-06-30T12:30:00-04:00

The American Institute of Architects Los Angeles (AIALA) has published a set of strategies urging LA city leaders to tackle the city’s homelessness and affordable housing crisis. The“House All Angelenos” Call-to-Action urges officials to adopt seven strategies aimed at accelerating the construction of affordable homes, and facilitate a more diverse, resilient housing portfolio for the 66,000 residents that lack adequate shelter in the region. The strategies encompass changes to zoning, subsidies, definitions of dwellings, and requirements for developers to provide affordable housing in new developments.

"On a daily basis, architects create supportive, affordable, and market-rate housing throughout the Los Angeles area. It is our responsibility to share the expertise we have garnered with our region at this time of crisis," says AIALA President Wade Killefer, FAIA. “While these strategies lead to housing for those currently without, they also elevate life for all Angelenos. They imp...

U.S. needs additional 5.5 million housing units, says report

2021-06-22T12:06:00-04:00

The United States needs to construct an additional 5.5 million housing units to compensate for a slowdown in housebuilding over the past two decades, according to a report by the National Association of Realtors. The housing lobby group, who published the report last week, says that “the scale of underbuilding and the existing demand-supply gap is enormous, and will require a major national commitment to build more housing of all types by expanding resources, addressing barriers to new development, and making new housing construction an integral part of a national infrastructure strategy."

The report details the extent to which the U.S. residential construction sector has been lagging for the past two decades. While the supply of housing grew at an average annual rate of 1.7% from 1968 to 2000, this slowed to 1% in the last two decades, and only 0.7% in the last decade alone.

Due to this slowdown, the report estimates that the country has built 5.5 million fewer housing units th...

Habitat for Humanity builds its first 3D-printed house in the U.S.

2021-06-15T10:21:00-04:00

Habitat for Humanity is progressing on their first 3D-printed home in the United States. Overseen by Habitat for Humanity Central Arizona, the single-story home is currently under construction in the city of Tempe, Arizona. The global housing non-profit sees the project as an important step in their future for delivering affordable housing across the country.

Image: Habitat for Humanity

The home is being built using a combination of 3D printing and traditional construction. Between 70-80% of the home will be 3D printed, including the internal and external walls, all using a Build on Demand Printer (BOD 2) shipped from Germany-based PERI Group. The printer works in three dimensions, with an XY axis allowing horizontal construction, and a raising and lowering of the printing frame to allow vertical construction. This gantry principle allows the printer to move into any position within the structure to build inner and outer walls layer-by-layer.

Image: Habitat for Humanity

Health and...

Edward Killingsworth-designed office building to be converted to essential service center by Studio One Eleven

2020-07-28T20:29:00-04:00

Long Beach-based Studio One Eleven has announced plans to convert a former medical office designed by midcentury modern architect Edward Killingsworth into an "essential service center" that will provide services for needy families as well as food for area residents experiencing food insecurity.

The facility will comprise the new home of St. Francis Center, a group of Secular Franciscans who have operated a neighborhood-serving facility in the area since 1970. The group's facilities temporary shut down in 2017 and are now set to reopen in October 2020 when work on the project is complete.

According to the architects, the renovated structure will "allow St. Francis Center to resume its crucial mission of providing food, clothing and emergency assistance in a nurturing atmosphere." The 5,400-square-foot complex is set to include a commercial kitchen, offices for employment and family consulting services, meeting spaces, and storage to provide clothing to the homeless, according to ...

Trump administration terminates Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule

2020-07-23T18:29:00-04:00

United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Ben Carson has finalized a plan to dismantle the Obama-era Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) regulation that sought to rectify entrenched racial and economic segregation in American suburbs.

The AFH ruling was crafted during the administration of Barack Obama as part of an effort to more effectively enforce the 1968 Fair Housing Act legislation. The AFH rule required suburbs to plan for addressing segregation at risk of losing key HUD funding and was meant to support wider desegregation efforts.

The latest directive, long in the making, relieves municipalities of their duty to address patterns of segregation within their boundaries and is being effectively replaced with a new directive titled Preserving Community and Neighborhood Choice, a rule that grants municipalities much more leeway in meeting softened AFH guidelines. The shift represents the latest aspect of a life-long effort by President Don...

Developers Tishman Speyer launch affordable housing platform

2020-07-23T12:52:00-04:00

Development group Tishman Speyer has announced the creation of a new "affordable housing platform" within its organization designed to spur the development of new affordable housing projects across the New York City area.

