iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Farmers are making bank harvesting a new crop: Solar energy

Californians have a long history of solving big problems by changing our ways. To be sure, change requires some heartache and struggle, but the good news is that we’ve got plenty of water to accommodate millions more Californians.

grist.org

In California's water-stressed Central Valley, farmers are fallowing land and going solar, providing financial stability and saving water.

281

“This structural approach, they say, has been developed for as yet unbuilt projects of up to 80 storeys in seismic regions of the Mediterranean…” I’d love to see architects and structural engineers investigate whether this approach could stand up to California earthquakes. It sure looks fireproof!

140

Construction Underway For 3419 San Pablo Avenue, Oakland - San Francisco YIMBY

“The project will be entirely concrete Type I Construction, after a ’detailed comparison of life-cycle structural system costs incorporated recent and dramatic increases in insurance costs for wood-framed construction in Oakland.‘“ What’s going on?!?

sfyimby.com

Construction is moving quickly for the six-story affordable housing complex at 3419 San Pablo Avenue in West Oakland, Alameda County. Concrete has...

2201

Episode 122: An Overview of Preapproved Building Plan Programs with Seva Rodnyansky

“Preapproved plans essentially frontload the plan approval process, eliminating its case-by-case and discretionary components. This innovation can shorten preconstruction timelines by months without compromising safety, especially in places that have streamlined their building permit processes."

lewis.ucla.edu

Seva Rodnyansky shares findings about how preapproved plan programs promise to speed up permitting and lower the cost of building new homes.

161

Reposted by Patrick Siegman

Chris Roberts @electroberts.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

This appears to be very smart policy. Good work California - making it easier to add solar and install heat pumps to our homes.

063

Reposted by Patrick Siegman

suldrew 🏳️‍🌈 @suldrew.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Too short

181

Patrick Siegman @siegman.biz · 19/09/2026

Heat pumps reduce pollution, regionwide. So do solar panels, EV chargers & other green tech. For these technologies, states shouldn't let cities impose onerous & expensive rules that vary by city. If otherwise law-abiding citizens routinely break the rules, that's a good sign they are too onerous.

361

Patrick Siegman @siegman.biz · 19/09/2026

“San Francisco Bay Area Planning & Urban Research Association (SPUR) found that some jurisdictions require 3 permits — plumbing, electrical, and structural — for a heat-pump water heater, which can result in $400 in unnecessary fees” We need policy wonks to fix this stuff. Good thing we’ve got one!

canarymedia.com

California moves to cut red tape for home solar, storage, and more

Two bills on Gov. Newsom’s desk would reduce hurdles to heat pumps and home solar and batteries, which could reduce fees by $1,000 or more per project.

1272

Reposted by Patrick Siegman

Patrick Siegman @siegman.biz · 07/05/2026

US model fire codes demand wide roadways (with 20 or more feet of clear width), even on very low-traffic residential streets. Am I right in thinking that few if any other nations demand such wide streets?

A birds eye view photograph of a single-family house subdivision in Carson City Nevada. In the left foreground can be seen a wide, slightly meandering street. The street is approximately 36 feet wide from curb to curb, including enough room for two 8-foot parking lanes and 20 feet of width in between them. While the parking lanes exist, no cars are parked in them. The street has narrow sidewalks on both sides, but no street trees. The resulting street look like a Speedway. Motorists can easily and comfortably navigate it at speeds far in excess of the 25 mile-per-hour posted speed limit, and it is likely that many of them do just that. Photo by Dan Burden.

182

Patrick Siegman @siegman.biz · 17/09/2026

Consultants (like me) & clients are often better off signing contracts that simply don't reimburse meal & travel expenses. Clients can focus limited staff time on big decisions (e.g., should we build a $50 million garage, even though we haven't collected occupancy data for our existing garages?)...

1190

Patrick Siegman @siegman.biz · 17/09/2026

In California, new state laws require many cities to allow apartments near transit, so why aren't more apartments being built? In part, because so many cities break the law.

271

Patrick Siegman @siegman.biz · 16/09/2026

Existing: parking lot Approved: 168 affordable homes "Sobrato and Pacific West Communities stated in the proposal that they intend to use provisions of Senate Bill 330, a state law that was crafted to streamline local planning reviews, especially for affordable housing."

mercurynews.com

Project would replace downtown San Jose parking lot with affordable homes

An affordable housing project could sprout atop a surface parking lot in downtown San Jose.

1142

Patrick Siegman @siegman.biz · 15/09/2026

"At Sunset Square Apartments, a 96-unit affordable housing complex in East San Jose, roughly a quarter of households earn above the site’s income limits. Two bring in over $300,000 a year, while each has paid around $1,800 a month for a 1-bedroom unit — almost $1,000 below the city’s median rent..."

mercurynews.com

They earn $300,000 and pay $1,800 in rent in the Bay Area. Why they can stay in affordable housing

A California bill would allow some affordable housing operators to remove tenants whose incomes have risen far above eligibility limits.

240

zone-in-columbus.hub.arcgis.com

Do you care about Columbus, Ohio? If so, here's your chance to weigh in on the plan to modernize zoning in ~41% of the city, including removing all minimum parking mandates. This proposal is part of Zone In Columbus, a comprehensive effort to update a zoning code written more than 70 years ago.

Zone In

An ArcGIS Hub site used by the general public to access Zone In information and education in their community.

