by Dr. Ahimsa Porter Sumchai & Glenn Rogers, RLA : westsideobsesrver – excerpt
San Francisco wants to lead America’s AI boom. Dr. Ahimsa Porter Sumchai warns that District 10 residents could be left with the pollution, power demands and environmental risks.
ayor Daniel Lurie’s proposal to site another high-megawatt AI data center in District 10—at a time when communities across the nation are pushing back against data centers in vulnerable neighborhoods—is a political mistake with potentially profound human consequences.
It is particularly troubling given that District 10 Supervisor Shamann Walton has called for a moratorium on new data centers.
City residents don’t have to look any further than Bayview-Hunters Point to see the link … the specific area where data centers are located has a pollution burden of 6.8, but its diesel pollution is among the worst in the state, according to OEHHA data.” San Francisco Examiner
San Francisco’s AI Boom Has a Physical Address
Since 2024, San Francisco and Silicon Valley have emerged as a “major node for high-density tech infrastructure” and one of the nation’s largest regional AI data-center hubs, according to DataCenters.com.
Micro Center’s America’s AI Citiesanalyzed the 100 largest U.S. cities using factors including AI-related jobs, startup activity, data centers, internet access and search interest. It ranked San Francisco first among America’s AI cities.
According to DataCenterMap.com, 15 active data centers currently operate in San Francisco proper, an estimated 32 operate in the immediate vicinity of the city, and approximately 150 operate in the regional triangle extending from San Francisco through Alameda and Santa Clara counties…
The Sound of AI Never Stops
Data centers warrant scrutiny as heavy industrial uses for several reasons. Chief among them is noise… (more)
The Meridian apartments in San Rafael look out on yacht slips and million-dollar homes. But tenants who have lived in the 1960s gray stucco complex over the years — most of them low-income immigrants from Guatemala and El Salvador — have come not for the view but to claim a rare working-class foothold in wealthy Marin County.
So when the Meridian’s new landlord said it wanted to convert the building to affordable housing, tenants were hopeful their rent would go down.
Instead, they learned, some rents would go up.
The conversion would be a better deal for the building’s owner, San Francisco-based private equity firm Tesseract Capital Group. The company could substantially avoid property taxes through a California law known as the welfare exemption — all without meaningfully lowering rents…
The Meridian is one of hundreds of apartment buildings across the state that major investors — from Apollo Global Management to the California State Teachers’ Retirement System — are converting into affordable housing to take advantage of a quirk in housing law. In some places, affordable rent limits tied to area median income are so high that landlords can charge market rate and still qualify for a tax break.
As a result, the welfare exemption, meant to keep housing affordable, has instead become a tax avoidance strategy in which owners save hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars a year without giving tenants a discount on rent, a Chronicle investigation found…
“Affordable” rent limits exceed market rents in most California metros
Difference between the maximum rent allowed under California’s welfare tax exemption for a one-bedroom and market rent… (more)
Relates to enacting “Priscilla’s law” requiring ebikes and electric scooters to be registered and have license plates.
2025-S2599A (ACTIVE) – SUMMARY
Requires bicycles with electric assist and electric scooters in a city with a population of one million or more be registered with the department of motor vehicles and have a license plate affixed to such bicycle with electric assist or electric scooter… (more)
RELATED:
At Packed Hearing, N.Y.C. Lawmakers Debate How to Slow Down E-Bikes
Lawmakers on Wednesday reviewed a record number of proposals to regulate the use of electric bikes and scooters, after a series of fatal crashes…. (more)
Some relevant points in AB-1857 authored by Assembly Member Aguiar-Curry, (Principal coauthor: Assembly Member Wicks) (Coauthors: Assembly Members Bonta, Kalra, and Schiavo):
(f) Restrictive covenants contained in deeds, leases, and other land use documents prohibit the use of commercial property for food retail purposes, preventing food retailers from establishing at a site, and therefore operating as private land use barriers that reduce food access, limit consumer choice, suppress competition, and create conditions for the high cost of food…
(h) Restrictive covenants in housing deeds, which were used to prohibit non-White families from owning homes, were rendered judicially unenforceable by the United States Supreme Court in 1948. California law now prohibits the enforcement of such covenants and requires their identification and disavowal in property records…
(j) It is therefore a matter of statewide concern to eliminate private land use restrictions that impede access to food. The Legislature finds that voiding restrictive covenants that prohibit or limit grocery and supermarket uses is a reasonable and necessary exercise of the state’s power to protect public health, promote equity, and advance the welfare of all Californians.
