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Chris Elmendorf Profile picture
Chris Elmendorf
@CSElmendorf
The law prof at UC Davis, not the developer in San Diego. Dad. Denizen of San Francisco. Patron of Amtrak. Tweets are my own, not statements of UC.
3 subscribers
Nov 1 • 11 tweets • 4 min read
If builder's remedy comes to San Francisco, the city's anti-demolition / displacement rules go out the window.

For progressive supes & tenant orgs who believe what they say about those rules, enacting a compliant rezoning & constraint removal plan should be Priority #1.

🧵/9 Image Explanation:

- s/t narrow exceptions, a city may not impose any local requirements on a builder's remedy project that EITHER (1) render project infeasible, OR (2) prevent a project that meets certain requirements from being constructed "as proposed by the applicant"

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Oct 30 • 20 tweets • 5 min read
The SF City Economist report on city's housing-element rezone is a nice bookend to the Court of Appeal's decision last month in New Commune v. Redondo Beach.

Put them together, and it's clear that pretty drastic reforms to CA's Housing Element Law are in order.

🧵/19 Crux of New Commune: If city does fact-intensive, site-specific analysis of "realistic" capacity for new housing, any frustrated YIMBY can dredge up an existing lease, go to court, and get the judge to put the city in Builder's Remedy penalty box.

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Oct 30 • 24 tweets • 6 min read
California, home of the world's 4th largest economy & several of its top econ departments, has spent 50 years "planning for housing need" w/o availing itself of economic expertise.

The game is up, courtesy of the S.F. city economist. My op-ed in today's @sfchronicle ⤵️.

🧵/22 Image What happened?

Every 8 years, CA cities must adopt a plan, called a "housing element," that shows how they'll accommodate their fair share of regionally needed housing.

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Oct 21 • 33 tweets • 11 min read
New CEQA opinion nixing (again!) the voters' repeal of a 30' height limit in San Diego is a near-perfect vehicle for CA Supreme Court to jettison the worst of "Old CEQA."

Very glad that @MayorToddGloria is determined to appeal it.

🧵 Image
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Image Background:

- In 1972, the voters capped heights at 30' "to prevent[] high-rise buildings from obstructing 'needed open breezes, sky & sunshine,'" and to "protect[] against unwanted population density with its problems of ... lack of parking space, increased crime[, etc.]"

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Oct 16 • 25 tweets • 7 min read
I read the @CAForever Specific Plan. It's exciting!

Here's a 🧵w/ some highlights & questions.

1/23 Image First off: the grid & internal transit plan is fantastic.

There's a bike/ped/greenway grid; a slow-car/bike/ped grid; and transit/faster-car grid.

What other city has a citywide grid of bus rapid transit, with BRT lines every 1/2 mile both north-south & east-west?

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Oct 13 • 26 tweets • 6 min read
SB 79 Thread #5.2: Advice for Leg, longer term.

tl, dr: I agree w/ @mnolangray that Leg should focus on (1) lowering construction costs, and (2) protecting incumbent tenants w/o blocking redevelopment on fair terms to tenants.

I also think (3) that...

1/25 Image
Image Leg should probably try to accommodate the most passionate & deep-pocketed NIMBYs, who might otherwise bring the whole framework crashing down.

Worst case is a "Prop 13 for land use" ballot measure.

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Oct 13 • 12 tweets • 4 min read
SB 79 Thread #5.1: Advice for the Legislature, short term.

Leg needs to pass an SB 79 cleanup bill as part of the next budget, i.e., a cleanup that takes effect on 7/1/2026.

This thread addresses the cleanup; SB 79 Thread #5.2 will look to the future.

1/8 The cleanup is needed b/c SB 79 tells @California_HCD to "promulgate standards" by 7/1/2026 for counting SB 79 capacity toward RHNA, yet (unlike other laws conferring standard-setting authority on HCD), it doesn't exempt HCD from the Administrative Procedures Act.

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Oct 13 • 22 tweets • 5 min read
Now that @GavinNewsom has signed SB 79, it's time to write #4 and #5 of the threads I promised.

This is SB 79 🧵#4: Advice for local gov't officials.

Read it if you're feeling stuck b/t pitchfork- or recall-wielding NIMBYs and the demands of state law.

1/21 First suggestion: Do everything you can to *maximize transparency* about where, when & how SB 79 applies -- and about the discretion it confers on city councils to alter SB 79 default rules or roll back other upzonings.

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Oct 11 • 26 tweets • 7 min read
A 🧵on rolling the dice ⤵️ on mid-cycle Builder's Remedy, in light of New Commune v. Redondo Beach.

I'll sketch the argument for the builder, the counterargument, and why I think @California_HCD, @AGRobBonta, and the courts should probably accept the counterargument.

1/25 See screenshots for relevant statutory text.

Key idea: A city found to be in compliance by HCD is compliant as a matter of law until HCD has revoked its finding or the finding has been "superseded by ... a decision of a court of competent jurisdiction."

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Oct 11 • 23 tweets • 7 min read
BIG new decision from Court of Appeal on housing-element law.

@DRand2024 says mid-cycle builder's remedy projects are coming soon. S/t one small caveat, I agree!

The decision also has big implications for sites analysis. Is p(dev) approach now de facto required?

🧵/22 Image The court's first holding concerns the detailed statutory requirements for rezoning for "lower income" RHNA.

GC 65583.2(h) spells out minimum density requirements (16 or 20 du/acre) for sites that cities rezone to make up a "lower-income RHNA shortfall."

