SB 79 at one month: 1) Very encouraging signs of developer interest in actually using the law 2) New projects are all in high resource areas with exclusionary histories 3) We won’t see the full impact in most of the state’s biggest cities for another 5 year 4) Beverly Hills is on some bullshit

Aaron 🏗️🚲🌲🏀@aceckhouse.bsky.social · 2d ago

Most cities are doing their best to follow the law, but some are not. The worst is probably Beverly Hills, which is trying to use a shell game to disappear nearly 3,000 homes worth of zoned capacity. HCD should have nipped this in the bud, but there's still time for them to bring down the hammer.

SB 79 has been in effect for a month now, so I wrote my take on how implementation is going. Pretty well, I think! But there are some important tests coming for HCD @cayimby.bsky.social cayimby.org/blog/sb-79-o...

SB 79, One Month In: Taking Stock of California YIMBY’s Signature Bill

SB 79, California YIMBY’s signature legislation that legalized apartment buildings near transit stops throughout California, went into effect on July 1, 2026. Under the law’s provisions, jurisdictions...

cayimby.org

We're working with @metroabundance.bsky.social to collect cost drivers in California building codes and standards above and beyond national model codes/standards. See here for more – please circulate among architects, engineers, etc. in the state! admin.centerforbuilding.org/wp-content/u...

Go Valks!

Along Came Poly-4-The-W@alongcamepoly4thew.bsky.social · 3d ago

Full quote on Natalie Nakase’s answer to being asked about what she thinks about regarding the ongoing Sophie Cunningham/trans-athletes debate that's swept across the WNBA - kenzo fukuda on x "Im all about women, little girls deserving to play & that includes trans women...im all about inclusivity"

feeling pretty good about this

Jordan Grimes@cafedujord.bsky.social · 5d ago

Santa Monica, South Pasadena, Palo Alto, San Mateo, and now Atherton! All the places that used to (and still try to) severely limit or prohibit new multifamily homes. No longer! State housing laws get the goods! www.almanacnews.com/atherton/202...

Israel has basically become the easiest test normie dem voters have for whether or not a candidate is ballsy enough to actually fight. Thems the breaks. That’s why Stevens’ amorphous “give em hell” stuff is falling flat

Alameda County: meet your candidates Join us in downtown Oakland on Thursday Aug 20th at 6pm for a mixer to meet candidates and elected officials running for office across Alameda County this fall. RSVP required. @seamlessbayareaca.bsky.social

SB 79 project tracker so far: Palo Alto (x9, lol) San Mateo South Pasadena Santa Monica

Joe Cohen@cohenhouse.bsky.social · last wk.

Santa Monica appears to have its first SB 79 application, which proposes demolishing a duplex on a four-unit property and replacing it with an 8-unit five-story building, with two replacement affordable units. The (placeholder SB 330) plans show it as a single-stair building

convert offices to housing with this one weird trick (tearing down old buildings) www.sfchronicle.com/eastbay/arti...

This Bay Area city could become a blueprint for turning empty offices into housing

While San Francisco has struggled to get any office-to-housing construction under way, this Tri-Valley city already has 1,501 units either under construction or approved.

sfchronicle.com

Every person this administration wrongly deported should be granted asylum and a path to citizenship. Won’t even begin to right wrongs like this. But it’s a place to start.

Gillian Brockell@gillianbrockell.com · last wk.

People who are suddenly deported to countries they haven’t been to for years — or, in some cases, have NEVER been to — are incredibly vulnerable. We are going to be reading stories like this for years. God have mercy on their three little girls.

is there a feed that will show me just the replies of the people I follow?

first BLT of the season tonight 👌

“what if we had a gaudy flower that also looked like a tube worm?”

one thing that William Carlos Williams absolutely got right is that cold plums hit different

worthwhile Austin initiative

Parker Welch@parkerwelch.bsky.social · 2w ago

By a vote of 10-1, Austin City Council just passed Item 86, directing staff to prepare code amendments that shift 3 & 4-unit buildings from the IBC to the IRC and create a simpler, alternative IBC pathway for 5 to 16-unit buildings 🥳🎉🏬 “Houseplex” amendments will come back to Council this December

Jane Kim, the current front-runner for the state insurance commissioner, would make this already unsustainable problem even worse. She wants you to subsidize fire insurance for rich people who choose to live in the urban-wildland interface where wildfires do the most property damage.

Urban Land Rent 🇸🇴🚰@urbanlandrent.bsky.social · 2w ago

This is the first time I’ve ever seen a CA publication speak plainly about both the stakes (and the basic distributional politics involved) The FAIR plan is a ticking time bomb and the primary problem is it promises to insure uninsurable property for rich people. www.latimes.com/business/sto...

Overly complex governance is a skeleton key behind nearly every political problem in America, from why we can't build to the crisis of democracy. Every solution is someone else's responsibility and requires coordination across actors who hate each other so we can't do anything.

I have said repeatedly that Russell Vought should be impeached. Congress appropriates and this is a high crime against its powers under Article I. The most important thing DOGE did was take over the appropriations pipes at Treasury. If you wanted to close USAID and CFPB pass a bill.

