By Morris Newman

Dammit, it's not fair! Residents of affordable housing get all the lucky breaks. Just look at all the money they're getting from all directions: local government, the local power company, the feds, the green-building lobby. Case in point: the Casa Dominguez development in East Dominguez Hills, an unincorporated area of south Los Angeles County, even has a child care center and a medical clinic, on site.

Use of redevelopment funds by a city-formed nonprofit organization to develop school administrative buildings and a housing project with units reserved for low- and very low-income residents was valid and did not require voter approval, the Second District Court of Appeal has ruled. 

In reaching its decision, the court had to interpret the various restrictions in redevelopment law as well as Article 34 of the state constitution.  

Article 34 as part of the California Constitution, adopted by voters in 1950, had the effect of requiring voter approval of "low rent housing projects." Over time, the Legislature has codified various interpretations of Article 34, excluding from the voter approval process certain types of affordable projects. On a parallel path, the Legislature has modified redevelopment law to ensure that cities spend a certain amount of their tax increments on affordable housing. 

Don't be fooled by the peaceful, pastoral look of West Village, a proposed housing development on the campus of UC Davis.

"Shucks," the conceptual site plan seems to say, "I'm just a little old country town. See my bib overalls?"

I'm not falling for it. West Village may be bucolic and all, but this 220-acre project, intended to provide rental housing for students and for-sale housing to faculty, shows an uncompromising commitment to sustainability. Although pastoralism is not always the same thing as environmentalism, in this case it comes with some hard-minded environmentalism.

Hey you, Mr./Ms. Conventional Apartment Developer! Yes, you. Don't attempt to ignore me by rolling up your construction-loan documents and sticking them in your ears.

It's official: 2009 was the slowest year for new housing construction since the 1940s.  Builders pulled permits for only 36,209 housing units in 2009, according to the Construction Industry Research Board. That was a little more than half of the 64,962 housing starts in 2008, which had been the record post-war low.

The Merriam Mountains housing project in North San Diego County lives – at least until the Board of Supervisors has another chance to consider the proposed development.

After years of study and negotiations, the San Jose City Council has adopted a citywide inclusionary housing ordinance. The measure, which takes effect in 2013 (unless certain market conditions improve), requires market-rate developers to make 15% of new units available to households with incomes of no more than the median. If developers choose to meet the mandate off-site, the affordable housing requirement rises to 20%. The city has had similar requirements for the downtown area for years.

The proposed Merriam Mountains housing development in North San Diego County suffered a setback in December when the Board of Supervisors split 2-2 on the project. The tie vote equates to rejection of the project; however, supervisors within 30 days may call for a new hearing, and reconsideration appears likely.

A City of West Hollywood moratorium on new multi-family housing development has been declared invalid by the Second District Court of Appeal. The court ruled that the city had not made required findings for the moratorium.

The City of Berkeley’s approval of density bonuses for a mixed-use project has been upheld by the First District Court of Appeal, which rejected a project opponent’s contention that the city had wrongly applied the state density bonus law. >>read more