Planetizen Newswire
Keep up with essential planning news and commentary, delivered to your inbox every Monday and Thursday.
Housing Crisis
Lending and planning policies have split San Antonio residents into haves and haves for decades, according to a large feature published recently by the Rivard Report.
Rivard Report
SB 50 was often viewed as an attack on wealthy, single-family homeowners, but housing justice advocates also had issues with the legislation.
Curbed
Many of the Democratic candidates have offered housing policy plans as a key plank in their election platforms, but here a prominent YIMBY politician confronts them directly on the housing crisis in California.
Palm Springs Desert Sun
A ballot initiative by San Francisco Mayor London Breed would make it easier for qualifying developments (e.g., developments that include affordable housing) to sidestep discretionary approvals.
The New York Times
Plans for numerous large-scale developments in the region mean thousands of housing units should be on the way, but constant delays and setbacks have left projects nowhere near completion.
San Francisco Chronicle
Upzoning is gaining popularity among planners and politicians in parts of the country as a tool for affordability. But some opponents of the idea maintain that new density will only make housing affordability worse.
Curbed
Could vacancy taxes solve multiple housing challenges at once?
WBUR
The Land Use subcommittee of the Virginia House of Delegates decided quickly to uphold local control of zoning.
WAMU
Washington State is the latest example of a state that wants to preempt local planning law to make it easier to add housing units to single-family residential properties all over the states.
Sightline Institute
A recently published white paper written by the Seattle Planning Commission calls on the city to follow in the footsteps of the city of Minneapolis and the state of Oregon.
The Urbanist
Proposition E, a ballot initiative up for vote in San Francisco in May, is one of the most radical planning positions in recent years, attempting to reduce housing costs by limiting housing demand.
Mission Local
When housing costs are high, lower-income residents are not the only ones who end up struggling.
WAMU
The ranks of states considering or taking steps to override local control to allow new density in the residential neighborhoods of cities has swelled once again, this time with a state senator in Nebraska pitching statewide legislation.
1011 Now
Environmental review required by the California Environmental Quality Act would no longer apply to the construction of homeless shelters under a law proposed in the California State Legislature.
The Sacramento Bee
State and local lawmakers hope that recent reforms to the Washington State Environmental Policy Act are only an initial step toward ending the law's use as a tool for delaying affordable housing plans.
Crosscut
According to this report, the trends point to a "less diverse, older, higher-income" crop of homebuyers as low production locks out the young and many people of color.
Curbed San Francisco
The ambitious "Homes for All" plan would include upzoning as only one tool for addressing the acute housing affordability crisis in the state of Maryland.
CityLab
Next City's Jared Brey reviews a year of developments in housing politics and policy, teasing out several big trends.
Next City
As California continues to grapple with staggering housing issues, France's experience offers lessons about the kinds of housing policies and strategies that work.
San Francisco Chronicle
Incremental changes to density on single-family parcels could boost the nation’s housing stock without dramatic impacts at the neighborhood level.
Curbed
