Modera The Alameda, a 168-unit apartment building on The Alameda near the SAP Center and Diridon train station, is a step closer to transformation into an affordable housing complex following a unanimous vote by the San Jose City Council.

A $100 million package of tax-exempt bonds to finance the purchase of Modera The Alameda is the funding centerpiece of the affordable housing conversion.

The city’s decision paves the way for the anticipated future owner of the property to pursue the financing for the apartment complex at 787 The Alameda.

The $100 million financing package would be used for “the acquisition, rehabilitation, improvement, and equipping of 167 apartments and one manager’s unit to transition to an affordable housing development,” a city staff report states.

The California Municipal Finance Authority, an agency jointly established in 2004 by multiple government agencies, is slated to issue the bonds for the purchase of the Modera apartment complex.

“This will allow the Modera development to move forward with its current financing plan and create much-needed affordable housing,” the city staff report stated, referring to the financing package to convert Modera into affordable housing.

The California Municipal Finance Authority acts as a conduit for tax-exempt bonds to finance an array of projects to promote economic development.

“San Jose lacks a sufficient amount of affordable housing to meet residents’ needs,” the city staff report states.

The conversion proposal sketches out a plan whereby Catalyst Impact Fund, a nonprofit, would purchase Modera, the city documents show. Catalyst Impact would buy Modera the Alameda from current owner AEW Capital Management.

Once the apartments are converted to affordable housing, they would be set aside for very low-income and low-income individuals and families.

People who live in Modera typically pay monthly rents that range from a low of slightly more than $2,300 a month to nearly $4,600 a month, apartments.com reports.

“To avoid displacement of any current market-rate residents, units will transition to affordable upon move-out,” the city staff report states. “Existing residents who income-qualify will be offered affordable rates upon lease renewal.”

Of the 168 units, 34 units will be set aside for people at the 50% area median income level and the remaining 134 units will be restricted to people at the 80% area median income level, city officials say.

“The 2023 income limit for households with 50% area median income is $62,450 to $89,200 a year and the 80% area median income is $96,000 to $137,100 a year,” the city staff report stated.

Modera’s current assessed value is $101.7 million, county documents show.

The proposal would remove Modera from the property tax rolls — which means the complex would no longer generate property tax revenue once the new owner takes over.

About $1 million a year in property tax revenue would be wiped out as a result of conversion to affordable housing.

Despite the loss in property tax revenue, a conversion makes sense, in the view of Bob Staedler, principal executive with Silicon Valley Synergy, a land-use consultancy.

“Existing units can be purchased for less than the exorbitant cost to build new affordable housing,” Staedler said.

Ryan Christopher, a San Jose resident, wrote an email to city staffers that raised questions about the wisdom of the conversion to affordable housing, especially if a significant hit to San Jose’s revenue from property taxes is in the offing.

“It appears to me that the 80% area median income rents are very similar to the current rents at the property,” Christopher wrote in a Nov. 14 email to the city. “As such, it seems questionable that there is a public benefit, and certainly questionable that we should forgo tax revenue to support this.”

Blackstone Inc. Chief Executive Officer Steve Schwarzman and Visa Inc. CEO Ryan McInerney will also join them at the soiree in San Francisco, according to people briefed on the matter. Pfizer Inc. CEO Albert Bourla earlier confirmed he would attend the event, as he spoke on the sidelines of a summit that’s part of this week’s Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation leaders’ meetings.

Technology CEOs including Qualcomm Inc.’s Cristiano Amon and Broadcom Inc.’s Hock Tan are also on the guest list, said the people, who asked not to be identified sharing details of a private event.

Xi will have the chance to talk up China’s economy to some of the world’s most-powerful foreign investors at the event, after a post-pandemic reopening expected to spur global growth failed to deliver. The Chinese leader will go into the dinner after wrapping an afternoon of talks with US President Joe Biden, aimed at stabilizing a tumultuous bilateral relationship that’s also troubled investors.

China is a major market for consumer electronics, accounting for about one-fifth of sales for Cupertino, California-based Apple. Qualcomm and Broadcom are among the world’s largest makers of chips for mobile phones, and their components are used in millions of handsets sold across China. Representatives of Apple, Qualcomm and Broadcom either declined to comment or didn’t respond to requests for comment.

