Clipmarks | obvious's clips

Pittsburgh Approves Green Density Bonuses

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 19:38:22 GMT

clipped by: obvious
clipper's remarks: And Bill Peduto LOST to a 20-something kid? That's what he gets for coming up with good ideas to solve the city's problems!

Clip Source: www.greenbuildingsnyc.com

Pittsburgh’s City Council approved a new green building incentive, and entertained a second which it will vote on sometime

he first, and less controversial bill, will allow LEED-certified buildings to rise 20 percent higher and include 20 percent more floor area than other buildings in their zoning district

The second bill, which was also introduced by Councilman William Peduto, would require that all new or substantially renovated public buildings greater than 5,000 square feet or with a project cost of $2 million achieve a LEED Silver rating. Moreover, private projects funded through Pittsburgh’s TIF program would also need to achieve Silver

Todd Reidbord, the developer of Bakery Square,

old the Post-Gazette that green building incentives are a “decent idea,” but that he’s “not 100 percent convinced that public financing should be tied to a private rating organization.”

Tags: urban, construction, environment

Community Land Trusts

Thu, 10 Jul 2008 15:35:48 GMT

clipped by: obvious
clipper's remarks: This is my newest obsession. Please note that this clip is from a press release, not a news article, and so should be take "grain of salt"-style.

Clip Source: www.prweb.com

Cities Can Get Long-Term Affordable Housing Through Community Land Trusts, Lincoln Institute Report Says

Community land trusts provide long-term affordable housing, stretch subsidies and protect against foreclosure, according to The City–CLT Partnership: Municipal Support for Community Land Trusts, the latest Policy Focus Report published by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

Cities can secure all these benefits by coordinating municipal policies to allow community land trusts to flourish, the report says. The danger is that "local governments may inadvertently structure CLT funding and oversight in ways that undermine the effectiveness of the very model they are attempting to support," said Lincoln Institute visiting fellow John Emmeus Davis, co-author of the report with Rick Jacobus, also a visiting fellow.

Community land trusts allow residents to purchase homes but not the land the housing sits on, which has the effect of reducing the price. Buyers agree to restrictions on resale

Tags: housing

Affordable housing? Here? I'll sue!

Tue, 27 May 2008 17:57:45 GMT

clipped by: obvious
clipper's remarks: Bradenton snobs are afraid that affordable cottages will lower the value of their McMansions. How about this... maybe it's the fact that they overpayed for gigantic houses that will lower their values!
The story quotes a school teacher who bought a cottage, which justifies the residents' concerns about who the buyers will be, right?

Clip Source: www.bradenton.com

Originally slated to hold townhomes, land toward the rear of the 240-acre community has sprouted a new product. The initial pricing of the smallest of the Cafe Collection cottages started in the $120,000s. Since its debut, demand for the product raised the starting price to the $140,000s.

Still, residents say they were promised luxury homes in a luxury community and the new smaller, more affordable homes aren't good for resale value or the aesthetics of the community.

They are also concerned with who the buyers of the product are and what might happen to the value of their homes as a result.

While the price of the homes met the criteria as affordable housing, the second criteria that establishes a home as affordable limits the household income of a person eligible to buy such a home.

"There were no such limitations there. That's just a house with a good price," Dobbs said.

"All that's happening is we have substituted the townhome product with a single-family home product of the same caliber

Tags: housing

Oregon Cottage fan wants to build more

Fri, 16 May 2008 21:46:31 GMT

clipped by: obvious
clipper's remarks: Cottage fever in Oregon!

Clip Source: www.oregonlive.com

Buyers were noticeably standoffish when 10 cozy cottages clustered at the edge of the Salish Pond wetlands in Fairview first went on the market. In all likelihood they were calculating how much stuff they'd have to get rid of to live comfortably in 900 to 1,200 square feet of space.

But eight years later, with energy and housing costs on the rise, the cottages have become hot properties

Not surprisingly, perhaps, McKeel would like to build more -- this time in his hometown of Gresham. But so far, like many jurisdictions, Gresham does not allow them.

"Our residential codes support what have been the traditional housing types in America," explains Mike Abbate, the city's planning director. By that, he means single-family dwellings on larger lots, or apartments and rowhouses. "But in the last 10 years or so," he says, "there's been some new thought about how people want to live."

"They are pretty neat,"

Tags: housing

Belltown: a daylight visit to Seattle's Haven of Hip

Tue, 06 May 2008 19:29:32 GMT

clipped by: obvious
clipper's remarks: Okay, nothing to do with affordable housing, but Belltown is the coolest neighborhood in any city I've ever been in. If you're ever in the Emerald City, swing uptown and dine at either Mama's Mexican Kitchen or the Noodle Ranch.

Clip Source: seattletimes.nwsource.com

Victoria Thomas Gentry, owner of Vain, a community-center-gallery-art-studio-hairstyling-salon, checks new wall hangings in the lobby.

