What SB827, the transit-rich housing bonus, actually does

NOTE: This was written on January 4, 2018. The bill has been amended a lot since that time and this information is no longer current.

Why mansions are artificially cheap

And how you’re paying for them

Mansions are artificially cheap? That may seem strange. Mansions are, after all, by and large expensive things. In fact, one often suspects their very expensiveness is their chief function…

A YIMBY primer primer

Things to read about Housing Policy, with a Bay Area slant

This post is a little different from most that you will find on Medium, in that I intend to keep updating it over time. If you are interested in learning more about…

Bread and apartments

(and the radical notion that they aren’t that different)

A lot of people are upset at Jerry Brown, the governor of California, for being stingy with affordable housing funding, but he has a point: if cities severely limit how…

My comment on the Central SOMA EIR

Back in February, I wrote a comment on the Central SOMA plan Environmental Impact Report. Here it is, word for word, with a short postscript. Enjoy.

I read much of the EIR, and I generally like what’s going on, though as you probably guessed…

ADUs are only a first step for Palo Alto

Letter to the editor of Palo Alto Weekly

We have a housing shortage in the entire Bay Area, and it’s not going to blow over unless we change some things. Palo Alto’s recent lifting of restrictions on in-law…