Real Estate Weekly reports that Tishman Speyer has hired real estate executive Gary Rodney to "source opportunities to acquire, redevelop, and engage in ground-up construction of quality housing that is affordable to low- and middle-income New Yorkers throughout the five boroughs."

Rodney comes to Tishman Speyer after serving as Chairman of development firm CREA, LLC and after a previous run as President of the New York City Housing Development Corporation (HDC), a key player in New York City's affordable housing market. The creation of this new affordable housing arm comes as the New York City region pushes to increase the number of affordable housing units developed across the area.

COVID-19, lapses in federal support delay L.A.'s landmark affordable housing initiative

2020-07-01T10:42:00-04:00

Already sharply criticized for its slow progress and rising costs, the $1.2-billion bond program is in a new slump. A Times analysis of data from the Los Angeles Housing and Community Investment Department shows that 57 projects have fallen behind schedule since January. Of those, 21 were pushed back more than six months.

Doug Smith of The Los Angeles Times checks in on the progress (or lack thereof) on a variety of affordable housing projects initiated through the L.A.'s Proposition HHH bill. The report states that delays caused by COVID-19 have been exacerbated in recent months due to a shortage of Section 8 housing vouchers, leaving many projects unable to move forward with design and construction.

John Arnold, a partner with Killefer Flammang Architects, tells Smith that the firm's HHH projects have been impacted by the various slowdowns, explaining, “The general feeling is everything is slow.”

OMA/Jason Long and YA Studio to design 100% affordable housing project in San Francisco

2020-06-10T14:12:00-04:00

New York City-based OMA/ Jason Long and San Francisco-based Y.A. Studio were recently selected by the Chinatown Community Development Center (CCDC) and the Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation (TNDC) to design a 150-unit "deeply affordable" housing complex in San Francisco's Haight Ashbury neighborhood.

The project's 38,000-square-foot site is situated at the entry to Golden Gate Park, a picturesque 1,000-acre park that stretches across San Francisco's west side. Ultimately, the architects write, the project will bring much-needed senior and family housing and "a sense of comfort and the feeling of independence and dignity" to the area.

Aerial view of the project site. Image courtesy of OMA.

In a press release announcing the project, OMA Partner Jason Long writes, “This project will create over 150 homes for families and seniors who might otherwise be pushed out of the city. Haight-Ashbury became famous as a place for the community to gather, convene and mobilize, and th...

North America's largest Passive House affordable housing complex

2020-06-04T12:50:00-04:00

Bronx - Park Avenue Green is a 15-story Passive House certified housing complex designed by New York City-based Curtis + Ginsberg Architects. The 154-unit complex is considered the largest Passive House certified building in North America as well as the largest Passive House affordable housing complex on the continent.

The brick and metal panel-wrapped tower features simple, streamlined massing. Photo courtesy of Curtis + Ginsberg Architects.

Developed by Omni achieved Passive House with $48.4 million in funding provided by the New York City Housing Development Corporation and the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development, the development represents an example of a private-public partnership.

The building's ground level is set back from the street. Photo courtesy of Curtis + Ginsberg Architects.

The spartan, brick-and-metal-panel-wrapped tower features structural insulation that helps maintain a high level of environmental performance for the building alongside ...

NYCHA privatizes management of 5,900 units to fund needed repairs

2020-02-18T13:02:00-05:00

The New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) has struck a deal with five different private developers that will hand over the management and repair duties for seven public housing complexes to the selected companies in exchange for $1.5 billion in repairs.

The deal will impact 5,908 housing units spread across NYCHA's Linden Houses, Boulevard Houses, Williamsburg Houses, Bethune Gardens, Marshall Plaza, Audubon Houses, and Harlem River Houses 1 and 2 in Brooklyn and Manhattan.

In a statement highlighting the deal, NYCHA chairman and CEO Greg Russ said, “We are excited to announce the development teams that will partner with us in meeting the capital need of more than $1.5 billion associated with these NYCHA campuses ... [the developers] will be instrumental in completing the renovations our residents need and deserve.”

The Harlem River Houses, one of the complexes being handed over for private management. Image courtesy of Wikimedia user Beyond My Ken.

New York City Deputy Mayor Vick...

New York Botanical Garden to build affordable housing complex in The Bronx

2020-02-12T14:57:00-05:00

The New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) and Douglaston Development have announced a plan to build a two-towered, 450-unit affordable housing complex on garden-owned site located one block away from its 250-acre facilities in The Bronx.

