For-profit developers are racing to use the once-obscure housing provision to force through massive projects in single-family neighborhoods – without any local input
By Our Neighborhood Voices
California – All over California, for-profit developers have been racing to invoke the “Builders Remedy” – a once-obscure provision in state housing law that gives private developers a virtual “blank check” to push through projects of nearly any size, anywhere they want, without any meaningful input from the surrounding community or local elected officials.
And one of the first developers to cash in this “blank check,” according to reporting by the Mercury News and others, is a Russian oligarch whose father has direct ties to Vladimir Putin and served as Russia’s former Energy Minister.
Vitaly Yusufov’s Willow Project LLC bought the former Sunset Magazine campus on Willow Road in Menlo Park in May 2018, and recently announced that the existing single-story buildings will be replaced by a massive project that will feature 4 new towers – one of which will soar to 328 feet. That’s taller than the nearby Hoover Tower at Stanford University and the Statue of Liberty.
Yusufov’s massive project will not only tower over the surrounding community, but will also add to the already crippling level of traffic the area is 
inundated with during rush hour. But this is not the first for-profit developer to capitalize on the “builders remedy” – in fact there are already hundreds of builder’s remedy projects slated throughout the state, and more are surely coming.
“It’s bad enough that housing is a commodity with Wall Street and for-profit developers from our own country profiting off of communities and creating a generation of renters. Now even Russian oligarchs are looking to cash the blank check Sacramento has given developers,” said Lafayette City Councilmember Susan Candell. “I don’t think Sacramento knows the needs of our community better than we do – and I definitely don’t think Russian oligarchs know best.”
The Willow Street project echoes other developments popping up all over the state – including one in the Harvard Heights neighborhood in Los Angeles that will displace affordable units with a 33-unit apartment complex and retail shops.
“This is a gentrification bomb that Sacramento politicians are dropping on our communities,” said Kalimah Priforce, Emeryville City Councilmember and advocate for BIPOC homeownership. “Building projects like this in neighborhoods that are already at risk of displacement will not solve our affordable housing crisis. That is exactly why we need to restore local democracy and put land-use decisions back in the hands of neighbors, not developers looking to make a profit.”
Our Neighborhood Voices, a non-partisan coalition of tens of thousands of California residents, community leaders and elected officials, is fighting back against this blank check for developers with a statewide ballot measure that would return land-use decisions back to communities and their elected leaders.
“Neighbors have a right to have a say about what happens right next door to their home,” said Brentwood Vice Mayor Susannah Meyer. “But a provision like the ‘Builders Remedy’ takes this right away from neighbors and local elected officials and turns it over to for-profit developers. If we want a real and lasting solution to our state’s housing crisis, we need to put communities first, not developer profits.”
The array of housing laws recently passed in Sacramento have not only given rise to more “Builder’s Remedy” projects throughout the state, but they have also paved the way for developers to push through projects of virtually any size, anywhere they want – including towering over single-family homes. What’s worse, is that these laws don’t require the developers to contribute a penny to the infrastructure – the roads, schools, transportation, etc. – that this new growth in our neighborhoods will require. And communities and their local leaders can do nothing to stop it.
“We all know we need more affordable housing in California,” said Palo Alto Mayor and California State Assembly Candidate Lydia Kou. “We just believe that Sacramento should be helping communities build housing where it makes sense – not where developers can make the most profit.”
Learn more about the Our Neighborhood Voices coalition and how you can get involved at www.OurNeighborhoodVoices.com
So, the housing laws are working.
That depends on one’s definition of “working”.
Working to align supply with demand. Simple capitalistic economics.
This is another NIMBY group crying wolf. City residents don’t deserve veto power over new developments in their backyards. They function like criminal defendents that will come up with any excuse they can dream up just to get their obstructionist ways.
LOL, like prosecutors don’t come up with any excuse they can dream up to bring charges against defendants?
Builders also come up with all types of reasoning why they need to build their projects so it’s not that crazy that local residents might push back.
If the state is actually successful in this (and all signs show that they won’t be), they’re going to have to assume the other roles that cities were previously responsible for (e.g., ensuring that the infrastructure can handle the growth).