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Oct 5 • 21 tweets • 7 min read
I wrote a long 🧵 yesterday on my puzzlement about the chatter that @GavinNewsom or his advisors might think it'd be politically prudent to veto SB 79.

Today I'll explain why I don't think he'll cave.

tl,dr: he's a bold idealist and fundamentally good on housing!

1/🧵 Context: I don't know Newsom or any of his top advisors personally. (I met him once at a law-school commencement ceremony, that's all.)

But I've watched him for a long time, first as my mayor in San Francisco, then as Lt. Governor and Governor.

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Sep 19 • 9 tweets • 4 min read
New Searchlight poll validates essentially all of the takeaways from my work w/ @ClaytonNall & @stan_okl on housing "supply skepticism" in the mass public.

(They got substantively similar results using different questions on a different sample.)

1/8 Point #1: Most people want lower housing prices--including most homeowners!

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Sep 17 • 25 tweets • 6 min read
SB 79 Thread #3: @California_HCD's role (w/ some preliminary advice)

This is the most important of my SB 79 🧵s, b/c SB 79 puts HCD in driver's seat.

HCD could drive SB 79 into the ditch if it's not careful... and wreck the Housing Element Law in the process.

1/24 Big picture: HCD's job under SB 79 is to:

1) Issue standards for "counting" SB 79 capacity toward cities' RHNA-rezone obligations

2) Review two kinds of local ordinances, which I'll call "SB 79 conforming ordinances" and "SB 79 alternative plans"

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Sep 16 • 25 tweets • 6 min read
SB 79 Thread #2.2: More legal issues.

This one covers:

4. SB 79 in cities whose implementation ordinance may be unlawful;
5. waivers & reductions in local standards under SB 79;
6. transit-agency zoning

/2 Issue #4: How will project entitlement work if city has passed an SB 79 implementing ordinance that may be unlawful, i.e., not "substantially compliant" w/ SB 79?

Can developer proceed under SB 79 directly, at least if HCD hasn't approved the implementing ordinance?

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Sep 15 • 8 tweets • 2 min read
This is a super important addition to my thread. ⤵️

Applying logic of Wollmer v. City of Berkeley, it's very likely that SB 79 projects will qualify for the AB 130 CEQA exemption, whether or not city has enacted a local implementation ordinance.

1/7 Yes, a NIMBY plaintiff could say, "Wolmer is different b/c in that case, the city had incorporated state density bonus law into its local zoning code, making the waived development restrictions 'inapplicable' within meaning of the municipal code."

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Sep 14 • 24 tweets • 6 min read
SB 79 Thread #2, part 1: Big Open Legal Questions

I will cover:

1) general principles for construing SB 79;
2) CEQA;
3) demolitions

1/ Start w/ general principles. Will judges interpret SB 79 w/ strong thumb on scale in favor of housing?

No.

Two of CA's big housing laws explicitly instruct judges to construe them broadly (Density Bonus Law, Housing Accountability Act). SB 79 does not.

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Sep 13 • 24 tweets • 8 min read
SB 79 Thread #1: Big Picture

In the fall of 2018, I first met @hanlonbt. I had recently posted "Beyond the Double Veto". He reached out & suggested we get coffee.

We argued about SB 827 (SB 79's oldest ancestor), which had died the previous winter.

1/24 I was skeptical.

I said, "Even if you manage to pass an SB 827 successor, it'll be like ADU law circa 1982. Local govs will destroy the projects w/ conditions of approval & CEQA."

He replied, "Have you seen what we did with the Housing Accountability Act?!"

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Sep 4 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Um, it's not like Abundance supporters have been hiding the ball on the mass public's populism.

1/4 Image E.g., here's what I, @ClaytonNall & @stan_okl found & reported on who voters blame for high housing prices (screenshot)

link:

/2 aeaweb.org/articles?id=10…Image
Aug 21 • 7 tweets • 3 min read
The sick irony:
- L.A. started out on right foot w/ its housing element
- then L.A. produced an *awful* rezoning program + faux analysis to implement it
- now L.A. is telling the Legislature, "don't pass SB 79 unless it exempts cities w/ approved housing elements"

1/6 This @TernerHousing post explains what L.A. did right initially, ternercenter.berkeley.edu/research-and-p….

The key move was to reasonably account for sites probability of development during the planning period & discount nominal site capacity accordingly.

x.com/CSElmendorf/st…

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Aug 15 • 11 tweets • 5 min read
Very pleased that my paper w/ @ClaytonNall & @stan_okl, "The Folk Economics of Housing," has been published in the excellent new JEP symposium on housing markets. ⤵️

🧵/10. Image link:

The tl,dr is that housing supply skepticism--which we operationalize as the belief that a large, positive, exogenous regional supply shock would not reduce home prices / rents locally--is pervasive, distinctive to housing, but weakly held.

/2 aeaweb.org/articles?id=10…Image
Jul 25 • 16 tweets • 5 min read
Just read @vincent_rollet's incredible paper on effects of upzoning in NYC.

Wow, wow, wow!

If CA were a well-governed state, we'd be offering Meta-like pay to bring folks like Vincent into @California_HCD & @Cal_LCI.

🧵/16, with the highlights. Vincent develops a parcel-level, gen-equilibrium model of development in NYC, accounting for parcel traits like size/value of existing uses, & estimating n'hood & endogenous amenities, wages, builder cost function, extensive & intensive margins of the redevelopment decision.

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