Real Estate Weekly explains that the project comes as a result of Douglaston signing a 99-year lease with NYBG for the right to develop the property. The development will bring two 12-story residential towers to the area that will offer below market-rate and senior housing units. The two towers will be connected at ground level by a 20,000-square-foot community-serving grocery store, according to the plan. The site is currently occupied by a collection of brick commercial buildings that include an existing Cherry Valley grocery store that will be relocated during construction and then moved back in as the two-phased project is completed.

Previously on Archinect: "Brooklyn Botanic Garden protests shadow-casting skyscraper with “Fight for Sunlight” exhib...

Berlin's progressive rent-freeze and building expropriation movement gains steam

2020-02-05T15:25:00-05:00

Beginning in early 2020, Berlin’s left-leaning government will freeze rents for five years. Landlords will be required to show new tenants the most recent rental contracts to prove they aren’t jacking up prices. They’ll also have to follow new rent-cap rules, which for many landlords could mean lowering rents by as much as 40%. Those who don’t comply will be hit with fines as high as €500,000 ($553,000) for each violation.

Writing in Bloomberg Businessweek, Caroline Winter and Andrew Blackman cover the fascinating political battle taking place in Berlin, Germany, where tenants' groups and landlords are navigating the impacts of recent rent-freeze regulations by the local government that aim to reign in unaffordable rents in the city.

The freeze is being complimented with an aggressive apartment building buy-back program that will remove housing units from private control, placing the homes under public ownership. Berlin is currently growing by over 40,000 new residents every year and faces a housing shortfall that, when coupled with rampant speculative investment, threatens to turn yet another affordable city into an expensive enclave for international finance.

Statewide densification effort fails again in California

2020-01-29T21:13:00-05:00

California lawmakers failed to pass high-profile legislation on Wednesday to dramatically increase homebuilding in the state [...] Senate Bill 50, which would allow construction of mid-rise apartment complexes near transit and job centers and fourplexes in most single-family neighborhoods throughout California, was opposed by state senators who said the measure took too much power away from local governments and failed to sufficiently address low-income housing needs.

The bill, which could increase residential densities for properties located near rapid transit, was defeated as nine Los Angeles-area state senators voted against the effort.

The bill is part of California's so far hit-and-miss push to increase housing production in the state as housing un-affordability and homelessness surge. Last year, California passed a slate of measured reforms aimed at addressing the crisis, including effectively ending single-family zoning in the state. Governor Gavin Newsom has stated an aim to build 3.5 million new homes by 2025, a goal that is looking increasingly out of reach.

AIA|LA is holding a meeting this week to discuss whether to announce support for the measure.

Why is it illegal to expand public housing in the United States?

2019-12-03T14:00:00-05:00

Under the Faircloth Amendment [signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1999], the supply of public housing is capped at 1999 levels. In order to build a new public housing unit, the federal government is required to either abolish an existing unit or sell it to a private buyer. [...] Article 34 of the California state constitution requires majority voter approval at the ballot for government-funded construction of any low-income housing project including public housing.

Writing in The San Francisco Examiner, data scientist and fair housing advocate Sasha Perigo highlights the federal Faircloth Amendment as perhaps the most significant obstacle standing in the way of a trio of recently proposed public housing expansion programs that could vastly increase public housing construction nationwide.

As Perigo writes, political momentum is gaining speed to repeal both the federal and state laws in question. The plans unveiled by New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and by Minnesota Representative Ilhan Omar would both repeal the Faircloth amendment, for example. Meanwhile, in California, State Senators Ben Allen and Scott Wiener are aiming to work locally to scrap the state's Article 34 provision, Perigo reports.

"Housing is Infrastructure Act" could bring $100 billion to affordable housing

2019-11-27T13:00:00-05:00

California Senator and presidential contender Kamala Harris and California Representative Maxine Waters have introduced the "Housing is Infrastructure Act," a $107 billion bill that aims to upgrade and expand affordable housing across the country. The bill is the latest in a series of efforts geared toward bringing new sources of funding for the retrofitting and expansion of America's affordable and public housing stocks.

Terrace 459 Parkside affordable housing project by Landon Bone Baker Architects in Chicago. Photo by David Schalliol.

Funding Breakdown

A breakdown of the funding package highlights the wide-ranging and targeted nature of the proposal. The package, for example, aims to bring $70 billion to a Public Housing Capital Fund that would be tapped to build new public housing units and renovate existing public housing complexes, CNBC reports. $10 billion would head to the Community Development Block Grant program to focus on eliminating zoning impediments and "other requir...