Belltown by night is known for its urban, hip nightlife, a party rep that has caught the attention of both our mayor and police chief because of the occasional gunfight and assorted bad-boy mayhem. (To you who are, even now, composing e-mail about the gross misrepresentation of Belltown by my mention of a few isolated incidents in an otherwise diverse and peaceful neighborhood, let me just say, keep reading.)

Belltown in the raw light of day is a whole different deal. It's all about window shopping the finer things of life that I can't possibly afford — gorgeous, modern furniture; beautifully made clothing. It's about finding Nirvana's first venue, and seeking out a patch of plants in a canyon of concrete.

Tags: travel, restaurants, seattle

Teacher Housing

Tue, 29 Apr 2008 19:53:40 GMT

clipped by: obvious
clipper's remarks: Great idea!

Clip Source: www.upstatetoday.com

The South Carolina Department of Education and the State Housing Authority announced plans to provide teachers with assistance in purchasing first homes. The 2008 Palmetto Hero Program is available to teachers possessing South Carolina teacher certifications, that currently reside and teach in the state or have a contract to begin teaching in the state within 60 days of closing on a home.

COLUMBIA — During the 1940s and early 1950s, a program supplying a two-story home for beginning unmarried teachers, known as a Teacherage, allowed teachers to reside on the second floor while the principal and his spouse stayed on the first floor.

The $20 million initiative will allow eligible teachers to receive a 5.875 percent interest rate through the First Time Homebuyer Program. In addition, teachers who qualify based on income can take advantage of two down payment assistance loans, one of them forgivable if the teacher stays in the house for five years

Tags: housing

Anchorage can demand higher quality in affordable housing

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 17:57:24 GMT

clipped by: obvious
clipper's remarks: An editorial from the Anchorage Daily News. The houses look great, if a bit large. You might not know it, but garages are actually a new idea in Alaska, so that's nice that these include them! Right now, the Anchorage housing market is still insanely tight, as it was in the 1980s. As long as oil prices stay high, developers will only want to build low-quality, high-priced homes. Tons of speculation going on up North! But then, check out Cook Inlet Housing Authority's other projects. Everything is high quality.

Clip Source: www.adn.com

It's not hard to find projects full of cookie-cutter duplexes, dozens or more units, all the same color and exterior design. One step up from those are stand-alone snout houses, shoehorned onto narrow lots, with a ground floor dominated by the garage and most of the front yard covered by the driveway.

the city has let developers skimp on basic features like curbs, gutters, sidewalks and streetlights

Carol Gore begs to differ. Her nonprofit agency, Cook Inlet Housing Authority, produces high-quality affordable housing that any Alaskan would be proud to live in.

"We don't build a development of 80 units that all look the same," Gore says. "Your neighbor's not going to have the same kind of unit you have. ... We think that's what the market is demanding. We're trying to lead in that effort."

"Density's not a bad thing if it's done right," Gore says. Grass Creek has about 11 units per acre, almost triple the density of the typical suburban house on a quarter-acre lot.

Tags: housing

Cottages win green award

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 21:38:51 GMT

clipped by: obvious
clipper's remarks: #9 award for green competition! Yay cottages!

Clip Source: greenbuildingelements.com

at the Regeneration ‘08 conference in Seattle, winners of the 2008 “What Makes It Green?” competition were announced.

Pringle Creek, Salem OR
The Pringle Creek Community has achieved notoriety as a highly sustainable living environment; this new cottage meets the sustainability standards of the overall community. It maintains a small building footprint; is sited to preserve open space, existing tree stands, and water pathways to Pringle Creek; and meets the high energy efficiency standards established in the Community’s Design Guidelines. The cottage received LEED Platinum certification.

Tags: housing, environment

Vancouver Builder Goes Cottage

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 21:32:47 GMT

clipped by: obvious
clipper's remarks: Very cool stuff... but I don't speak enough Canadian to know what a "laneway" house is. Anybody?

Clip Source: www.westender.com

As affordable housing becomes scarcer, as well as

the land on which to build it, some entrepreneurs are betting on cottage houses to be Vancouver’s way

out of the crunch

Smallworks Design, Jake Fry and Aaron Rosensweet’s company that specializes in constructing converted garages and laneway home extensions

“There is the rationale of bigger and better,” Fry says, in an interview in Smallworks’ 200-square-foot show home on the banks of the Fraser

Before moving to B.C., Fry and his wife lived in a converted stable in Toronto’s Portuguese neighbourhood. His wife, now a UBC professor, lived in an eastside coach house behind a single-family home during her university studies. Now with a child and living with his small family in a 900-square-foot home, Fry knows first-hand that small homes can work well for singles, couples, and small families. “It became solidified as an idea, and I knew we just had to do it,” he says. “So, four years ago I rolled the dice.