China sees investment by international companies as key to upgrading its faltering economy and has stepped up efforts to attract foreign investors this year. Its tightening of national security controls and messaging that foreign actors pose spy risks, along with years of policy crackdowns, have left some skeptical of that message.

“The Chinese economy is clearly weakening. There’s no question,” said Derek Scissors, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. “But if you need to stay in China, and you’re worried about your position because of Chinese government behavior, it’s even more important to be able to talk to Xi.”

Details around the dinner have been closely guarded. Its hosts, the National Committee on U.S.–China Relations and the US-China Business Council, had in recent days remained silent even over which Chinese leader would attend the event, as well as its location.

Shortly before the event — being held at a San Francisco hotel where crowds gathered in support and in protest of China — the official program was available to attendees: Xi would address the dinner following an introduction from Chubb Ltd. CEO Evan Greenberg, chair of the committee.

Representative Mike Gallagher, a Wisconsin Republican who chairs the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, claimed at an anti-CCP rally on Saturday that attendees were paying $40,000 to sit at Xi’s table. The Chinese leader is also expected to deliver an address to the dinner.

A group of Xi’s “old friends” from Iowa have also been invited to the dinner, Bloomberg earlier reported. The group hosted Xi during a visit to the US to learn about agricultural practices some 38 years ago, when he was a little-known Chinese Communist Party official.

–With assistance from Fran Wang, Gabrielle Coppola, Aisha Counts, Dawn Lim, Silla Brush, Mark Gurman and Ian King.

(Adds details on program starting in ninth paragraph.)

More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com

©2023 Bloomberg L.P.

San Francisco International Airport was ranked No. 6 among large airports, the survey compiled and released by the Wall Street Journal determined.

“If you want to get where you’re going, there’s never been a better place to start, or end your journey than San Jose International Airport,” San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan said in comments emailed to this news organization.

Here are the top 10 mid-sized airports in the nation, according to the Wall Street Journal’s research:

— 1. San Jose

— 2. San Antonio, Texas

— 3. Sacramento

— 4. Indianapolis

— 5. Houston

— 6. Portland, Oregon

— 7. Santa Ana (Orange County)

— 8. Oakland

— 9. Kahului, Maui, Hawaii

— 10. Tampa, Florida

“The 2023 U.S. Airport Rankings rate the 50 busiest airports in the country based on measures of reliability, value and convenience,” the Wall Street Journal stated. “Each airport is evaluated on 30 factors that span the trip, from buying a ticket to arriving at a final destination.”

Oakland Airport officials said they were proud to receive the high rating for mid-sized airports in the Wall Street Journal survey.

“We know that our passengers appreciate the convenience that comes with flying the East Bay Way,” said Craig Simon, the Port of Oaland’s interim aviation director. “Our team is dedicated to continuously evaluating and improving passenger experience at our facilities.”

The mayor of San Jose believes the airport rankings provide fresh evidence for what some city leaders believe is an upswing for the Bay Area’s largest city.

“San Jose has a lot of things to brag about,” Mahan said. “We are the safest city in the Bay Area, the most innovative place in the world, and have some of the best weather on the planet. And those who have visited us for one of those reasons know that we also have the most reliable, convenient airport in the nation.”

The big-box retailer has decided to permanently shut down three Bay Area stores, located in Oakland, Pittsburg and San Francisco, in the wake of thefts and crimes that afflicted the trio of retail sites.

That move also has erased 238 Bay Area jobs as a result of the permanent shutdowns, with dozens of layoffs at each of the three store sites.

Here are the details of the Target layoffs that arose from the store shutdown decision:

— Pittsburg, 4301 Century Boulevard, 106 job cuts

— Oakland, 2650 Broadway, 69 layoffs

— San Francisco, 1690 Folsom Street, 63 job cuts

“Our team continues to face an unacceptable amount of retail theft and organized retail crime,” Brian Cornell, Target’s chief executive officer, said in a conference call with Wall Street analysts in August.

