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Articles by Alfred Twu
Opinion: Vote Yes on Measure RTM to avoid dramatic cuts to BART and AC Transit in Berkeley
We are among the many residents who don’t own cars, and rely on bus and BART to get not only to work and school but also to our friends, family and community. You could say that transit gives us the ability to live independently and relatively inexpensively, especially now during this cost of living crisis. READ OUR NEWS COVERAGE Without a new half-cent sales tax, train and bus systems will collapse, agencies warn. Opponents of the Regional Transit Measure say taxes are too high already.
Opinion: Vote Yes on Measure X for a more efficient Rent Board
Placed on the ballot by a unanimous City Council vote, this year’s amendments to the Rent Stabilization Ordinance will bring operational efficiencies to the Rent Board, support affordable housing providers, and make minor adjustments to address rare but significant loopholes. These changes were the result of a considered process that solicited feedback from tenants, landlords, the Rent Board, the City Council, and nonprofit affordable housing providers.
Here's how California's powerful new housing laws will change the state in 2026
In construction, time is money. This year, to help lower the cost of building new homes, California lawmakers passed many new laws to reduce delays in planning approvals, building permits and inspections. Here are some of the more significant ones: This year's flagship bill was Senate Bill 79, which will allow more housing near transit. A look at places that already allow mid-rise housing near transit suggests three types of buildings are likely to be built under the new law.
California Voice: Solar policy plan jeopardizes housing and energy affordability
Housing affordability and the need for reliable clean energy are two of the most pressing issues facing California today, which makes it especially baffling why legislators are considering a bill that hurts both goals at the same time: weakening home values for owners and raising utility costs for homeowners and tenants. Increased success in recent years installing solar at multifamily housing has been encouraging. Tenants in apartment buildings need help stabilizing energy costs.
Opinion: Solar policy plan jeopardizes housing and energy affordability
Housing affordability and the need for reliable clean energy are two of the most pressing issues facing California today, which makes it especially baffling why legislators are considering a bill that hurts both goals at the same time: weakening home values for owners and raising utility costs for homeowners and tenants. Increased success in recent years installing solar at multifamily housing has been encouraging. Tenants in apartment buildings need help stabilizing energy costs.
Chinese towers and American blocks
This article originally appeared in the latest issue of Works in Progress, Issue 18. You can read this article on our website and the rest of the issue here. Inasmuch as people think about differences in urban form between countries, they tend to assume these are a matter of ‘culture’, either of buyers, architects, or developers. And sometimes, this is true.
Here’s how a host of new housing laws will change California in 2025
In California, 2023 was a blockbuster year for housing legislation with bills that streamlined approvals in most major cities, doubled the affordable housing density bonus, created more options for townhouses, condos and ADUs, and allowed religious organizations to build affordable housing on their land, regardless of zoning. Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe! Click here to SUBSCRIBE to CA Political Review This year’s housing bills were less sweeping.
Here’s how a host of new housing laws will change California in 2025
In California, 2023 was a blockbuster year for housing legislation with bills that streamlined approvals in most major cities, doubled the affordable housing density bonus, created more options for townhouses, condos and ADUs, and allowed religious organizations to build affordable housing on their land, regardless of zoning. This year’s housing bills were less sweeping. Instead, they built on previous work to make existing laws easier to use.
2024 California Housing Legislation Highlights Bill Tracker
Latest Update: April 9, 2024. PDF here: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/c06ayzpnnp6n3wvd1rws4/CA-housing-bills-20240409.pdf?rlkey=ob4v3cjyejmcmg1e97fypgc5d&dl=0 Emergency Preparedness AB 2416 (Connolly) Home insurance discounts for home hardening to reduce wildfire risk, such as replacing flammable shingles with non-combustible materials. AB 2684 (Bryan) Requires heat hazards to be considered in general plan updates.
Opinion: Vote Yes on Measures A, B and H
Berkeley voters will vote on three local ballot measures in the March 5 primary election. Measure A modernizes Alameda County’s hiring process, Measure B modernizes the county’s process on recall elections and Measure H renews the Berkeley Schools Excellence Program, maintaining school funding. Here’s why all three are important to pass. Measure A shortens the notice period for county civil service exams from 25 to 14 calendar days.
Don't deny Berkeley representation on the AC Transit Board
AC Transit is shifting to fully districted elections, and the board of directors is scheduled to vote Wednesday on maps and election sequencing to decide which wards will vote in 2024 and 2026. It is critical that the election sequence selected does not leave Berkeley without representation. Currently, Berkeley is represented by Ward 1 (Jovanka Beckles) and Ward 2 (Jean Walsh), both of whom were elected in 2020 to a four-year term ending in 2024.
