Zelda Bronstein
Facebook money pushes Chiu housing bill
48 hills’ “Facebook money and California housing” series delves into the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative’s multi-million-dollar funding of the pro-growth shadow government that’s reshaping California housing policy. The first installment...
Facebook money and California housing
On January 24, 2019, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the limited liability company founded by Dr. Priscilla Chan and her husband, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and funded by a lifetime...
The Sierra Club attacks our story; here’s our response
On February 19, the Sierra Club’s San Francisco Bay Chapter posted an entry on its home page blog attacking my article “The Sierra Club and the luxury-housing developer,” which...
The Sierra Club and the luxury-housing developer
Are you a Sierra Club member who lives in Berkeley, Albany, Emeryville, Alameda, Piedmont or San Leandro? If so, you fall under the aegis of the club’s Northern Alameda...
CASA’s secret New York junket
During the final meeting of the CASA Technical Committee on December 12, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf let slip that she and unnamed others had recently taken a trip to...
What the regional housing “compact” amounts to — so far
The first installment of my CASA story listed bills introduced in the state Legislature on December 3, most notably Scott Wiener’s do-over of his failed SB 827, SB 50,...
Regional planners mount a quiet coup to promote developers and attack vulnerable communities
The Metropolitan Transportation Commission has been planning a coup.
Not the putsch kind of coup, where armed insurgents overthrow a duly constituted government, but an insidious takeover led by an...
BART Board votes to endorse Wiener housing bill
On March 8, the BART Board voted 5-4 to support SB 827 – state Sen. Scott Wiener’s housing bill -- with undetermined amendments that address tenant protections, affordability, incentives...
Scott Wiener’s war on local planning
On January 19, I attended UCLA Extension’s 2018 Land Use Law and Planning Conference at the Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. Seated in long rows of tables under...
Little-known Yimby-developer bills will have big impact on local planning
Of the fifteen bills in the “housing package” signed into law by Gov. Jerry Brown on September 29, the one that got the most attention in the news media...