And if they don’t do so, that’s when they’re really going to get some “feedback” (e.g., in the form of a referendum to remove power from the state). I’m not sure if the state is creating enough problems yet, for that to happen.
We’ve already posted a number of articles here pointing out how overreliance on local control has led to a collected housing shortage not only in California but across the nation. These state laws are necessary to counterbalance local obstruction by privileged homeowners. The state’s role is to look out for the overall collective good. That’s why, for example, we have statewide environmental quality laws so pollution from one community can’t just simply wash into its neighbors.
The state’s “role” in all of this is to support the continued growth of the tech, real estate, and development industries.
In other words, the groups that ensured that the political system limited the choices available to voters to a YIMBY Democrat, vs. a Republican.
Actually, they aren’t working.
Further complicating San Francisco’s path to meeting its housing goal is the fact that more than half of the new homes it needs to add — about 46,000 units — must be affordable to households with low or moderate incomes. But the state hasn’t provided any new financing mechanisms to help those expensive projects pencil out. Supervisor Hillary Ronen has publicly called the goals “a farce.”
“That is a preposterous goal. It’s dreamland,” said Chris Elmendorf, a UC Davis law professor. “The planning exercise is built on something of a fiction.”
https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/2023/san-francisco-housing/
This is actually a big part of the “problem”. The housing laws aren’t working “well-enough” to cause a massive reaction against the state.
And from other articles I’ve read, developers often use the threat of a “builder’s remedy” as a threat to get what they actually want. There was a glaring example of this in San Francisco, recently. Even a YIMBY supervisor was essentially forced to say “cool it” to that developer.
One has to ask why, for example, the Palomino Place developer (which sponsors the Vanguard via its advertisements) is simultaneously pursuing the “builder’s remedy” AND a Measure J vote.
I think you’re conflating issues here. Affordable housing needs to funding to get built. The state has failed to enact a new increment tax to fund it. That’s a different issue than the Builder’s Remedy which simply streamlines projects that meet certain requirements.
Sounds like it won’t be built. In fact, it “more than sounds like” it won’t be built (see reference to the Chronicle’s article, above – including the quote from Elmendorf).
One of those requirements consists of an Affordable housing component. It would be interesting to see how that’s actually enacted and monitored.
But if a developer attempts to use the Builder’s Remedy, it means they meet the affordable housing requirement. That has nothing to do with whether SF can find enough funding to build their RHNA numbers.
I don’t understand what point you’re trying to make.
But there is no way that the state’s targets are going to be met. (Wiener and the likes of those people don’t want to admit that.)
https://48hills.org/2023/08/lots-of-housing-laws-not-much-housing/
The basic “problem” for these people is that the state is no longer growing. And the population is shrinking in some places – such as San Francisco.
Maybe Legal Services and all of the YIMBY groups should sue San Francisco to make them pick up a hammer and “get to it”.
The point I’m trying to make is the Builder’s Remedy is project by project.
Right. By definition, any developer trying to employ the builders remedy has already figured out that they can make the construction of affordable housing economically feasible at that location.
Whether other developers can do the same at other locations, and whether sufficient opportunities for these un-subsidized affordable projects exist in sufficient quantity to move the needle is another question altogether.
But you wonder what these projects might end up looking like.
Russian housing blocks?
That’s a NIMBY gross exaggeration Keith. They must be attractive and functional enough to sell.
Here’s the most disingenuous statement from Our Neighborhood Voices. New housing is not being blocked because locals are instead advocating for this solution:
We Can Have New Housing Without Even More Traffic Gridlock.
There are proven ways to create new housing without gridlock and sprawl. We can build new housing near rapid transit, we can create more housing in our downtown areas next to jobs, we can reduce the red tape that increases the cost of housing, we can create affordable backyard cottages that keep our parents and kids in our communities while preserving the scale and character of our neighborhoods.
There are solutions — but the politicians gave their developer donors the ability to build market-rate, multi-story projects in every neighborhood and took away our ability to speak out about projects that are being built literally right next door to us.
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