Very fun read on the builder's remedy in California: "the land use equivalent of plutonium" www.nytimes.com/2025/11/20/b...

"For YIMBYs and other champions of more housing development, ditching the extra staircase has become a surprisingly buzzy cause. In Culver City, they have a test case." https://calmatters.org/housing/2025/11/ca-single-stair-culver-city/

I wrote about how Culver City became the first municipality in California (and likely the last for now) to ditch the ubiquitous two staircase requirement for mid-rises. As YIMBYs turn to impediments to construction beyond zoning, Culver City is an early test case. calmatters.org/housing/2025...

Clearly, this is the long con to take both your job and your wife! Wake up, Ben!

ChatGPT is apparently both pro-journalists using ChatGPT and pro-family.

You‘re treating yourself to a birthday trip to Mexico and you only have $170K (allegedly). How do you spend it? calmatters.org/politics/202...

Breaking: It’s a yes for Prop. 50. California voters approved the measure to temporarily suspend the state’s nonpartisan citizens redistricting commission until 2030. bit.ly/3WAJfhI 📝 @mayacmiller.bsky.social& @jeannereporter.bsky.social 📸 Ted Soqui

Senate Bill 79 makes it easier to build homes near major public transit stops. For opponents of rezoning, the only way to stop the prospect of apartments is to battle the bus. calmatters.org/housing/2025...

BREAKING: Ninth Circuit Court panel sides with Trump in Oregon National Guard case, staying Judge Immergut's original TRO. The two GOP-appointed judges decided on a stay. The Dem-appointed judge wrote a dissent. This isn't much of a surprise, given the questioning we saw during oral argument.

Notable finding in a new paper on how California cities have responded to AB 2097, which scrapped minimum parking requirements for housing developments near major transit stops. At least one city just ignored the law for housing near future, planned projects. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Grand Prairie, Texas, I was not familiar with your game.

But really, who doesn't love a good ugly cry on a Thursday morning calmatters.org/education/20...

“The Defense Department has confiscated the badges of the Pentagon reporters from virtually every major media organization in America,” the Pentagon Press Association said

Housing advocates who viewed SB79 as a potential sea change say it became diluted during the political process. The bill’s primary sponsor calls it a “a remarkably strong bill.”

Ben Metcalf @ternerhousing.bsky.social: "If costs come down and interest rates drop, you can imagine we’ve set the table for a building boom." calmatters.org/housing/2025...

After weeks of waiting, California's governor signed a bill that will allow mid-rise apartment buildings near major transit stops in California's biggest metro areas. https://cal.news/4n3hzge 📝 @frombenc.bsky.social 📸 Ray Chavez

Newsom signed SB79. calmatters.org/housing/2025...

Every single person in my feed: What's the deal with SB 79? Has Newsom signed SB 79? What is Newsom waiting for on SB 79? Newsom better veto SB 79! If Newsom doesn't sign SB 79 tonight I'm going to move to Canada. I'm launching a SB 79 shot clock widget SB 79 S!B 79 SB 79 Newsom:

In 2023, Los Altos Hills, a mansion-studded bedroom community above Silicon Valley, vowed to legalize some apartments at the north end of town. Now, facing a project that would include the town’s first-ever affordable housing, the town is having second thoughts. calmatters.org/housing/2025...

Los Altos Hills agreed to legalize some apartment buildings. Now, with a project proposed at Twin Oaks that would include the town’s first-ever affordable housing units, the wealthy Bay Area suburb is having second thoughts. https://cal.news/47hCdV6 📝 @frombenc.bsky.social

Here's why the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, a low-tax advocacy group, seems intent on making Los Angeles' “mansion tax” the face of their statewide tax-capping ballot measure campaign. calmatters.org/housing/2025...

BREAKING: Immergut has *granted* Oregon and California's motion to block the new call-up of Guard troops to Portland. She says this effort to bring CA and TX troops to Oregon is in "direct contravention" of her oroginal order.

I spoke to a Venezuelan woman who was arrested in this raid and later released with her 4yo son. She said agents broke down their door, pointed guns at them and made sexualized remarks about Venezuelan women. When she returned to her apartment it was boarded up and all her possessions were gone.

One of my favorite anecdotes from THE PREHISTORY OF THE FAR SIDE: "That doesn't sound like the Jane Goodall we know."