Yale SoA students complete triple-decker home for formerly homeless families

2019-11-25T15:30:00-05:00

Students at the Yale University School of Architecture have completed construction on the 2019 Jim Vlock First Year Building Project, a student-led design-build exploration that has brought a three-unit "triple-decker"-style home into existence.

View of a upperlevel balcony-porch attached to the residential unit. Image courtesy of Image by Zelig Fok and Iain Gomez.

For the project, the student designers partnered with Columbus House, a New Haven, Connecticut-based homelessness services provider that will manage the property, which will become home to at least one local family currently experiencing homelessness. (Archinect previously explored the design of the house in greater detail here)

Photo showing the home's kitchen and living and dining spaces. Image courtesy of Image by Zelig Fok and Iain Gomez.

A shifting point-access stair provides varied entry conditions for each unit. Image courtesy of Image by Zelig Fok and Iain Gomez.

The project was undertaken with the goal of shifti...

Rep. Ilhan Omar unveils 12 million unit "Homes for All" plan

2019-11-21T16:29:00-05:00

Homes For All

United States Representative Ilhan Omar has unveiled a new piece of legislation that seeks to reinvigorate public housing construction across the country by building 12 million new public and affordable housing units over the next decade.

The so-called “Homes for All Act” unveiled this week would bring a whopping $1 trillion in federal funding for the construction of these new units and would also establish a permanent federal funding steam to ensure housing affordability in the United States, according to The Star Tribune. As proposed, $800 million of the overall total would go toward the construction of 9.5 million new public housing units while the remainder will be used to finance a federal Housing Trust Fund used to fuel the construction of 2.5 million new affordable housing units by nonprofit and municipal entities, The Huffington Post reports.

Colorado Court Affordable Housing, designed by Brooks + Scarpa in Santa Monica, California. Image courtesy of Wikimedi...

WXY replaces juvenile detention center in The Bronx with affordable housing

2019-11-11T21:00:00-05:00

WXY architecture + urban design, Body Lawson Associates, and the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) have broken ground on a $300 million redevelopment plan that will replace the defunct Spofford Juvenile Detention Center in The Bronx with up to 740 units of affordable housing and a slew of community-serving uses.

Phase one of the project, the phase currently under construction, aims to bring 183 units of affordable housing earmarked for "extremely-low," "very-low," and "low-income" families, according to New York YIMBY. Within the total, YIMBY reports, 18 units will be made available to people who have previously experienced homelessness.

The site is marked by a collection of public plazas and tree-filled passageways. Image courtesy of WXY architecture + urban design.

Ultimately, over 17,000 square feet of retail, 56,000 square feet of light industrial uses, and 53,500 square feet of community facilities will be included on the site of what once was a decrepit ...

Brooks + Scarpa and Plant Prefab debut adaptable prefab apartment model

2019-10-05T09:00:00-04:00

Los Angeles-based architects Brooks + Scarpa and factory home builder Plant Prefab have partnered on a new line of adaptable apartment modules that aim to provide streamlined responses for creating much-needed high-density in Los Angeles.

View of unit types for the Blue Jay model. Image courtesy of Plant Prefab.

The kit-of-parts-style Nest LivingHome toolkit is a research-led design paradigm crafted to fit into Los Angeles's average residential parcels. Dimensions for the prototypes correspond to the buildable areas of L.A.'s standard-sized 50-foot-by-150-foot residential lots, for example. Meanwhile, the architects have designed a series of potential unit plans that vary between rapid-rehousing, single-room occupancy (SRO), and conventional multi-family configurations.

The team's Blue Jay configuration, for example, presents a spare 11-foot, 4-inch-wide room that's 28-feet-deep and can be laid out as a one-bedroom unit or in various multi-bed shelter designs. The Dove line groups ...

National rent control takes a step forward as AOC unveils housing-focused poverty amelioration plan

2019-09-26T20:00:00-04:00

Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has unveiled a series of sweeping legislative proposals that could, among other things, reshape access to housing in America.

The so-called A Just Society: Uplift Our Workers Act plan is made up of six separate legislative proposals that each addresses a different facet of ameliorating poverty in the United States.

Among them, The Place to Prosper Act would, for example, institute nationwide rent control, regulate corporate landlords, and provide federally-mandated tenant protections. The bill would cap rent increases at three-percent per year while also mandating that landlords keep rental units in good repair, and includes $10 billion over a decade to remove building-borne toxins like lead contamination.

The bill would also hold back highway funding from areas that do not actively support equitable development strategies. Along this vein, the bill takes aim at the imposition of parking and lot size minimum requirements by municipalities, a...