How the 60 housing bills Newsom signed are going to change California
From enforcing tenant protections to making it possible to build faster and taller, California’s 2023 legislative housing package was the largest yet, with over 60 housing bills signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom. Many of this year’s bills build on previous legislation, expanding the impact and reach of those laws. Others took successful local programs and brought them statewide. Here’s how these new laws are poised to change the Bay Area.
Accessory Dwelling Unit
Time period: 20th century to present day Location: Suburbs In places that allow them, Accessory Dwelling Units are a way to have more than one home on a lot that is zoned only for one regular full-size home. ADUs are a second, smaller home (typically studio, 1-bedroom, or 2-bedroom) on the same property as a full size house. They're also called accessory apartments, secondary units, in-law suites, and granny flats. Hawaii calls them Ohana dwellings.
Mechanical Void
Location: New York City How to get better views while staying under the floor area limit. Key features - Extra-high mechanical rooms on lower floors, with ceiling height of 100 feet or more. - Upper floors of multimillion dollar views. While supertall towers are extraordinary buildings, I have included them in this survey of housing as they come from the same roots as a stucco box apartment or suburban tract house: they are not custom homes designed by the future resident.
Small Lot Home (Houston townhouse)
Location: Houston, Texas In a city with few zoning restrictions, this is the housing type that the free market found most profitable. Key features - Detached 3-story house on 1,400 square foot lot (such as a 35' by 40' lot) - Typically built by subdividing a larger lot into 4-10 lots, with larger subdivisions containing up to a few dozen houses. Small lot homes answer this question: Why should one be required to buy 5,000 square feet of land, if they only want 2,000 square feet of house?
Living next to, but not on top of main street
In many North American cities, as more housing is built, it's limited to a few places: downtown and along busy streets. This is known as Corridor Zoning. Extreme examples such as Wilshire Boulevard's "Condo Canyon" in Los Angeles or Yonge Street in Toronto have skyscrapers next to houses. Corridor Zoning: the commercial streets allow high density mixed use, while everything else remains limited to detached houses.
2023 California Housing Legislation Highlights Bill Tracker
For enlarged version, use this PDF: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ftzb3zrlzcsxyu6/CA-housing-bills-20230402.pdf?dl=0 SB57 (Gonzalez) Ban on residential gas or electricity disconnects for nonpayment if temperature will be below 32 or above 95 degrees. AB68 (Ward) Faster & easier to build homes near jobs, schools, transit, and other amenities. Also bans upzoning of land in wildfire zones, flood zones, and conservation habitat.
How new fire codes can fix California’s housing crisis and its architecture
Through single-stair fire codes for mid-rise apartment buildings, California can have housing that is cheaper, safer and better. Brontë Wittpenn/The Chronicle 2022 Now that zoning laws are changing across California to allow apartment buildings in more places, the next barrier to easing the state’s housing crisis is construction costs.
How the new laws signed by Newsom just changed the California Dream
A broad coalition that included housing advocates, construction workers, nonprofits, environmentalists and businesses got a record number of bills through the Legislature, most of which were signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom. A majority of these laws take effect on Jan. 1, 2023, with a few going into effect later that year. Whether you’re a tenant, homeowner, business, nonprofit, religious organization or local government, there’s something in this year’s housing package that you can use.
Planning for a better city
Transportation and housing are at a crossroads. We can’t fix our biggest challenges — the high cost of living and climate change — without getting housing and transportation right. The current situation isn’t working. In Berkeley, traffic stretches several blocks from campus in the evenings, car crashes are at the deadliest level in decades and students spend more than $1,000 a month to share a room.
What S.F. would look like if it was serious about ending single-family zoning
Another option for making Little Box redevelopment feasible would involve a hybrid renovation and new building strategy. In this scenario, the garage of an existing home could be converted into a second unit, while a third and fourth unit are built in the backyard. Big mansions, such as those in Pacific Heights, offer large potential for creating economic growth and opportunities for a wider range of people to live near jobs and transit.
2022 California Housing Legislation Highlights
Latest Update: September 28, 2022 This is the summary for 2022. For past years: 2021, 2020, 2019 (Stern) Allows cities to limit development in fire hazard zones & replacing the zoned capacity elsewhere. For every unit of zoned capacity removed from a fire zone, 2 units of capacity must be added elsewhere. - Inactive. Held in Committee (Quirk-Silva) Fire hardening & retrofitting standards. Also provides funding for hardening 300,000 homes in very high fire hazard zones.