Within a month of that conference call, Target disclosed it would close nine stores in four states, including three in the Bay Area.

The employees affected by the Bay Area layoffs are not represented by a union. The workers also do not have the right to displace, or “bump,” employees with less seniority. Target stated the store shutdowns would be permanent in WARN letters the retailer sent to the state Employment Development Department.

Despite the pending job cuts, which were scheduled to begin Nov. 9 and be complete by the end of this year, Target held out hope that employees might land jobs at other Target stores, details contained in the WARN letters show.

“Target separately provided information to employees about the opportunity to transfer to another Target store or receive separation pay,” Sonia Kumari, Target human resources business partner, said in the WARN letters.

The terminations will officially occur by Dec. 30 for those employees who choose not to transfer to another store or who are not eligible for a transfer.

“Target anticipates few involuntary terminations,” the retailer stated in the WARN notices.

HAVANA — Until recently, the space was the one-car garage of a private home in Cuba’s capital, Havana. Today, it is a well-stocked, if small, grocery store whose big board at the gate entices shoppers with such offerings as cooking oil, tomato sauce, Hershey’s cocoa powder, Nutella, shampoo, cookies and jam — a treasure trove in a country that is short of supplies.

The nameless shop in the residential neighborhood of El Vedado is one of dozens of tiny grocery stores that have sprung up around Cuba in recent months. Locals refer to them as “mipymes” — pronounced MEE-PEE-MEHS. The name derives from the Spanish words for the small- and medium-sized enterprises that were first allowed to open in 2021.

By allowing the new businesses, the Cuban government hoped to help an economy in crisis and strengthen local production. The almost 9,000 enterprises approved so far include the likes of sewing workshops, fisheries and construction firms, but it is small retail shops like the one in Vedado that seem to be setting up the fastest.

They also have greater visibility among the population because they offer many products not available elsewhere and usually operate out of private homes or garages.

Yet despite their modest setup, their prices are far from affordable, even for a doctor or a teacher, who make about 7,000 Cuban pesos a month (about $28 in the parallel market).

For example, one kilo (2.2 pounds) of powdered milk from the Czech Republic costs 2,000 Cuban pesos (about $8). A jar of Spanish mayonnaise goes for $4. Two and a half kilos (about 5 pounds) of chicken imported from the U.S. cost $8. There are also less essential goods: a jar of Nutella for $5, a bottle of bubbly Spanish wine for $6.

The customers able to use these small shops include Cuban families who receive remittances from abroad, tourism workers, diplomats, employees of other small- and medium-sized businesses, artists and high-performance athletes.

“This is a luxury,” Ania Espinosa, a state employee, said as she left one store in Havana, where she paid $1.50 (350 Cuban pesos) for a packet of potato chips for her daughter. “There are people who don’t earn enough money to shop at a mipyme, because everything is very expensive,” she added.

In addition to her monthly state salary, Espinosa makes some additional income and receives remittances from her husband, who has lived in the U.S. for a year and a half and previously lived in Uruguay.

A few yards away, Ingracia Virgen Cruzata, a retiree, lamented the high prices at the shop. “I retired with 2,200 (Cuban pesos a month or $8.80) last year and I can’t even buy a package of chicken,” she said.

Most of the products found in these stores are imported directly by the entrepreneurs through state-run import agencies, a system that has also opened the door to the emergence of bigger, better stocked stores.

In recent weeks, a private store, accessible only to those who own a car, opened on the outskirts of Havana, featuring giant shelves full of imported products such as Tide detergent, M&M’s candy and Goya brand black beans. Because of its size (it’s at least 10 times larger than the store in Vedado) — and diverse offerings — it has come to be known as the “Cuban Costco.”

The ration books that allow Cubans to buy small quantities of basic goods like rice, beans, eggs and sugar each month for payment equivalent to a few U.S. cents continue to be the basis of the model, allowing families to subsist for about 15 days. The rest of their diet must be acquired through other outlets, including state-owned stores and now the mipymes.

There are also state-run businesses offering a little more variety to complete domestic needs, but they charge in local debit or international credit cards. The novelty is that the small shops like the one in Vedado and bigger bodegas like the “Cuban Costco” are entirely private and accept payments in Cuban pesos.