SEC. 2. Section 714.8 is added to the Civil Code, immediately following Section 714.7, to read: 714.8. (a) This section shall be known as, and may be cited as, the Grocery Store Access Act… (more)
Comments: This is exactly what I was hoping for when I heard of the deeded covenants. I don’t know how this may help any of our current cases in SF, but it is good to know the covenants will not be able to impeded the use of the existing grocery stores or use of the property.
There could be additional challenges and amendments, ie: no grocery may be closed or demolished if such actions cut off food access to a community that relies on it.
Excuse me. How can landlords who set the rents blame the city for skyrocketing rents? You may claim anything you like, but this is a clear case of passing the buck. Cities do not set the rents. Landlords do.
When Mayor Daniel Lurie declared a state of emergency around skyrocketing rental costs, landlords gritted their teeth.
“Our mantra has always been that there’s no housing crisis,” said Noni Richen, who owns two properties in the Western Addition. “To call it a crisis or an emergency is just putting a name on a situation that’s existed for many years.”
But Richen and other San Francisco landlords say the emergency declaration and associated policies — capping rent increases at 10%, funding eviction defense, and preventing evictions over less than a month’s unpaid rent — are targeting the wrong problem. They argue that San Francisco’s strict rent control laws and eviction protections already are among the best tenant protections in the U.S. and make it difficult to remove tenants who engage in illegal activity or mistreat property.
The landlords are not taking the fight lying down. Why would they? They’re winning…(more)
SF must protect a sewage plant and the zoo from rising seas. The project now won’t be done until at least 2033, more than 20 years after a ‘master plan’ came out.
In recent years, San Francisco’s Great Highway has been the site of great drama, both manmade and natural. More is on the horizon.
In November, the city will decide for a third time whether cars should have access to the stretch of the road now known as Sunset Dunes Park. Sometime around Election Day, the city’s rainy season should begin, and forecasters say there’s a good chance for heavy storms — the same kind that in past years battered the shore and ripped out chunks of the Great Highway…
That afflicted section of the road, known as the Great Highway Extension, is less than a mile long and the only barrier that keeps the Pacific Ocean from swamping critical water infrastructure, including a sewage treatment plant, and the San Francisco Zoo.
Part of the extension has already fallen into the ocean, thanks to vicious storms in the winter of 2009-10. The roadway is so narrow that only northbound traffic is allowed now. This stretch of SF’s southwest shore is the city’s first big test to reinforce itself against the rising sea levels and stronger storms of climate change. So far, the city is failing…
In 2022, the SFPUC had the final plan in place: not just a wall and sand dune, but a walking and biking trail, as well as the complete removal of the Great Highway Extension. The agency hoped it could start construction in late 2023 or early 2024 and wrap up by the end of 2027.
Now the SFPUC has pushed back the start date another five-plus years to the end of 2029. The entire project (formally the Ocean Beach Climate Change Resilience Project) won’t be done until 2033, at the earliest…
SFPUC spokeswoman Nancy Crowley says the latest delay is due to three factors.
One is that the Coastal Commission requested several design changes. Crowley says the project team is working on seven modifications, including the relocation of beach-access stairs and the redesign of a restroom at the south end of the trail. More changes could happen prior to construction, Crowley adds.
A second reason for the delay is that the SFPUC only recently identified the need for improvements to a pipe — separate from the concrete wastewater tunnel — in the same area. “Doing that work as part of this project will avoid having to return later and disrupt the area again,” Crowley says.
The third reason is zoo access. Right now, cars going northbound on the Great Highway Extension can enter and exit the zoo parking lot. Closing the extension for good means shifting all traffic to the Sloat Boulevard access point, which is currently designed only for entrances.
The Board of Supervisors voted to permanently close the extension in May 2024, more than two years ago. Crowley says the original design for zoo access assumed that the Upper Great Highway would be open to cars on weekdays. But Prop K’s victory in Nov. 2024 turned that road into Sunset Dunes Park, which planners must adjust for…… (more)
A Chronicle analysis shows that tech workers who donate to federal-level political causes remain staunch Democrats. Only some finance-focused subsectors pose exceptions
By the time the likes of Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Tim Cook lined up for photo ops with Donald Trump at his second inauguration, a narrative had taken hold: Tech had moved firmly right.