061

This iconic Bay Area company can’t even fix its roof because of red tape

“While Sausalitans decide in November whether to permit small businesses to flourish on decaying parking lots… voters in Menlo Park will be weighing in on a measure to prohibit changes to city-owned downtown parking lots without voter approval — an initiative designed to block affordable housing.“

sfchronicle.com

OPINION: The November election will feature tests over whether Californians will choose vibrancy or decay. Here’s one in Marin County worth watching, columnist Emily Hoeven writes.

270

As summer recess ends, what’s on Pittsburgh City Council’s plate?

Pittsburgh City Council "is set to soon make a decision on an affordable housing initiative... Also bundled with the program are much less contentious zoning changes. One...would remove parking minimums for new developments." For parking reformers like me, the world is full of good news.😊

wesanews.org

Pittsburgh’s City Council will reconvene after its month-long annual August recess this week. And as its nine members return, so will several ongoing debates, bills, projects and topics of discussion ...

050

Building Code Reform Needs Longer Cycles and More Scrutiny

I agree. For US building codes, “heightened scrutiny is long overdue.” Nicholas Erickson, Executive Director of Housing Affordability Institute, writes, “Regardless of the level, broadly speaking, there isn’t sufficient scrutiny of code changes.“

housingwire.com

The author urges evidence and cost analysis for model code changes, plus longer timelines so cities can evaluate how provisions work in practice.

253

Patrick Siegman @siegman.biz · 13/09/2026

Last week, the decline and fall of minimum parking mandates continued. NPR’s Marketplace explained the benefits of parking reform to a national audience, highlighting the abolition of minimum parking mandates in Denver and a study finding that reform could increase apartment building by nearly 13%.

marketplace.org

Could nixing parking spot requirements help new housing construction?

Denver is going to find out. Last year, Denver’s City Council voted to eliminate minimum parking requirements for all new construction.

1204

Patrick Siegman @siegman.biz · 10/09/2026

Pew Charitable Trusts found that since 2017, housing in Austin has become MORE affordable for the average worker, thanks to the construction of more than 120,000 new homes.

A bar chart titled, "Figure 2 With More Housing Supply, Austin’s Median Rent Became Affordable to Those Earning Lower Incomes Share of Austin’s median income needed to afford Austin’s median rent, 2017 and 2024." The chart shows that in 2017, the share of Austin's median income needed to afford Austin's median rent was 95%. By 2024, that figure had fallen to 84%.

The chart footnote reads:
"Notes: The above figures assume affordability based on a household spending 30% of its income on rent. Rental unit affordability is calculated as follows: Numerator is monthly rent for a one-bedroom unit (from Apartment List) x 12 months / 0.3 (the 30% of income going toward rent); denominator is Austin city area median income for a one-person household.

Sources: Rent data from Apartment List downloaded Dec. 23, 2025; AMI for a one-person household from U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey 2024 one-year estimates"

© 2026 The Pew Charitable Trusts

https://www.pew.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/2026/03/18/austins-surge-of-new-housing-construction-drove-down-rents

13310

Patrick Siegman @siegman.biz · 10/09/2026

If you care about reducing costs & pollution, it's not helpful to have the American Gas Association as one of just five "founding strategic partners" of the private corporation that writes America's model building codes. But how much power does that status confer? That's not yet clear to me.

An excerpt from an International Code Council document that reads,
"Strategic Partners
American Gas Association (AGA)
American Institute of Architects (AIA)
National Association of Home Builders (NAHB)
National Multi-Housing Council (NMHC)
Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA)"
Source: https://www.iccsafe.org/wp-content/uploads/CP02-05.pdf

163

America’s laws often seem based on two contradictory impulses: 1️⃣ Ample free parking is our highest value, so cities should require lots of it. 2️⃣ Automobiles are unsightly, so they must be stored out of sight. Reconciling these impulses is physically impossible.

070

”The first phase of Mandela Station, a 240-unit affordable apartment building, is set to break ground soon at West Oakland BART.”😀 I’m a glass-half-full kind of guy, so my headlines focus on what we gain.

A rendering captioned “The first phase of Mandela Station, a 240-unit affordable apartment building, is set to break ground soon at West Oakland BART.” the image shows a six story apartment building with balconies, bright colors on its murals, and a Bart station in the background.

1121

If you live in San Francisco and care about making housing affordable, you should follow @fruchtose.bsky.social.

142

HouserDave @houserdave.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

How can we build more affordable apartments? Replace America‘s peculiar, semi-privatized building codes. Here’s one way:

040

Reposted by Patrick Siegman

I swear San Francisco is the biggest housing hypocrite jurisdiction in the state. I'd call L.A. worse but L.A. doesn't even pretend to care.

1423

This S.F. suburb lost control of its housing. What happens now?

“In 2016, the City Council was still pushing for a Baylands plan devoted entirely to retail when a quote from Mayor Cliff Lentz…went viral: ‘We’ll provide the commercial — S.F. will provide the housing.‘“ I’ve seen this so many times in my career: “We support housing, somewhere else.”

sfchronicle.com

After decades fighting development, can state enforcement force through housing proposals in the Bay Area city?

1131

Robotaxis Try Their Luck on London’s Medieval Roads (Gift Article)

“The failure rate for a driver’s license test in London is just over 50 percent.” Requiring robotaxis to pass a driver‘s license test would be good — for the industry and for the public. If they pass, it will build trust. If they fail, we will all be safer.

nytimes.com

Uber and the British start-up Wayve are the latest to start testing autonomous cars in one of the world’s largest markets for ride-hailing services.

1111