“For the first time in 60 years, small- and medium-sized private corporations are now authorized by law. Now the challenge is for them to prosper in a very arid landscape for private initiative,” said Pedro Freyre, an analyst with the Florida-based Akerman Consulting and professor at Miami Law School.

“Cuba is a socialist country. The fundamental ideology has not changed. That’s still there. But I think that Cuba is in a very difficult economic moment and that has opened a door,” Freyre added.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Ending the threat of a government shutdown until after the holidays, Congress gave final approval Wednesday night to a temporary government funding package that pushes a confrontation over the federal budget into the new year.

The Senate met into the night to pass the bill with an 87-11 tally and send it to President Joe Biden for his signature one day after it passed the House on an overwhelming bipartisan vote. It provides a funding patch into next year, when the House and Senate will be forced to confront — and somehow overcome — their considerable differences over what funding levels should be.

In the meantime, the bill removes the threat of a government shutdown days before funding would have expired.

“This year, there will be no government shutdown,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said at a news conference after the bill’s passage.

The spending package keeps government funding at current levels for roughly two more months while a long-term package is negotiated. It splits the deadlines for passing full-year appropriations bills into two dates: Jan. 19 for some federal agencies and Feb. 2 for others, creating two deadlines where there will be a risk of a partial government shutdown.

“Everybody is really kind of ready to vote and fight another day,” Republican Whip John Thune, the No. 2 Republican, said earlier Wednesday.

The two-step approach was not favored by many in the Senate, though all but one Democrat and 10 Republicans supported it because it ensured the government would not shut down for now. Sen. Patty Murray, the Washington Democrat who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, voted for the bill but said it would eventually “double the shutdown risk.”

The spending bill also does not include the White House’s nearly $106 billion request for wartime aid for Israel and Ukraine, as well as humanitarian funding for Palestinians and other supplemental requests. Lawmakers are likely to turn their attention more fully to that request after the Thanksgiving holiday in hopes of negotiating a deal.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, who crafted the plan, has vowed that he will not support any further stopgap funding measures, known as continuing resolutions. He portrayed the temporary funding bill as setting the ground for a spending “fight” with the Senate next year.

The new speaker, who told reporters this week that he counted himself among the “arch-conservatives” of the House, is pushing for deeper spending cuts. He wanted to avoid lawmakers being forced to consider a massive government funding package before the December holidays — a tactic that incenses conservatives in particular.

But Johnson is also facing pushback from other hardline conservatives who wanted to leverage the prospect of a government shutdown to extract steep cuts and policy demands.

Many of those conservatives were among a group of 19 Republicans who defied Johnson Wednesday to prevent floor consideration of an appropriations bill to fund several government agencies.

GOP leaders called off the week’s work after the vote, sending lawmakers home early for Thanksgiving. It capped a period of intense bickering among lawmakers.

“This place is a pressure cooker,” Johnson said Tuesday, noting that the House had been in Washington for 10 weeks straight.

The House GOP’s inability to present a united front on funding legislation could undercut the Louisiana congressman’s ability to negotiate spending bills with the Senate.

Republicans are demanding that Congress work out government funding through 12 separate bills, as the budgetary process requires, but House leadership has so far been forced to pull two of those bills from the floor, seen another rejected on a procedural vote and struggled to win support for others.

When it returns in two weeks, Congress is expected to focus on the Biden administration’s requests for Ukraine and Israel funding. Republican senators have demanded that Congress pass immigration and border legislation alongside additional Ukraine aid, but a bipartisan Senate group working on a possible compromise has struggled to find consensus.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell in a floor speech pledged that Republicans would continue to push for policy changes on the U.S. border with Mexico, saying it is “impossible to ignore the crisis at our southern border that’s erupted on Washington Democrats’ watch.”

Most Senate Republicans support the Ukraine funding, said Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., but he added, “It is secondary to securing our own border.”

But the U.S. is already trimming some of the wartime aid packages it is sending Ukraine as funds run low, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said from San Francisco, where he accompanied President Joe Biden for a summit of Asia-Pacific leaders.