GSAPP launches interdisciplinary affordable housing lab

2019-09-16T14:15:00-04:00

The Columbia University Gradate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation has launched a new interdisciplinary research initiative called the Columbia GSAPP Housing Lab. The lab is to be led by GSAPP dean Amale Andraos.

Architect and GSAPP associate professor Hilary Sample has also been named to the school’s first endowed professorship position. GSAPP's new IDC Foundation Professorship of Housing Design is made possible by a $2 million donation from the Institute of Design and Construction Foundation, a group that "provides grants to educational institutions in Greater New York City to advance research and the training of students in fields relating to architectural design, engineering, and building construction," according to the IDC website.

Sample has led the school's housing design curriculum since 2011, including the school’s impressive housing studio, and is a co-founder of architecture firm MOS. MOS recently masterplanned an experimental housing community in Mexico th...

Federal government shows interest in addressing California's homelessness crisis

2019-09-12T12:30:00-04:00

The Trump administration officials who came to town to study homelessness spent Monday and Tuesday meeting with officials from Mayor Eric Garcetti’s office, checking out the Jordan Downs public housing in Watts and touring the long-entrenched epicenter of the crisis, skid row. There was even a trek to Pomona. An administration official said the purpose was to gather information so that President Trump could begin to develop a plan to address the “tragedy.”

The tour comes as the Trump Administration's controversial Opportunity Zones program designed to funnel investment to underserved areas gains steam and as the administration potentially looks to rewrite "regulatory barriers" for affordable housing projects nationwide.

According to The Los Angeles Times, President Trump told Fox News in July, “You take a look at what’s going on with San Francisco, it’s terrible. So we’re looking at it very seriously. We may intercede. We may do something to get that whole thing cleaned up. It’s inappropriate."

Critic John King sizes up new affordable housing projects in San Francisco

2019-08-16T19:10:00-04:00

There’s a visually striking addition to the ever-troubled Tenderloin — a nine-story structure clad in colorful brick that holds 113 apartments for low-income residents, plus a pair of community-oriented retail spaces. Too bad it took 11 years to summon the newcomer into existence.

John King, The San Francisco Chronicle's urban design critic, takes a look at the David Baker Architects-designed 222 Taylor project, the fruits of a long-running effort to build affordable housing in San Francisco.

While lamenting the long and drawn-out design and approval process the 133-unit, 100-percent affordable housing project underwent, King praises DBA's work, overall, saying, "Baker is one of our most dependably creative architects, adept at both ultra-lux infill like Hayes Valley’s 300 Ivy and low-income housing complexes he’s designed for nonprofit developers for two decades. His trademarks are on show here, such as the board-formed concrete or the windows framed by emphatic metal sunshades."

California's housing goals pull further out of reach

2019-07-23T19:17:00-04:00

California communities are approving residential building permits at a slower rate than they did last year, a sign Gov. Gavin Newsom faces an even bigger hurdle to reach his housing goals than when he took office in January. In the first five months of 2019, cities and counties issued permits for an average of 111,000 residential building units per year, according to data released Friday by the California Department of Finance. That’s a decrease of 12.2 percent from the same period in 2018.

The news is mostly bad for California governor Gavin Newsom's plan to build 3.5 million new housing units by 2025, as high land costs, a labor shortage, the effects of President Trump's tax cuts, and virulent NIMBYism threaten to stamp out regulatory reforms enacted over recent years.

“These days you see most interest in the luxury apartments in places like downtown San Francisco, because otherwise the rents don’t pay for the high cost of construction,” Matt Schwartz, president and CEO of the California Housing Partnership, told The Sacramento Bee, adding, “Yes, rent has gone up, but construction costs have gone up two to three times as much.”

San Francisco seeks $600 million affordable housing bond

2019-07-21T11:00:00-04:00

Authorities in San Francisco are making moves to bring a $600 million affordable housing bond to voters later this year. The bond, according a recent press release, would allow the city to "fund the creation, preservation, and rehabilitation of affordable housing in San Francisco."

City officials estimate that approximately 2,800 new affordable housing units could start construction over the next four years if the funding measure is approved.

Of the proposed funding, $150 million would go toward repairing and rebuilding distressed public housing properties, $220 million would go toward the completion of existing low-income housing projects in the pipeline, and $150 million would be put toward the creation of new affordable housing units targeted specifically to senior citizens.

In addition, $30 million each would go to preserving existing affordable housing units and toward the creation of new middle-income housing complexes. The bond could also bring $20 million to projects slated...