That narrative is wrong, a Chronicle analysis of federal political giving shows — except at the very pinnacle of tech’s power pyramid.
It’s impossible to know which voters changed their allegiance from Democratic or independent to Republican in 2024: The ballot in the U.S. is secret, after all. But tens of thousands of Bay Area residents donate to political causes each year, and those records are public. They show that when it comes to voting with their wallets, tech workers are still overwhelmingly Democratic…
That isn’t to say there hasn’t been a rightward shift in recent years. But it’s mostly confined to the ultra-wealthy and ultra-influential. Some CEOs, upper-level executives, crypto workers and venture capitalists are the only workers to have transitioned much of their giving to Republicans… (more)
If you have recently been inspired to enroll in classes at City College of San Francisco for the fall term, you may be disappointed. The number of scheduled classes in many fields is insufficient to meet student demand.
Registration for classes for the fall 2026 term began on April 28. By June 4, if not before then, all the scheduled art classes were fully enrolled. Some students could be lucky and find an art class with an opening due to a student dropping it or because a new class was added to the schedule.
What is different from the recent past is that there are only 86 art classes scheduled this term compared to 154 for the fall 2019 term before the COVID pandemic.
At the start of the fall 2026 term, there were 48 scheduled biology classes, compared to 70 in fall 2019. By June 4, before two more classes were added, all 46 biology classes, except two classes of Principles of Food Safety, were fully enrolled with waitlists. As of Aug. 14, five days before the start of the term, all 48 classes were fully enrolled, and 32 did not allow adds to waitlists that are limited to 10 students. There were 390 potential students on waitlists for biology classes, and that doesn’t include those who want to take a class but are unable to or feel too discouraged to add their names to the limited wait lists.
Comparable circumstances exist for many other classes…(more)
This is an old story and it is not limited to SF City College. I heard about the problem in Santa Rosa years ago. Students have been complaining about this lack of classes needed to become certified for some jobs for years.
A controversial plan to raze an Oakland Trader Joe’s and replace it with a senior housing tower that lacks a grocery store has been revised after public outcry, potentially allowing the beloved market to remain in the neighborhood.
San Francisco-based Align Real Estate has submitted an updated application for its two-tower project on the existing Trader Joe’s site that now includes 13,000 square feet of grocery store space, the company said in a news release Wednesday. David Balducci, an executive at Align Real Estate, said in a statement that the company is in conversation with Trader Joe’s to remain on-site after construction.
“In response to requests from the community and its elected representatives, we have redesigned the project to include a modern grocery store,” Balducci said in the news release. “We are in talks with Trader Joe’s and hope they will choose to stay and continue to serve the Rockridge community.”
It’s still unclear if Trader Joe’s wants to keep operating at the 5727 College Ave. site. The grocery chain did not respond to SFGATE questions regarding its interest in the property.
Align’s plans have not been formally approved, and the developer has not publicly said when it expects construction to begin, according to SF YIMBY. Even if Trader Joe’s wants to be in the future building, there’s currently no public plan to provide grocery store access during construction…(more)
Following pushback from local lawmakers and other leaders, District 5 Supervisor Bilal Mahmood said he will introduce new legislation aimed at improving residents’ access to groceries.
The Board of Supervisors Rules Committee on Monday tabled Mahmood’s Affordable Groceries Act, which would have placed on the November ballot a pair of measures meant to address citywide closures of supermarkets in recent years while also expanding residents’ ability to buy fresh foods…
Mahmood said his new legislative proposals, which will be introduced at Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting, take key components from his originally proposed measures.
“San Franciscans are hungry for bold ideas to tackle affordability,” Mahmood said Monday…
Mahmood’s new package will entail three efforts. The first would restore funding to Healthy Retail San Francisco, a citywide program that focuses on turning convenience stores in low-income neighborhoods into retailers selling healthy foods.
His second endeavor would aim to expand The City’s First Year Free program by exempting grocery stores from building and planning permit fees. Mahmood said he would also propose expanding the Storefront Opportunity Grant Program by funding the construction of new grocery stores in parts of San Francisco with limited food-market options.
The last piece of Mahmood’s proposed package would legislate new density bonuses for any housing development that would incorporate a ground-floor grocery store in its construction plans. Mahmood said the proposal is modeled on New York’s Food Retail Expansion to Support Health program, which was established in 2009…. (more)
