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Housing for Professionals Hard to Find
A new schedule taking effect in June will allow firefighters in Breckenridge, Colo., to work longer but fewer shifts so that the one in three living outside the district can reduce their commuting time. “We’ve condensed the schedule so they can work 48 hours, then have four days off to limit the commute time,” said Gary Green, the fire chief, who is concerned about retaining employees at his firehouse. About 13% of workers in Summit County commute from outside the county, and that figure is expected to climb to 20% by the end of this decade. A report commissioned by the Summit Housing Authority estimates that nearly 4,000 new housing units would be needed to meet demand in the county in 2010, and about 64% of the units would need to be priced in the $112,000-$268,000 range to make them affordable for locals. “We have a good number of people who want to buy and there are no units available,” said Bonnie Osborn, executive director of the housing authority. (www.summitdaily.com)
Summit Daily News, Colo. (2/2/05); Kim Marquis
Housing at High Costs — Teachers Find County Unaffordable
For Montgomery Blair High School English teacher Pam Bryant, the $200,000 price tag on a small apartment sent her looking for housing outside of Montgomery County, Md. where she works. “Oh my God, it was a nightmare!” she said. “I don’t know which teacher, which person, would pay that much money for a tiny little one-bedroom, one-bath condo.” Still, Bryant only has to drive about half an hour to work, which isn’t bad compared to co-worker Joseph Lynch, a foreign language resource teacher, who drives 90 minutes from Frederick, Md. “Maybe we could afford a house in the county, but there would be no curtains on our windows,” he says. “We got so shocked by prices that we couldn’t possibly live here.” Middle-income public servants have a tough time finding housing they can afford in a county where prices have been surging everywhere, according to County Councilman Steve Silverman. “Teachers, they’re really out of luck. People making income twice as much as teachers are having a hard time finding housing in the county.” (silverchips/mbhs.edu)
Silver Chips Online, Montgomery Blair High School, Md. (2/4/05); Kiran Bhat
Ikea Sells Flat Pack Housing
Swedish furniture chain Ikea has announced that it will begin selling its own flat-pack houses and apartments over the counter at its 13 British stores next month. An open-plan, one-bedroom apartment, with high ceilings and a communal garden, will cost about 70,000 pounds, and will be available to first-time buyers with annual incomes as low as 15,000 pounds. The flat packs will be built by Ikea subsidiary BoKlok, with six apartments in each L-shaped block and between three and seven blocks on a site. Land and builders have already been lined up, and the prefabricated homes should be ready for occupancy by the autumn. Ikea is already selling flat pack housing in Scandinavia. (www.dailyrecord.co.uk)
Glasgow, Scotland, Daily Record (2/2/05)
Idea for Prefab Housing Debuts in Chile and Thrives in Missouri
Using a vacation home she built for her parents three years ago in their native Chile as a prototype, Rocio Romero is selling two prefabricated housing models — one 1,150 square feet and the other 1,400 — from a sales office in St. Louis. She says her houses are stylish, modern and affordable. Her home kits fit on a single flatbed truck and can be shipped anywhere in the United States relatively inexpensively. The smaller house sells for $31,000, and after shipping and assembly costs, the house is in the $86,000-$138,000 price range. The larger home kit sells for $39,000. The standard home sits on a concrete slab or concrete bricks; the roomier version sits above a basement, which can be a walk out. About 10 of the homes have been sold in the year they’ve been on the market, and Romero says that her business is now profitable, with sales picking up. (www.stltoday.com)
St. Louis Post-Dispatch (1/28/05); Robert Kelly
As Housing Costs Rise, NIMBYism Is Slipping
A poll by the Rauch Foundation of Garden City found that 89% of Long Island, N.Y., residents are concerned that rising housing prices will prevent younger workers from being able to afford to live there, resulting in a “brain drain” that will cast a shadow over the region’s economy. The poll also found that many residents are open to new housing policies such as building rental apartments in downtown areas and requiring developers to set aside a portion of new projects for affordable housing. About three-quarters of those surveyed said they supported the idea of building housing on former industrial, commercial or government sites, but less than half responded favorably to changing zoning laws to allow a limited increase in the number of apartments or town houses in areas zoned for single-family homes. Only about 67,000 acres of vacant, developable land remain on Long Island, about one-tenth of its total land area. With millions of dollars in public money being spent to preserve open space from development, and with some municipalities setting higher minimum acreage requirements for new property, the land that is left is disappearing at an even faster rate. (www.nytimes.com)