He said the pot of money available for Ukraine is “withering away, and with it will be a deleterious effect on Ukraine’s ability to continue to defend itself.”

Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., said in a statement that he voted against Wednesday’s funding package because it did not include aid for Ukraine.

Schumer said the Senate would try to move forward on both the funding and border legislation in the coming weeks, but warned it would require a compromise and implored the House speaker, Johnson, to once again work with Democrats.

“I hope the new speaker continues to choose the bipartisan approach,” Schumer said.

___

Associated Press writers Mary Clare Jalonick, Darlene Superville and Farnoush Amiri contributed to this report.

Demonstrators waving Tibetan flags marched midday down Market Street chanting “Free Tibet” and criticizing the Chinese Communist Party and Xi, its leader. There were repeated incidents of pushing and shoving between critics and supporters of China as police separated the groups.

“The United States is a country that believes in human rights,” said demonstrator Penpa Dhundup, 50, of Berkeley, who was draped in a gold, red and blue Tibetan flag and wore a “Save Tibet” headband. “How can they welcome a Communist Party who takes away everything which the United States is based on?”

Earlier in the morning, police in riot gear pushed up against a crowd of demonstrators representing workers’ rights, environmental and other causes trying to prevent attendees from entering the conference at nearby Moscone Center.

“The goal is to try to shut down meetings,” said Donna Denina, of Seattle, one of the No to APEC protest organizers. “There’s a lot of collusion between government and corporate interests, not in line with working people. We don’t have a seat at the table. They shouldn’t either.”

While protesters jostled attendees making their way into the conference, opponents of the gathering did not disrupt any of the meetings inside. San Francisco’s Joint Information Center reported Wednesday that as of mid-afternoon there was just one arrest, around 10:30 a.m., for an aggravated assault in the area of Jessie West and 5th streets. No further details were available. Police also evacuated a mall during the lunch hour because of a person with a suspicious device that turned out to be a cigarette lighter.

“The SFPD and our law enforcement partners have responded to a number of 1st amendment activities throughout the city today,” the JIC said in a statement. “These activities have been mostly peaceful, and we continue to monitor marches and protests that are in progress as well as anticipated events throughout the day.”

The APEC Economic Leaders’ Week, which runs through Friday, is the largest gathering of world leaders in the city since 1945. Along with heads of state from member countries, including Biden and Xi, about 1,200 CEOs and nearly 30,000 delegates from governments and organizations are expected for the event.

APEC had no comment on the demonstrations.

Biden on Tuesday evening attended a San Francisco fundraiser hosted by real estate magnate and political strategist Clint Reilly where he was joined by Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Gavin Newsom. The president, knocked by unfavorable polling and suggestions that at 80 he’s too old for another term, bragged to some 250 donors who paid up to $250,000 to attend about Democrats’ successes nationally during this month’s elections and the troubles of his presumed Republican opponent.

“The press and pundits can keep being surprised as much as they want,” Biden told the crowd, which included former Disney chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg. “But since I came off the sidelines to go toe to toe with Donald Trump, we haven’t stopped winning, and he hasn’t stopped losing.”

Biden held a news conference Wednesday afternoon following his meeting with Xi and was to attend a welcome reception for APEC leaders with Harris at San Francisco’s Exploratorium and other events Thursday and Friday before leaving California.

Newsom participated in an APEC CEO Summit event Wednesday morning.

“APEC is completely inconsiderate of the people who make their profits, and that is the workers,” said protester Yusen Yun, of San Francisco, a nonprofit management consultant, who called it “double-insulting” APEC is in California, “one of the richest states,” where many work for $17 an hour, barely above minimum wage.”

“Who can live on those wages?” Yun asked.

California Highway Patrol officers are getting a 7.9% wage increase, marking their biggest raise in 20 years. Last year, they received a 6.2% general salary increase. Both are historically high raises for the officers.

Raises for CHP officers by state law are based on the average compensation at five other law enforcement agencies: The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office and the police departments in Los Angeles, San Diego, Oakland and San Francisco.

The formula includes base salary, retirement benefits and add-ons like longevity pay and educational incentive pay. It does not include overtime.