Opinion: A’s must include affordable housing like other developers Original
Oakland, like the rest of the Bay Area, has a housing crisis rooted in the fact that so much office, retail and entertainment space was built without enough homes for the people who work in them — especially low-wage workers. As a result, Oakland has over 4,000 unhoused people, a population that has grown more than 86% in the last five years, even as the minimum wage has gone up.
Towers in the Village
A couple of skyscrapers behind several 3-story buildings Since tall buildings have been around, there have been many ways they’ve fit into cities: towers in downtown, towers in the park, and most recently, towers on a whole-block development. Let’s look at a 4th way, the Tower in the Village. Unlike the others, the Tower in the Village does not aim to be the center of attention. Instead, the upper floors are hidden behind a low front that fits in with the rest of the block.
2021 California Housing Legislation Highlights
As of September 11, 2021. Bills that are grayed out are no longer active. This is the summary for 2021.
Fourplex America. Let’s Quadruple the standard of living by 2040.
It’s time to go all in on growth. We got to build lots of wind & solar, etc. When we get to 100% clean energy, will we shut down what will then be the country’s largest industry, or will we keep building and grow incomes & the economy 7.5% a year to 4 times its current size? Renewable energy is different from fossil fuels in that most of the work is done up front.
Missing Large Housing
Missing middle housing — fourplexes, townhouses, etc — is great for most places. However, in places like Palo Alto, where land is north of $20 million an acre, it’s time to look at Missing Large Housing, specifically, ways to build, plan, & finance big buildings cheaper. For all the stereotypes about individualism, Americans are social people. From block parties to music festivals to professional sports, many of us love being in a crowd. New York City in the early 1900s.
Berkeley should speed up affordable housing construction.
When Kala Bagai first came to Berkeley over a century ago, she found a city hostile to her immigrant community and endured overwhelming hardships in order to call Berkeley home. Nevertheless, she persisted. Today, we honor her in downtown Berkeley as a hero and champion of the Southeast Asian community. But as local activist Anirvan Chatterjee asks, “Are we displacing or keeping out today’s Kala Bagais?” A city worthy of Bagai’s name should live up to the promise of her legacy.
Stay involved after Election Day to turn campaign promises into reality
In politics, elections can be compared to applying to college — it’s a lot of work and the stakes are high, but it’s just the beginning of four years of real work ahead. From meetings to protests, laws to budgets, it’s what comes after the election that turns a vote into long-lasting change. The journey continues as the election results come in. If your candidate wins, it’s easy to think the work is done for the next four years.
2020 California Housing Highlights, Part 5: The 21 that Remain
August 21, 2020: California started the year with over 100 housing bills. Now, with 9 days left for bills to be approved by the state legislature, there are 21 bills still active on zoning and tenant rights, mobile homes, as well as emergency COVID relief bill #AB1436. AB1436 —Payment Extension for Rent & Mortgages: Makes it so that tenants cannot be evicted for unpaid rent from during COVID state of emergency, or 90 days after. The rent is converted into regular consumer debt.
Legislative Update: Housing Bills Still in Play
Years ago, way back in June, Alfred Twu wrote a post on Medium summarizing housing bills in the California legislature that were still up for consideration. In that short time, a lot has changed, including a tighter deadline for the legislature, which has struggled to figure out how to safely conduct hearings and vote on bills. Since they have until August 31 to decide on bills, which have to pass both the Senate and the Assembly, they are focusing on urgent bills.
To lower housing costs, Berkeley renters need stronger protections, more homes
Berkeley has some of the strongest rent control laws in the country — many apartments have controls that limit rent increases to approximately 2% a year. However, with the extreme housing shortage in the Bay Area, Berkeley’s rent control is not enough to make the city’s housing affordable.
Housing Needs Cycle Should Match Population and Jobs
The Bay Area’s housing crisis is decades in the making. For too long, the 101 cities and nine counties that make up our region have failed to plan for, approve, and build the homes we need to accompany the growth from our families, businesses, and migration. Decades of failing to plan for future generations have left our region with crushing housing costs, overcrowded dwellings in the COVID-19 pandemic, and devastating displacement of communities.
2020 California Housing Legislation, Part 4: The 34 That Remain
Due to COVID’s impact on the state budget and time legislators and their staff have to deal with other issues, 2020’s ambitious housing package, which started the year with over 100 bills, are now down to 34. Here they are. These have passed the State Assembly and now have to be voted on by the State Senate. These have passed the State Senate and now have to be voted on by the State Assembly.
