I feel for the people on the west side of EssEff. The (over)development pressure from various state laws and codes has them on edge. Close the Great Highway? Sure. Let the voters on the east side disrupt your daily life. Miami styled high rises blocking the sunset in the Sunset? Too bad. Now with Scott Weiner’s SB79 signed into law, we are all at risk of being Miami-ized. SB 79 does this:

• Overriding local limits: SB 79 supersedes certain local zoning restrictions to permit greater density and building height for housing projects located within a half-mile of qualifying transit stops.
• Target areas: It primarily applies to urban counties with significant transit infrastructure, such as those in the Bay Area, Los Angeles, and Sacramento.
• Affordability: The law includes requirements for a portion of the new units to be set aside for lower-income households.
• Local flexibility: Local governments can adopt alternative development plans that must be approved by the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD).

The bill looked like it was headed to defeat, but the Sacramento sausage-making took center stage as

The chair, Sen. Aisha Wahab of Fremont, opposed the bill on the grounds that it tilted too heavily toward developers without requiring enough affordable housing. In Sacramento, a chair’s word usually decides a bill’s fate. But Weiner went above Wahab’s head, calling Senate Pro Tem Mike McGuire, the Dem. Majority leader, asking him to give the other Senators on the committee to vote against the chair, a maneuver known in the Capitol as “rolling the chair” and is often seen as a breach of decorum and defiance of leadership.

There was more sausage-making to come including

Amendments made in the 11^th hour got the bill through the State Building and Construction Trades Council, when the bill was amended to require union labor on any building taller than 85 feet, and tenant groups got some protections for low-income neighorhoods. In the end, Wahab and Durazo flipped to support the bill.”  Lucky for Newsom, the bill’s reach was narrowed to counties with over 15 major passenger rail stations, leaving out Contra Costa, and Marin, where Newsom recently purchased a mansion in Kentfield for $9 million.

How nice. Marin gets the status quo while EssEff, Santa Clara and San Mateo counties get the intense development pressure. With B’game’s central location between the city and Silicon Valley and the lovely amenities, schools and weather, I’m feeling a bit like the bullseye on the developers’ dartboard. Will our council get creative? Will they muster support from other similarly situated Peninsula cities? Or even go farther afield like Huntington Beach? I’m not seeing that sort of backbone. Will the parking lot across ECR from Walgreen’s be the Miami beachhead in town?