The Sacramento City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to declare a 102-acre former highway patrol test track in Meadowview surplus property and solicit private development proposals, four years after buying it for more than $12 million with plans that included a homeless “safe ground,” a youth sports complex and a cemetery. Development project manager Ginger Weagraff told the council any development would need at least $50 million in roads, utilities and basic infrastructure the city cannot afford. Under state law the parcel must first be considered for affordable housing; the city also said it may use a small portion for a new animal shelter.
Any eventual project returns to the council for approval.
The Pittsburgh Zoning Board of Adjustment was set to hear testimony Wednesday on the Allegheny County Department of Human Services’ plan to convert a vacant commercial building at 3567 Bigelow Blvd. into a year-round low-barrier overflow shelter, replacing the seasonal Perry South site. Community Family Advocates would run 80 to 100 beds from 6 p.m. to 9 a.m., expandable to 150 in severe weather, with a Downtown Partnership shuttle to Second Avenue Commons for daytime services. Councilor Deb Gross said the interim-housing zoning use was intended for transitional housing and is being “misapplied” to an overnight shelter, and said the zoning administrator waived a required development activities meeting and management plan.
The interim-housing use the application relies on was added to the city zoning code by an ordinance passed in August 2025; the Perry South overflow shelter has operated for the past two winters.
Portland.gov · on the Inner Eastside Zoning Project comment period
The Bureau of Planning and Sustainability opened an online questionnaire asking residents about priorities for housing, historic preservation and neighborhood business locations ahead of rezoning proposals for inner Northeast and Southeast Portland neighborhoods, where the bureau said zoning has mostly allowed only lower-density housing since the 1980s. The questionnaire is open through November 1, with drop-in events September 26 and October 2 and an online session October 7.
The bureau said the fall feedback will inform zoning concepts to be available for public review in spring 2027.
Sacramento broke ground on the Gardendale Road micro-community near Meadowview, the first of four planned tiny-home sites for unhoused people 55 and older, with 40 units planned there and 28 at a 25th Street site. City officials confirmed the Arena Boulevard site in North Natomas is paused; an internal city manager's office memo obtained by KCRA estimated that site's development and construction at a minimum of $7.1 million, up from a $3.5 million estimate in September 2025 presentations, which officials attributed to its flood-zone location. Mayor Kevin McCarty said "pause does not mean it's done."
Councilmember Lisa Kaplan said on August 26 that the Arena Boulevard project was "officially not moving forward."
Rooted Communities announced its proposal to convert the Robert C. Weaver Federal Building, HUD's former headquarters in Southwest D.C., into about 1,000 housing units along with space for homeless and community services will not move forward. The group said it had raised $500 million and brought together 20 of D.C.'s top nonprofits. D.C. officials opposed concentrating homeless housing at a single site, with Deputy Mayor Nina Albert citing the D.C. General shelter as a concentration that "didn't work."
The General Services Administration removed the Weaver Building from its federal property sales list in late July.
The city of San Diego identified the Barnes Tennis Center's overflow lot in Point Loma as one of 11 city-owned sites for potential development under its Affordable Home Development Master Plan, and the tennis center emailed members asking them to advocate against the proposal. Separately, the city auditor released a report finding Barnes illegally converted the lot to gravel parking without permits and kept using it after the city told it to stop in 2024. The planning department said no development projects have been proposed and no decisions made.
The planning department said residents will be able to review a draft of the Affordable Home Development Master Plan before decisions are made.
Voice of San Diego · on Del Mar Fairgrounds board termination of an affordable-housing agreement
The board that runs the Del Mar Fairgrounds voted 5-3 on August 18 to terminate the exclusive negotiating agreement it signed in 2024 with the city of Del Mar to locate part of an affordable housing project on Fairgrounds land now occupied by an RV park. Board members cited economic and political uncertainties and what they called "animosity" surrounding the project.
On August 5, the Del Mar City Council demanded an investigation into California Attorney General Rob Bonta and a Fairgrounds board member over whether ties to a rival project's developer biased them against the Fairgrounds project.
Washington County's Department of Housing Services is implementing a pre-screening process for people referred to county-funded shelters and transitional housing within 1,000 feet of schools or day care facilities, checking for existing legal residency restrictions before assignment. County spokesperson Emily Roots said no one will be denied shelter and that people with restrictions will be referred to a different location; she said the process was developed with the sheriff's office and Community Corrections and had unanimous board support. The change follows concerns raised in April by Reeds Crossing neighbors about the Aloha Safe Rest Village's proximity to two elementary schools, though Roots said the policy was not created in response.
The Aloha Safe Rest Village, renamed Next Step Community, has been delayed by construction and is now expected to open this fall, with a good neighbor agreement still being worked out.
State Sen. Akilah Weber Pierson gutted and amended SB 344, a dormant bill on scattering ashes at sea, to declare the Midway Rising redevelopment's environmental impact report in full compliance with CEQA, shielding the project from legal challenges under that law. The bill, co-sponsored by Mayor Todd Gloria and three construction trades councils, carries an urgency clause and awaits a final Assembly reading before the legislative session ends August 31. The project plans 4,254 residential units on 49.2 acres, including 2,000 units for households at or below 80% of area median income.
A companion bill, SB 958, barring building-height impacts from counting as significant under CEQA, is also on the Assembly floor; the city-developer lease deal is expected before the council's Land Use & Housing Committee on October 8.
The Columbian · on unresolved housing and growth issues in Clark County's 20-year growth plan
Clark County scheduled four meetings through mid-October to resolve infrastructure concurrency, urban growth boundary and climate issues before adopting the 20-year comprehensive plan it began updating in early 2023. Developers told the county that its concurrency code interpretation, which paused land use hearings in June, could shut down the housing pipeline, while Ridgefield, Battle Ground and Camas are seeking urban growth boundary expansions that the Friends of Clark County group opposes. The county council has public hearings on October 6 and 13, when it is expected to adopt the plan.
The county's density goal is six residential units per acre; Ridgefield's city manager said the city has been developing almost eight per acre.
Proponents of a ballot measure to reserve a quarter of the Santa Monica Airport's 192 acres for up to 3,000 units of income-restricted housing missed the signature deadline to qualify for the November 2028 ballot, after previously missing a June deadline for the November 2026 ballot. Supporters said they will drop signature gathering and instead lobby the City Council directly once the next council is seated.
The Santa Monica Airport is slated to close at the end of 2028.
Attorney Stuart Gross, representing three neighborhood associations, sent an August 11 letter to San Francisco's planning and public health directors threatening to sue if the 848-home Marina Safeway redevelopment — 86 affordable units in buildings up to 22 stories — proceeds through AB 2011 streamlined review before contamination testing is completed. The letter said more than 40,000 square feet beneath the operating store remains untested; Planning Director Sarah Dennis Phillips wrote last month that the project "satisfies the environmental site criteria outlined in AB2011."
A state Department of Toxic Substances Control representative cited 2023 testing that found petroleum in soil at up to 2,500 milligrams per kilogram, about twice the commercial screening threshold and 10 times the residential threshold.
Mission Local · on a city-property inventory for affordable housing and food-access siting
District 5 Supervisor Bilal Mahmood requested a centralized database of all city-owned property to identify sites for grocery stores, food pantries, and affordable housing, citing New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani's municipal-land inventory as a model. A City Administrator's Office spokesperson said the information currently sits in multiple places with no single database, and the annual surplus-property reports exclude holdings of departments such as SFUSD and SFMTA.
Mahmood's earlier push on shelter data produced a biannual citywide shelter list.