Housing Needs Cycle Should Match Population and Jobs | East Bay Express
The Bay Area’s housing crisis is decades in the making. For too long, the 101 cities and nine counties that make up our region have failed to plan for, approve, and build the homes we need to accompany the growth from our families, businesses, and migration. Decades of failing to plan for future generations have left our region with crushing housing costs, overcrowded dwellings in the COVID-19 pandemic, and devastating displacement of communities.
2020 California Housing Legislation Highlights
Latest Update: March 17, 2020 In 2019, to tackle the housing crisis, California legislators introduced dozens of housing bills, many of which passed. This year, there are even more bills proposed. Note: there are also additional emergency bills right now to get people housed and protect tenants and homeowners during the virus outbreak, but these are moving and changing very quickly. This graphic focuses on regular bills.
Opinion: Why Berkeley’s newest street name should honor an Asian American
A newspaper clipping includes a photograph of Kala Baigai with a child. Photo: Courtesy Anirvan Chatterjee Asian Americans have been in Berkeley for over a century, and make up 20% of the city. But you would never know it if you saw the names on our streets, parks and schools. Berkeley is renaming a tiny downtown street, and this might be the perfect opportunity for the city to start to honor its Asian American heritage. Who to nominate?
The Delay Club - Bad Side of the Bay
The Delay Club - Bad Side of the Bay
Another Modest Proposal Illustrated
Email to . and get free email updates. The Pepper Spray Times Read The June Issue (and please support Grace Underpressure with a donation :-)
Understanding the Rental Affordability Act (Costa-Hawkins reform ballot measure)
Many California cities with expensive housing such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, Santa Monica, and Berkeley have rent control, which limits how much residential rents can be increased each year. A couple of rent controlled apartment buildings in Berkeley Rent control in California has been limited since the 1995 Costa-Hawkins state law. Originally, some cities had vacancy control as well, which kept rents the same even after the original tenant moved out.
Senate Bill 50, Illustrated
Senate Bill 50 could be one of the most transformative pieces of housing legislation in California this year. The New York Times has endorsed the bill as "the most promising proposal to supercharge construction" and "facilitate development at a wide range of price points." The California housing crisis is complicated, and so are its solutions.
Not Like That - Bad Side of the Bay
Not Like That - Bad Side of the Bay
Sloped and Flat Roofs, a brief history
Recently I was talking to some housing activists about how buildings with flat roofs are perceived to be taller, even when they’re not. I remarked how sloped roofs are coded as “house” and flat roof as “highrise”. Sloped roof on the left, flat roof on the right, all else equal. A little history. Except in deserts, it used to be all roofs were sloped, so rain and snow would run off. This remained true up into the Industrial Revolution.
2019 California Housing Legislation Highlights
Over 200 bills have been introduced by state legislators this year to tackle California’s housing crisis. Here are some of the bigger ones. Note: Unless otherwise noted, details are as of April 4, 2019. Bills change as they go through hearings, click link on bill title to view the current text on the official state legislature website. FASTER APPROVALS AB 1484 (Grayson) Mitigation Fee Act: housing developments. Development fees published and constant throughout project approval process.
2019 California Housing Legislation Highlights
Over 200 bills have been introduced by state legislators this year to tackle California’s housing crisis. Here are some of the bigger ones: *Updated as of Sept 25, 2019** The legislative season has wrapped up and bills that have passed both the Senate and Assembly are now at the Governor’s desk. Governor has until Oct. 13 to sign bills into law. PDF of the Sept 25 version here.
How California can build 3.5 million new homes - Guest Opinion
California’s new governor, Gavin Newsom, has called for California to build 3.5 million new homes in the next five years as part of a “Marshall Plan for housing” to reduce housing costs and homelessness. For decades, California has added jobs faster than it has built housing, and this is what it’d take to restore the balance and end the shortage.
How California can build 3.5 million new homes – Alfred Twu – Medium
California’s new governor, Gavin Newsom, has called for California to build 3.5 million new homes in the next five years as part of a “Marshall Plan for housing” to reduce housing costs and homelessness. For decades, California has added jobs faster than it has built housing, and this is what it’d take to restore the balance and end the shortage.
How California can build 3.5 million new homes
California’s new governor, Gavin Newsom, has called for California to build 3.5 million new homes in the next five years as part of a “Marshall Plan for housing” to reduce housing costs and homelessness. For decades, California has added jobs faster than it has built housing, and this is what it’d take to restore the balance and end the shortage.
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