While San Francisco was a leader in imposing the country’s earliest and strictest stay-at-home orders to combat the spread of the coronavirus, the city has been much more lenient than places like New York and Washington, D.C., when it comes to allowing construction to go forward.

That may soon change.

Public health officials are preparing an updated order that will likely be far more restrictive in terms of what types of construction are allowed and what are not, according to Supervisor Aaron Peskin and others involved in the talks. While the details are still in flux, the order will likely be similar to that of New York and Washington, D.C., which narrowed allowable projects to “roads, bridges, transit facilities, utilities, hospitals o...

s the COVID-19 virus continues to circulate the globe, many industries and jobs are beginning to feel the effects of the social distancing and quarantining that most people are doing to help keep themselves safe. In some areas, complete shelter in place orders are given, which are shutting down non-essential industries, while in other areas life is proceeding as normal, but at a slower pace.

To help determine the effect of this economic slow down on the construction industry, we reached out to 35 industry experts to get their take on how their business is impacted, and what their thoughts are for the future.

Some highlights from the report include:

• Many projects are proceeding, but some are experiencing interruptions

• Delivery of...

Gov. Andrew Cuomo will freeze most construction statewide in response to the pandemic virus sweeping New York, after outcry from workers and word of COVID-19 cases on job sites around the city.

On Friday the governor will decree most residential and commercial building temporarily off limits, according to a spokesperson for Cuomo’s office. Infrastructure and transportation projects will be allowed to continue, as well as emergency repairs, hospital building and work on affordable housing.

Until now, construction work has been classified as essential, exempt from a state “pause” that ordered the shutdown of a wide swath of workplaces.

Cuomo’s shift followed a rush of protest from construction workers and their family members. Significant n...

Normally, spring is a busy time for the Bay Area rental market. But with a state-wide shelter-in-place order ongoing and coronavirus cases still rising, that market is taking a hit — a trend that's growing across the nation.

According to national rent site RentCafe, by the second week of March, 30 percent fewer renters in the Bay Area were searching for an apartment.

The biggest drop so far was recorded on March 16, "when the number of visits decreased by 45 percent compared to one week prior," Adrian Rosenberg, a RentCafe spokesperson, told SFGate. "Mirroring the national trend, searches on Google such as as 'apartments' or 'apartments near me' have dropped significantly."

This doesn't mean people have given up, however. Those who were a...

Former department head stepped down after accusations of misconduct in corruption probe

A new interim director was named Wednesday to lead the Department of Building Inspection after former department head Tom Hui resigned amid allegations that he committed legal and ethical violations.

The Building Inspection Commission voted to appoint Chief Building Inspector Patrick O’Riordan as interim director. O’Riordan has worked at the department as a chief building inspector for seven years.

Hui stepped down after the City Attorney’s Office accused him of a range of misconduct last week including that he accepted gifts from the developer behind a large project in Hayes Valley and gave him preferential treatment.

The City launched the investigatio...

Preston says property caught up in corruption probe can help unhoused families and seniors

Supervisor Dean Preston is calling on the owners of a largely vacant development to step up and house homeless families and seniors at a time when San Francisco has ordered residents to stay indoors.

The mixed-use development at 555 Fulton St. initially attracted Preston’s attention over construction delays and its failure to fulfill a promise to the Hayes Valley neighborhood to lease the ground floor to a grocery store.

But he recently delved deeper into the project when it became a player in a corruption probe this January, and Preston learned that the building is sitting vacant with more than 50 of its 139 units unsold and the others unoccupied....

BAKERSFIELD, Calif. — Mark Marquez, a retired Border Patrol agent, had hoped to keep his extended family intact in the same part of central California where his parents and grandparents had worked the watermelon fields.

Yet the state’s high cost of living is threatening to pull the family apart. His son, a truck driver, is vowing to move from California to Oregon to live on a river and grow cannabis. And his own financial straits have left him wondering about his future.

“I pay the bills and I have nothing extra,” said Marquez, 59, who gets by on a $2,200 monthly pension and has no savings to draw on. “I have to hustle here and there. I am living paycheck to paycheck. And almost everyone I know is doing that.”

The affordability crisis in...

Two San Francisco supervisors introduced separate pieces of legislation Tuesday aimed at preserving housing in the city.

Supervisor Hillary Ronen, D-District 9, proposed an ordinance that would ban new office space on the upper floors of some developments zoned as “urban mixed use” in eastern neighborhoods — generally portions of the Mission District, Potrero Hill and the Dogpatch. The UMU zoning designation, created more than a decade ago as redevelopment of the neighborhoods was just beginning, allows office space on upper floors.

Also on Tuesday, Supervisor Rafael Mandelman, D-District 8, introduced legislation seeking to close what he called a “loophole” in the city’s permit review process regarding the demolition...

A new San Francisco Flower Mart would beat out nearly 400 units of approved housing at an industrial site at the base of Potrero Hill, according to a new plan.

The developer of the San Francisco Flower Mart property in South of Market has a new scheme to relocate the flower vendors to 16th Street in Potrero, the latest twist in the saga of the city’s wholesale flower market whose current home is being redeveloped for tech office space.

On Monday, executives from Kilroy Realty Corp., the company developing the current home of the Flower Mart at Sixth and Brannan streets, announced that it had acquired a new home for the floral businesses. Kilroy paid $99 million for the property at 901 16th St. and 1200 17th St.

The property, previously ho...

Earning $40,000 a year in Omaha used to be enough to make rent comfortably. Not anymore.

Housing costs are slipping out of reach for the middle class in smaller and medium-size cities across the U.S., the latest sign that the affordability crisis that started on the coasts is moving inland, according to research released on Friday by the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies.

From 2011 to 2018, the proportion of households making $30,000 to $45,000 a year that were “cost-burdened” -- paying more than 30% of their income on rent -- soared the most in metros including Nashville, Tennessee; Greenville, South Carolina; and McAllen, Texas.

Omaha came in ninth on the list, a worse showing than San Francisco or New Yo...