An annual compensation survey released late Monday by the state department of Human Resources found the average take-home pay for those agencies is $118,164 while the average net pay for CHP officers is $109,476.

The new salary increase for CHP officers is expected to bring their base wages up to what the other agencies are paying.

According to the Legislative Analyst’s Office, the 7.9% increase is the biggest pay bump for the California Highway Patrol since at least 2003, when they were given a 7.7% increase.

Police salaries are increasingly competitive and a source of friction among agencies seeking to fill growing vacancies with a shrinking pool of eligible applicants — sheriffs and police chiefs have said that a significant percentage of applicants fail background tests.

The state, meanwhile, isn’t making it any easier to hire police officers — particularly those who leave larger departments with shoddy disciplinary or criminal records and find employment at smaller organizations. New laws have raised the minimum hiring age of law enforcement officers to 21.

That has led to bidding wars among law enforcement agencies, who use anything from signing bonuses to gym memberships to lure in recruits

The Los Angeles City Council and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in the past year each approved lucrative new law enforcement contracts in the interest of retaining officers.

CHP’s new recruiting plan

The CHP has had its own challenges hiring. Last year, the agency embarked on a hiring campaign called the CHP 1000 in which it committed to hiring hundreds of new officers. Its early ads highlighted pay, namely that entry-level officers could expect to earn $100,000 in their first year on the job.

Newsom in October vetoed a bill that aimed to help the CHP find more recruits. It would have raised the agency’s top enlistment age from 35 to 40.

The CHP union advocated for the bill, telling lawmakers that “raising the maximum age from 35 to 40 will widen the pool of applicants, increase the number of cadets, and ultimately the number of officers committed to serve and protect the public.”

The California Association of Highway Patrolmen, which represents about 7,000 officers, is the only state worker union that does not have to bargain over wage increases because of the law that sets officer compensation based on what other agencies pay.

A bill this year would have given a similar perk to firefighters at the California Department of Forestry and Protection — or Cal Fire. It died in September without reaching Newsom.

The bill would have compelled the state Human Resources Department to calculate wage increases for the 8,000 or so state firefighters every year based on what other 20 local fire departments pay.

The union representing Cal Fire firefighters has said that the state is losing firefighters to other departments because the state has not kept up with competing organizations’ salaries.

Salary increases for California state workers

The biggest general salary increase Newsom has offered to a public employee union during contract negotiations is 4%. That salary hike for the 100,000 employees represented by SEIU Local 1000, is scheduled for July 1, 2025, and the contract allows the governor to knock it down to 3% if the Finance Department finds the state can’t afford the full raise.

Although Newsom has held the line under 4% for general salary increases, his administration has offered a mix of bonuses and special pay raises for workers in hard-to-fill positions to retain employees in a period of high inflation.

For instance, psychiatrists who work in-person at prisons and state hospitals will receive a 15% annual bonus as well as a 135% hourly base rate increase for taking on additional patients. Certain state prison guards also stand to gain $10,000 bonuses under their new contract.

Meanwhile, the union representing scientists who work for the state says it is planning a strike from Wednesday to Friday after three years of failing to reach a deal with Newsom,

The California Association of Professional Scientists has asked for double-digit raises for its members, and has been so far rebuffed by the state.

More than 800 apartments are being eyed on 3.2 acres of land at 7 Topgolf Drive in San Jose’s Alviso district, according to the filing with city planners.

At one point, a 200-room hotel was envisioned for the site, a project that seemed like a good bet when the proposal was floated before the onset of the coronavirus pandemic and the start of business shutdowns in March 2020.

Once the deadly virus arrived and began to batter the lodging and travel industries worldwide, the hotel project’s prospects deteriorated.

The North San Jose hotel was never constructed. Instead, the project encountered severe financial woes.

The property’s loan fell into default. Ultimately, the loan was foreclosed and the lender seized the property.

Pine Tree Investment & Management, a South Korea-based real estate firm that is an affiliate of the lender, took ownership of the empty land in May 2022, documents on file with the Santa Clara County Recorder’s Office show.

Through a trustee’s deed, Pine Tree Investment paid $27.6 million to buy the land in the wake of the foreclosure.

