California, Housing

This article looks at how landscape architects have combined green roofs, public spaces and affordable housing to address the chronic homelessness in San Francisco's infamous Tenderloin district.

A California ballot initiative heading to voters in June could bring an end to the state's rent control laws.

Crossroads, a 125-bed homeless facility, incorporates green building concepts to better serve its clients. Many homeless people have respiratory-related health problems and a green building will be healthier for them.

San Francisco's Sixth Street has been decidedly run-down for years. But redevelopment efforts -- including the likely seizure of a vacant and historic hotel building -- may be changing the face of the street for the better.

A San Francisco supervisor has proposed several changes in parking regulations that will result in reduced new housing costs, and potentially reduced car ownership and operation. It requires the approval of the Board of Supervisors.

The Examiner looks at the loss of middle-class housing in San Francisco, and how, based on a new report by a local urban think tank, allowing more flexibility in zoning would allow affordable, but market-rate housing to meet the demand.

Cohousing could be the answer for seniors looking for a strong sense of community and support from neighbors as they age.

"Regional Housing Needs Allocations" are generally dreaded by California cities who resist state mandates to provide affordable housing. Rather than being assigned the requirement by the regional COG, San Mateo's 20 cities chose to do it themselves.

Homeless advocates are working in Los Angeles to identify the city's most vulnerable homeless people on Skid Row. With this list the county intends to take a piecemeal approach to housing the city's homeless.

Anaheim (Orange County, CA) has big plans: 20,000 urban infill homes planned for their sports district. While the zoning change passed the council on a 4-1 vote, developers will wait for the housing market to recover.

The burgeoning increase in foreclosures is leaving some suburban California neighborhoods with multiple abandoned and unguarded homes, which become tempting targets for looters, vandals and thieves.

New development in Southern California's wildfire zones are required to provide safety features such as special landscaping and fireproof materials. Critics say cost to society is high.

As the Disney Corporation and the city of Anaheim, California, squabble over a proposal to build affordable housing near the Happiest Place on Earth, Morris Newman suggests turning the affordable housing project into an "urban theme park".

Increased development in wooded and fire-prone areas is one of the major causes of California's recent "megafires".

A home builder points to the "no-growth, anti-housing environmental alliance" that restricts greenfield development as the primary reason the Bay Area is unable to house its growing population.

Homebuyers increasingly look to developing downtown San Diego, California, as the site for their second homes.

Two years after a prior proposal failed to pass, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has once again challenged the city's developers to help solve L.A.'s affordable housing crisis by including lower-cost units in new projects.

In Palo Alto, California, -- one of the country's most affluent and least affordable cities -- the City Council and residents are now wrestling with a regional housing allocation assigned by the Association of Bay Area Governments.

A San Francisco lawyer and housing activist questions the paper's focus on problematic street behavior and on law enforcement as the only way to deal with the city's homeless population.

City officials in Los Angeles have come to a settlement with homeless advocates that will allow anyone to sleep on the sidewalk until the city builds 1,250 affordable housing units, which could take up to five years.