Federal Weekly
Business, policy, and development across America
Filings & Taxes
A draft package would create annual city licensing for salons and other personal-care businesses that use private rooms, while adding spacing, visibility, operating-hour, and recordkeeping requirements for massage establishments. The proposals have not been adopted.
Filings & Taxes
Six Los Angeles ordinances changed parcel zoning and project review across Boyle Heights on August 20. Businesses, property owners, and applicants should verify the new zone before seeking a building permit, changing a use, signing a lease, or planning construction.
Development watch
Environmental review · Hollywood
Foster + Partners' redesigned Hollywood office tower wraps a 460-foot workplace in planted terraces. The entitlement file is still in environmental review.
Rendering: Foster + Partners. Rendering published by the project team on the official project website.
Workplace Safety
Since July 2024, California has required most employers to maintain a written workplace violence prevention plan, train employees on it every year, and log incidents. Many small businesses still do not know the rule exists.
Employment
SB 399 made mandatory meetings about an employer's political or religious views unlawful. A federal judge enjoined it statewide in September 2025 on preemption and First Amendment grounds. The Ninth Circuit heard argument in July 2026 and has not ruled.
Employment
California's Private Attorneys General Act lets employees sue over Labor Code violations on the state's behalf. A 2024 reform deal capped penalties for employers who can show they took reasonable steps to comply. Here is how the new structure works.
Filings & Taxes
Federal beneficial ownership reporting reversed direction repeatedly for two years. In August 2026 a final rule settled it: companies formed in the United States are permanently exempt, and FinCEN is deleting what U.S. persons already filed.
Privacy
California's privacy law covers businesses that cross one of three thresholds. Covered businesses using automated systems for hiring, lending, housing, education, or healthcare decisions face a January 1, 2027 compliance deadline.
Wages & Hours
The statewide minimum is $16.90 an hour this year, but fast food, healthcare, and dozens of city ordinances set higher rates. What an employer actually owes depends on industry and street address.
Accessibility
The federal Americans with Disabilities Act sets the standard, but a state law, the Unruh Civil Rights Act, adds automatic money damages. Together they put roughly a third of the nation's accessibility lawsuits in one state. Here is how the system works and what it covers.
Approved · Downtown Los Angeles
The $2 billion district proposes more than 1,500 homes, offices, shops, and public space across 7.6 acres between Little Tokyo and Skid Row.
Rendering: TMRW / Studio One Eleven. Rendering reproduced on the City Planning PVP presentation's Renderings page; the original TMRW creator mark remains visible.
Approved · Fairfax
The Fairfax production landmark can add soundstages, offices, and public-facing space under a long-range master plan designed by Foster + Partners, RIOS, and Adamson Associates.
Rendering: Foster + Partners / Television City. Rendering published in RIOS's official project portfolio and credited there to Foster + Partners and Television City.
Supplemental review · Chinatown / Elysian Park
The privately funded aerial line would connect Union Station, Los Angeles State Historic Park, and Dodger Stadium in about seven minutes.
Rendering: LA Aerial Rapid Transit / LA Metro. Project rendering distributed on LA Metro's official project page.
Draft EIR · Miracle Mile
The Miracle Mile proposal pairs 419 homes, including 47 extremely low-income units, with the retention of four contributing buildings along Wilshire Boulevard.
Rendering: MVE + Partners. Figure 4 from the public Initial Study, credited in the city record to MVE + Partners (2022).
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