Now, a unit of Genesis Commercial Capital, a company that provides financing for real estate investments, has filed a proposal for the development of housing at the site.

The proposal calls for the development of 804 apartments on a site that’s bounded by Topgolf Drive, Anderson Alley, North First Street and Bay Vista Drive, the city planning documents show.

KnD Co., the Genesis Commercial Capital unit, wants to develop the eight-building housing project next to the bustling Topgolf sports, entertainment and dining venue.

The developers seek an expedited city planning review of the proposal via the SB 330 state law. Developers can employ provisions in SB 330 to limit roadblocks that local government agencies can place in a project’s path.

A housing development on a one-time site for a hotel project serves as a fresh example of a fast-shifting economic and real estate landscape in San Jose and the Bay Area more broadly.

Before the outbreak of the coronavirus, office and hotel projects were very much a popular notion.

Developers rushed to meet the demand directly with new office projects and indirectly with hotel sites.

But remote-work mandates altered how tech companies organize their workplaces.

Even after business shutdowns officially ended, tech companies still shed office space, chopped jobs and shrank their workplace footprints. Companies curtailed business trips, which reduced demand for hotel rooms.

As a result, developers have launched a new kind of stampede. This time, developers are racing to seek approvals for new housing projects, frequently on existing or proposed office, hotel or retail sites.

Chinese leaders have been adroit at extracting economic concessions from the United States in exchange for commitments that are usually restatements of prior agreements and seldom honored. Wildly uneven bilateral trade with China first hit American workers in the 2000s in the form of massive job losses. It then hit American consumers during and after the Covid-19 pandemic in the form of shortages and dependencies. Now, as China aligns with Russia and grows increasingly bellicose toward its Asian neighbors, it fuels the hit on American national security interests.

We shouldn’t expect Biden to turn all this around in one meeting. However, we should expect he won’t revert to the theater of unaccountability and handshakes that described U.S.-China relations for so long. The interests of American workers, consumers and security aren’t served by offering China’s leadership an open hand when it comes to trade.

In retrospect, normalizing trade with China was a destabilizing event in this country. American corporations rushed overseas to sell to Chinese consumers and took with them their manufacturing to take advantage of the huge and impoverished Chinese workforce. American factory workers saw their jobs leave for Asia, and more were laid off in the resulting flood of Chinese imports. U.S. manufacturing employment, a middle-class bulwark for Americans holding less than a four-year degree, was reduced by nearly 6 million over the next decade. California alone lost more than 650,000 jobs from 2001 to 2018. Addiction and mortality rates increased.

American shoppers, meanwhile, benefitted from cheaper prices at big box stores stocked with imports. But those price reductions evaporated years before the pandemic revealed that many crucial material goods – be it personal protective equipment for health workers or building materials for home construction – simply aren’t made here anymore.

This black swan event brought reality into relief: The United States has deindustrialized to a point where many supply chains were subject to grinding international bottlenecks.

Overreliance on Chinese trade has a lot of responsibility for that.

Bill Clinton argued “the more China liberalizes its economy, the more fully it will liberate the potential of its people” to persuade Congress to normalize trade ties. George Bush was both too permissive and too disengaged. Barack Obama thought dialogue would bring about true market and political liberalization. Donald Trump, acting unilaterally, thought tariffs and browbeating Chinese leadership would close those trade deficits and reshore U.S. manufacturing capacity. None of it worked.

President Biden has maintained virtually all of Trump’s tariffs. He’s also enacted federal investments that create not only domestic manufacturing capacity but demand for it as well. He’s checked outbound investment in Chinese companies and erected export controls on technologies like semiconductor manufacturing equipment critical to industrial advancement and military platforms. He’s shown a willingness to work with allies against unfair Chinese trade. Consider, for example, the ongoing negotiations between the U.S. and European Union to create a clean steel bloc.

I hope the president will remember this, all accomplished since Washington adopted a tougher line on Chinese trade. Because, when he meets Xi today, the resiliency America is re-establishing can’t be traded away again.

Scott Paul is president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, an association of a number of large domestic manufacturers and the United Steelworkers union.