So very excited to share that I’ll be writing about housing in Los Angeles and across California for Politico www.politico.com/blogs/politi...

The rules from the Department of Housing and Urban Development would allow major changes to public housing and Section 8 vouchers: - full-time work requirements - 2-year time limits - stripping aid from whole families if one member is in the country illegally www.propublica.org/article/trum...

Bit of a deep cut this Friday morning. How big is California‘s housing shortage anyway? calmatters.org/housing/2025...

Gotta appreciate the technological marvel of my phone robotically screaming that an earthquake is happening five seconds after I’ve woken up to my entire house shaking as a result of the earthquake that was very obviously happening

Damn! Only a 4.8 but basically at the Claremont Hotel Felt big! earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/...

Los Angeles' A line is now the longest light rail line in the world, if the Bay Area had something this long, it would run all the way from San Jose to San Francisco.

My editor's comments when I turn in 3k words on a story that's supposed to max out at 800. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

The end of an era for California reporting. Liam was doing this work before CalMatters even had a housing reporter. (In fact, it's possible CalMatters wouldn't even HAVE a housing reporter without Liam.) A sad day for the LA Times, but glad he's still in the game! We're all better off for his work.

LA Mayor Karen Bass is requesting a veto on transit-oriented development bill SB 79, which is headed to Gavin Newsom's desk: "While SB 79 allows for local ordinances as an alternative compliance, it does not provide a viable path for a pro-housing city like Los Angeles"

Update: The Assembly passed this last night and the Senate sent it to the governor in the wee hours of the morning. I, mercifully, was asleep. This news comes courtesy of my sleepless, ever-diligent colleague @jeannereporter.bsky.social

ICYMI Yesterday the California legislature passed a bill that paves the way for a highly targeted building boom around major urban public transit stops. calmatters.org/housing/2025...

The passage of this bill, nearly a decade in the making, slaps a symbolic bow on what has already been a banger of a year for controversial and ambitious housing production legislation in California. calmatters.org/housing/2025...

Oh, so that's why @asmlowenthal.bsky.social said "poopy" on the floor yesterday. I was so confused. www.politico.com/newsletters/...

Well that fizzled fast... State lawmakers have now shelved their efforts to reform L.A.'s "mansion tax." Mayor Bass said she asked State Senators to hold off and introduce an amended version of the bill next year. Details in my @laist.com story:

A deal that would have capped Los Angeles' ULA transfer tax under the condition that @prop13.bsky.social remove a proposed ballot measure aimed at making it harder for local govs to raise taxes is dead for the year. Statement from @senatorgonzalez.bsky.social and @asmtinamckinnor.bsky.social:

Deleted my earlier post that misstated the status of this bill. The Senate budget committee did kill it (for reasons totally unrelated to the story below, it seems), but I’m told the Assembly could still move with its version. Senate would then have to concur. So, in theory, still alive!

An eyebrow raising detail in this story by @levisu.bsky.social about rideshare drivers winning the right to unionize in California

Updated the story with a statement from the company that is developing the project that seems have been the subject of this legislation.

I'm working on a story for NPR on how high housing costs are causing some people to have fewer kids, or no kids, than they planned. Is this you and you're open to being in the story? Drop a line with a bit about your situation, where you live, + your phone number to [email protected]. Thanks!

A bill proposed Monday night, just days before the end of the legislative session, would punch a very small hole in a landmark housing law passed earlier this year that appears to apply to one (1) proposed apartment building in the incoming Senate leader's district. calmatters.org/politics/202...

"The ruling...means officers can rely on little more than a person being in the parking lot of a Home Depot and speaking Spanish to question someone about their immigration status." calmatters.org/justice/2025...

One of the year's most controversial housing bills (in a year full of extremely controversial housing bills!) is a big step closer to becoming law thanks to a last-minute deal between long-time political foes. calmatters.org/housing/2025...

Two years in, California's new and controversial CARE Court system is either a disappointing "total failure," a promising "work in progress" or a "reactionary political gambit" and "waste of money." Depends on who you ask. calmatters.org/health/menta...

Two insights from my month off with two wee kids: 1. Whoever invents a decongestant for pre-Kers will be the world's first trillionaire 2. You never know how many rubber bands are on the floor of your house until a baby with a penchant for putting things in her mouth (i.e. a baby) learns to crawl