For the past year, the Fiddyment House, a former pioneer homestead dating to the mid-19th century, has sat vacant in West Roseville. All around it, land is being developed into residential neighborhoods, as the owner of that historic house — the City of Roseville — considers the future of the property.

Picture 350 square feet. That’s 11 queen-sized beds. It’s the inside of a school bus with an extra row or two of seats. It’s a little smaller than the average two-car garage. And it’s the size of 25-year-old Rachel Vaney’s apartment in Midtown Sacramento.

Wendy Saunders, executive director of the Capitol Area Development Authority, offers her insight into residential real estate in Sacramento.

The most controversial state housing bill in recent memory has died with a pretty resounding thud.

It’s likely to be the biggest financial decision of your life. Now hurry up about it.

Preservation Sacramento is a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting the city’s historic places, and The Hive — Sacramento’s largest coworking community — recently expanded into a 15,000-square-foot space at the historic Cannery, which has been redeveloped into a business park.

Mike Malinowski, president of the Streamline Institute, had a plan.

With 26 industry professionals, he set out to create a program that streamlines permitting for construction in the Sacramento region. The idea was that with clear standards for building document content and organization plus a checklist used by all participating jurisdictions, plan examiners, building officials and design professionals could be on the same page.

If the math proved easy when pricing your home, perhaps you’ve made this critical mistake. 

In 2014, the City of Sacramento’s construction valuation (which tracks the dollar amount of issued permits) was $390 million, but by June 2018, that valuation will be about $1.5 billion (adjusted for inflation), according to Ryan DeVore, Sacramento’s community development director.

Permitting can be a logistical mess for developers, while the future of economic development depends on this process. Efforts to improve the process find that enhanced communication trumps speed in terms of efficiency.