Josh Chafetz@joshchafetz.bsky.social · 2w ago

Very important piece by Cerin Lindgrensavage and @davidasuper.bsky.social. This behavior by the administration is not only illegal, it is anti-constitutional. thehill.com/opinion/cong...

Law enforcement is an essential state function and people should expect that public spaces will be policed. Having police that are both violent and useless is a catastrophic failure of governance.

ex-Lethality Jane@lethalityjane.bsky.social · 3w ago

I think you're going to have a difficult time convincing families with young children to give up car culture and take more public transit if you also refuse to police behavior on the public transit and in the transit centers. Yes, people doing drugs in those places is a turn-off.

I know that political media only pays attention to Minnesota with the greatest of irritation and the absolute minimum of curiosity, but I genuinely find it offensive when pundits suggest that liberalism lacks a fighting spirit or animating ideals. Our national malaise is an elite phenomenon.

The solution is consequences, by the way. And that doesn’t mean “losing elections” or “public ridicule.” Consequences that are real, that wrongdoers and liars know could happen to them, that bad men genuinely fear facing

AGAIN: the #1 predictor of a mass shooter is violence against women. Cops perpetrate VAW at higher % (though exact # unknown ofc) than the gen population. At some point our culture must take seriously the fact that this is a real red flag. It requires hating women less, though.

Prem Thakker ツ@premthakker.bsky.social · 3w ago

Wow. The ICE shooter in Maine asked his ex-wife to "to lie for him and to cover for his character." She said he was abusive and had previously reported concerns about him to his military superiors. He was also a volunteer firefighter, but was removed after several spats with department leadership.

This topic is covered in The Low-Rise Speculative Apartment, the definitive contemporary tract on dingbats. They would often go from demolition permit to *occupancy* in a year and this was noted as a key to success because it eliminates carrying costs and associated risk.

Joe Cohen@cohenhouse.bsky.social · 3w ago

The project was issued its building permit on 5/1/2026, just 8 months after submittal. Much faster than even ED 1 projects. There’s no reason why we can’t use this same process for all housing projects in LA.

Liquidate the car dealers, liquidate crypto, liquidate sports betting, liquidate oil and gas. Purge the rottenness from the system.

Stan Oklobdzija@stano.bsky.social · 3w ago

For instance, it is absurd that every blue state has not legalized direct to consumer auto sales given that this is what car dealers' political giving looks like.

You can tell San Francisco’s fee/ labor policy/ affordability reqs/ permitting process are a huge barrier to supply meeting elevated demand because market rate housing pencils in Sacramento at like half the rents.

Joe Fish@sadbusdriver.bsky.social · 3w ago

Lastly, are we seeing any response on the supply side? As of now, no. Both proposed units and total spending on housing (so alterations, new construction, etc.) are still well below pre-pandemic levels. Not looking good for affordability barring a big reversal.

Put 3 kids thru college w/ a blue collar job. Worked dawn to dusk, building homes. Loved his wife of 30yrs & John Deere. Lived here longer than I've been alive It doesn't make a life more valuable. But so many immigrants detained, deported, dying bear the trappings of "real America" we mythologize

Houston Chronicle@houstonchronicle.com · 4w ago

The son of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, who was shot and killed by an ICE agent in Houston Tuesday morning, issued a statement on social media Tuesday night, saying "my father did not deserve this."bit.ly/4aK0hS2

One week into SB 79 taking effect, and there are already over 200 new homes proposed in Palo Alto across 5 buildings. The last year in which Palo Alto permitted more than 200 new apartments was 2007. www.paloaltoonline.com/palo-alto/20...

Palo Alto sees wave of housing projects as state law kicks in

In just the first week of a new state law that allows denser housing developments near public transit, Palo Alto has seen a flurry of applications — and the three latest ones propose new apartments do...

paloaltoonline.com

Antisemitism is a real and growing issue in American politics and culture, but the fact that American Jewish organizations like the ADL and AJC went harder on Mamdani than on Platner is part of why we are making no headway in fighting it.

Politico@politico.com · 4w ago

BREAKING: Mamdani, one of the most prominent voices on the American left, has called on Platner to end his Maine Senate campaign.

today is a good day

California YIMBY@cayimby.bsky.social · last mo.

Today, California ends decades-long bans on apartments near our most frequent train and bus stops, thanks to SB 79. Some cities will move fast. Others will take more time. Change won't happen everywhere at once. But it has begun, and it will not stop here.

This is crying out for the state legislature to pass a bill adopting the 2027 IBC’s four-story single-stair allowance

Ben Raderstorf@raders.bsky.social · last mo.

Big developments in Sacramento's zoning code! -No bulk control(!) -Unlimited units. -45ft heights/FAR 2.0 within 1/2 mile of transit, 35ft/FAR 1.0 elsewhere. -15 ft front setbacks. -Staff approvals. And... that's it. The most ambitious reform anywhere. housesac.substack.com/p/the-promis...