New York Times (1/30/05); Campbell Robertson
Housing Advocates Learn Ways to Beat NIMBY Bias
A sellout crowd of 175 people from across the nation — including leaders of nonprofit housing corporations, members of social justice groups, urban planning students and public officials — attended a recent workshop at the University of California at Berkeley to discuss ways of fighting “Not in my backyard” opposition to low-income housing. Speakers said that the usual approach of attempting to build a consensus through town hall-style meetings often doesn’t work very well. Gathering supporters such as construction workers, teachers’ unions, social justice committees or local churches was one of the approaches advocated at the daylong meeting. Other ideas included filing lawsuits to signing “good neighbor agreements” to making moral appeals to provide for the needy. One speaker said organizing bus trips for opponents to tour similar projects in other communities was a successful approach. Compensating neighbors with a new park, a day-care center or even a litter crew for area sidewalks was also suggested. (www.contracostatimes.com)
Contra Costa Times, Calif. (1/29/05); Sara Steffens
Housing, Immigration Called Keys to the Future
Boston’s ability to grow is being hampered by an overheated housing market, according to Harvard University economist Edward Glaeser. A study by the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce found that younger workers are leaving the area, in part, because of the high cost of housing; many condominiums sell for more than $300,000. “This is less of a world city or region than it should be or could be if it had a different set of policies surrounding new construction,” said Glaeser. “And it will not reach its full potential over the next 20-30 years if it continues with these policies. So, if Boston’s economy is to grow, then we’ll have to build more housing.” Glaeser, who is director of the Rappaport Institute for the Greater Boston Area, said that more than 30,000 residential building permits were issued for the city proper in the 1960s, but that number dropped to 3,600 in the 1990s. Thanks to the efforts of Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, more than 13,000 units have been built since 2000. Glaeser says Boston needs to increase its housing production in the city and its suburbs by at least 1% annually, or its economic growth rate and population will fall. (www.boston.com)
Boston Globe (1/31/05); Diane E. Lewis
Housing Developer Says Preserving Mouse Habitat Cost $3 Million
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has announced that it is taking the Preble’s meadow jumping mouse off its threatened species list after DNA evidence indicated that the nine-inch rodent is probably identical to another variety of mouse common in the West. The news came too late for La Plata Investments, which at a cost of $3 million has set aside 155 acres of mouse habitat and made other accommodations for a 7,600-acre development in the Colorado Springs area. Land-use restrictions stemming from mouse preservation concerns barred the developer from providing recreational trails in the community and also delayed a street extension. Nearly 31,000 acres had been designated as critical habitat for the mouse along streams in Colorado and Wyoming. (www.9news.com)
9News.com, Colorado Springs (2/2/05); Associated Press
Condo Fever Turns Buyers Into Early Birds
Visiting Miami from San Francisco, Angelina Umansky arrived at the sales office of a new downtown condo development at 8 a.m. the day after seeing some model units. About 50 other buyers were already standing in line. Two hours later, a sales agent gave her four minutes to decide which unit to buy and she offered $350,000 for a two-bedroom, two-bath apartment. When she called on behalf of a friend less than eight hours later, she was told the asking price on a unit like hers had climbed 9% to $380,000. “This is a perfect storm for a frenzied housing market,” said Susan Wachter, a professor of real estate at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. “The economy is strengthening, the restrictions on development are increasing and long-term mortgage rates are still historically low.” And with interest rates starting to creep up, more buyers have tended to pile into the market, trying to lock in good rates. According to NAHB, an estimated 115,000 condos were sold last year, a 32% jump from 2003. In New York, sales were up 8.2% in the fourth quarter of last year, compared to a year earlier, and average condo prices were up 11.1% to $1.29 million, according to real estate appraiser Miller Samuel. (www.nytimes.com)
New York Times (2/3/05); Motoko Rich
