News

March 16, 2026

Inside ReMo Homes: Founder Vamsi Kumar Kotla’s Supply-Side Housing Play for California

As California confronts overlapping wildfire rebuilding pressures, housing shortages, and climate adaptation challenges, standardized off-site construction is gaining renewed policy and market attention. In conversation, ReMo Homes Founder & CEO Vamsi Kumar Kotla discusses the statewide approval of SupReMo™, a pre-engineered housing model designed to streamline permitting, reduce soft costs, and accelerate scalable housing delivery.

March 16, 2026

Right-Sizing LAUSD: Nick Melvoin on Strategic Planning, Education Code Reform, and Climate Resilience

LAUSD Board Member Nick Melvoin reflects on the structural challenges shaping the future of the nation’s second-largest school district, discussing the fiscal implications of one-time federal ESSER funding, pressures of labor negotiations in a high-cost region, and the long-term sustainability of a district that now serves roughly 400,000 students—down from nearly 700,000 two decades ago.

March 16, 2026

Darrell Steinberg Backs Hertzberg’s Bold Middle-Class Housing Bond

As California continues to confront a deepening housing crisis, state leaders are reevaluating how to expand access to homeownership beyond traditional programs. Sacramento Mayor and former Senate leader Darrell Steinberg highlights a groundbreaking market-based solution to close the gap between subsidized affordable units and costly market-rate homes.

March 16, 2026

The Lotus Model: Market-Rate Housing as a Solution for Homelessness in Neighborhoods of Opportunity

Beth Silverman, Lotus Campaign’s co-founder and executive director, shares the organization’s market-driven model for addressing homelessness by aligning the real estate sector, social service providers, and individuals seeking stable housing. Beth explains how Lotus, launched in 2018 in Charlotte, North Carolina, reduces landlord risk through financial guarantees and support services while expanding access to existing housing in “neighborhoods of opportunity.”

February 12, 2026

Inside LA City Planning: Vince Bertoni on Housing, Rezoning, and Trade-Offs

As Los Angeles pushes to meet City Council housing targets, rebuild after climate-driven disasters, and gear up for the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games, LA City Planning Director Vince Bertoni delivers a pragmatic assessment of both progress and limits.

February 11, 2026

Plant Prefab’s Moment: Steve Glenn on Post-Fire Rebuilds, New Commercial Ventures, and Market Signals

As wildfire rebuilding, affordability pressures, and labor constraints converge, off-site construction is moving from niche solution to market necessity. In this interview, Founder and CEO of Plant Prefab, Steve Glenn, reflects on two decades in industrialized housing, tracing how prefab has evolved from design experimentation to a delivery-driven business shaped by automation, permitting frameworks, and capital discipline.

February 3, 2026

A City Now on the Rise: Mayor Daniel Lurie’s State of the City Address

In his State of the City address, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie described the city as a “city on the rise” while outlining an agenda focused on making recent progress durable and broadly shared. Highlighting declines in crime, a strengthened police pipeline, expanded treatment capacity, and a coordinated recovery-first approach to fentanyl and homelessness, Lurie tied improved street conditions to signs of economic resurgence downtown, increased tourism and conference activity, and major global events ahead.

January 8, 2026

Publisher’s Tribute: Bob Foster in His Own Words

A personal mentor, Bob Foster, across two decades of meetings and interviews with our newsletters, is remembered less as a politician reacting to events than as an authentic, one-of-a-kind, systems thinker insisting on preparedness, institutional clarity, and physical reality. Whether speaking as President of Southern California Edison, Chair of the California ISO, or Mayor of Long Beach, Foster returned to the same uncomfortable truth: modern society depends on infrastructure that must be planned years in advance, paid for honestly, and governed without illusion.

January 8, 2026

Letter From Malibu: Sam Hall Kaplan on Chaos, Civic Dysfunction, and Looming Corruption

In this republished essay from Common Edge, critic and longtime Malibu resident Sam Hall Kaplan examines the troubling intersection of post-fire rebuilding, municipal dysfunction, and political influence now unfolding at Malibu City Hall. He warns that the city’s experience offers a cautionary tale for other climate-vulnerable communities across Los Angeles County—where delayed recovery, opaque governance, and misaligned incentives risk eroding public trust at precisely the moment effective civic leadership is most needed.

January 8, 2026

Building the Next Phase of California’s Hydrogen Market: FPH2’s CEO Jason Caudle

FPH2’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Jason Caudle explains how California’s hydrogen market is shifting from policy anticipation to market execution. As cities, transit agencies, and suppliers align around offtake, Caudle outlines how FPH2 is aggregating demand, supporting bankable supply, and keeping momentum in the hydrogen market moving forward.

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© 2026 The Planning Report | David Abel, Publisher, ABL, Inc.