Home Sales Worth a Million — State’s High-End Market Surges
More than 33,000 properties were sold for more than $1 million in California last year, according to La Jolla-based DataQuick Information Systems, an annual leap of $73.5%. However, two years earlier many of those properties would have been priced below the $1 million threshold. “A million dollars just isn’t what it used to be when it comes to California real estate,” said DataQuick President Marshall Prentice. The Bay Area and Southern California accounted for virtually all of the sales. Newly built homes accounted for 5,210 of the $1 million-plus sales; 1,677 condominiums were in that category. (www.dailynews.com)
Los Angeles Daily News (2/3/05); Gregory J. Wilcox
Military Personnel Gain Access to New Real Estate Loan
A new mortgage loan program from Countrywide Home Loans is aimed at making it easier for enlisted U.S. armed forces personnel and their families to buy homes without much money for a downpayment or closing costs. Under Countrywide’s U.S. Military Optimum Loan Program, the borrower would be required to make a minimum downpayment of $500 or 1% of the sales price. In addition to base pay, families can include in their qualifying income for the loan flight or hazard pay, quarter’s allowances and proficiency pay. Income from a boarder renting out a room during a family member’s deployment can also be counted, as well as supplemented undocumented income from borrowers who have taken second jobs. Also under the program’s guidelines, a family member or close friend can cosign for the primary borrower who is buying a home during deployment. For military families with Countrywide mortgages who find themselves under financial duress during active duty, another program forebears payments or recasts loans, temporarily reduces mortgage rates higher than 6% to 6% and provides counseling. (www.inman.com)
Inman News (2/3/05)
Cities Riding Waves of Success With Well-Planned Waterfront Restorations
Of the 75 largest cities in the U.S., only six are not located on a significant body of water, so the opportunities for new waterfront development and redevelopment are abundant. Boston and Baltimore are the most notable examples of successful waterfront restoration and adaptive reuse. The Port Commission of San Diego currently is planning to revitalize a 25-acre stretch of its historic downtown waterfront, which encompasses an old police headquarters building. Slated to begin late this summer, is the development of the San Pedro waterfront and plaza at the Port of Los Angeles — a seven-mile stretch of waterfront property extending from the Los Angeles Downtown Harbor to the Long Beach Harbor. (www.knowledgeplex.org)
Knowledgeplex (1/25/05); Yehudi Gaf Gaffen
Tax Increases Ravage Commercial Property
In an effort to appease home owners who are angry about their rising property tax bills, states and cities are taxing commercial properties much more heavily than they were 10 years ago, according to a new study from the Minnesota Taxpayers Association, widening the gap between commercial and residential property taxes. According to the state-by-state study of property taxes paid last year, the average ratio of commercial to residential property-tax rates increased to 3.329 to 1 from 2.751 in 1995. On average, a $1 million commercial property had a property-tax rate three times as high as the rate for a $70,000 home, and 43 cities had some form of preferential treatment of residential property, up from 33 in 1995. Even so, home owners’ property taxes are going up. The study found that Newark, N.J., recorded the highest residential property-tax bill on a median-value home of the 55 big cities surveyed, at $8,637. It was followed by Bridgeport, Conn., at $6,393; Miami, $6,096; Detroit, $5,516; and Providence, R.I., $5,443. The average for all of the cities was $2,788. (www.realestatejournal.com)
Wall Street Journal (2/2/05); Ray A. Smith
Landscaping Stones May Pose Risks to the Environment
A chemical analysis of the colorful crusts left around ornamental rock after watering drought-resistance plants in such areas as Las Vegas and many other cities in the southwestern United States found elevated concentrations of zinc, molybdenum and copper, according to Stephanie A. Mrozek of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. At one elementary school in Las Vegas where a sample was taken, the concentration of dissolved copper in a puddle was measured at four times what the Environmental Protection Agency says is safe for drinking water. The trace metals in the crusts probably are leaching from the crushed rocks because of their pyrite minerals. Because most of the rocks are gravel size or smaller, they collectively have a large surface area over which the acid-making and rock-dissolving reactions can take place, Mrozek says. Salt crusts don’t form when pyrite-free crushed rock is used in the landscaping. (www.sciencenews.org)
Science News Online (1/15/05); Sid Perkins
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