Housing crisis hits rentals

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 14:07:50 GMT

clipped by: obvious
clipper's remarks: The credit crunch from the mortgage meltdown is slamming developers of low-income rental housing. Our country's only real rental housing strategy is actually administered by the IRS: the low income housing tax credit program LIHTC. The scary part is that it's not so different from the "bundled" mortgages that led to the current problems. The tax credits are sold for cash by a developer to a Wall St. broker, who then bundles them and sells them on an open market. If that market dries up, then the system falls apart and there is no way to build new subsidized rental housing.

Clip Source: www.knowledgeplex.org

Housing advocates say the meltdown of the national financial markets could reduce the number of new projects for low-income families

That's because many of the developments for low-income families -- especially those in the Fresno area -- are financed with tax credits bought by banks and other institutional investors.

With the financial markets in disarray, those purchasers are backing off, they say.

And that could hurt those who rely 5on affordable rents.

"Tax-credit investors are gun-shy about investing because of the uncertainties of the housing market and the volatility of the [mortgage] market,"

"A lot of the institutional investors that were major players are out of the market,"

Other investors will step up, but they aren't likely to buy as many

The new report concludes that the average family in California must earn at least $24.01 per hour to be able to afford rent and utilities in nonsubsidized housing, which is an increase of 44.3% since 2000.

Tags: housing

Builder trouble strands home buyers

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 20:51:56 GMT

clipped by: obvious
clipper's remarks: Good story (from my former co-worker!)

Clip Source: www.chicagopublicradio.org

Builder Goes Bust—Now What?

Produced by Ashley Gross on Monday, March 17, 2008

Chicago’s suburbs are filled with newly constructed homes… and quite a few vacant lots. And they may stay that way for quite a while longer. Last fall’s high-profile bankruptcy of Neumann Homes has buyers worried. The company had developments stretching from Lake County to Joliet. Now buyers are scared other builders could face the same fate, and they’ll be caught in limbo with a half-finished house, just like one family from Winthrop Harbor.

On the one hand, good news – they finally had an offer on the house they’d been trying to sell for months. On the other hand, their builder wouldn’t return their calls. And their house wasn’t finished. The drywall wasn’t up and a windowpane was missing.

Tags: housing

Make McMansions Pay!

Tue, 25 Mar 2008 15:24:51 GMT

clipped by: obvious
clipper's remarks: Big-Hair Houses! Ha! This is a pretty cool idea, using transferable development rights for house size.

Clip Source: www.time.com

As bloated homes and McMansions continue to sprout up across the country, Boulder, Colorado, may have come up with a lucrative approach to contain what detractors call the plague of Garage Mahals and Big-Hair Houses.

the commissioners "want to allow property owners who either have or want smaller-scale homes to be able to sell a portion of their 'unused' square footage." Homeowners willing to sign away their option to someday add additions to their houses would receive a one-time payment as well as lower yearly tax assessments on their homes. The forfeited enlargement rights would then be available for purchase through a specially established market. Residents planning to build or expand homes larger than the recommended thresholds — 7,000 square feet on the plains, 5,000 square feet in the mountains — would be required to purchase additional development rights

"We are a 'bigger is better' people."

While big houses can go up, the people who own small houses will get richer too.

Tags: housing

Iditarod could have a photo finish!

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 20:37:51 GMT

clipped by: obvious
clipper's remarks: Wish I was in Nome tonight...

Clip Source: iditarod.aprn.org

Less than 24 hours to go in Iditarod 2008

Lance Mackey blasted through Golovin this morning with Jeff King apparently deliberately hanging behind him. When the two of them come into White Mountain for their mandatory 8-hour layovers this morning, there will be 77 miles left to Nome. Both teams will be rested for that final race. Jeff King has remained just minutes behind Mackey, with more dogs.

Behind those two, the race is tight. Every team is turning out to be a strong competitor. At this point, Martin Buser leads Hans Gatt, Ken Anderson, Ramey Smyth, Paul Gebhardt, Mitch Seavey, Kjetil Backen and Rick Swenson.

The champion of this year’s race is expected to arrive in Nome sometime overnight tonight (Tues 3/11 - Wed 3/12).

Tags: dogs, sports

Smart Growth & Racial Justice

Thu, 28 Feb 2008 17:59:17 GMT

clipped by: obvious
clipper's remarks: An article from 1999, reprinted by Cleveland's community land trust. Mr. Powell raises some great points. I think he simplifies the issue by concentrating only on race, but I also think he has to do that... from where I watch, the issues of race and concentration of poverty almost never surface as elements of a regional planning agenda. For more, read Myron Orfield's "American Metropolitics" and learn how White Fight really happens.

Clip Source: www.ecocitycleveland.org

some years ago in Portland, concerns about slowing growth, saving the spotted owl, and maintaining farmland led to an agreement to create an urban growth boundary. Consequently, the resources that would have sprawled out started going back in. Land and housing values in Portland started soaring, including those of the black and Latino communities. In fact, Portland's black community is accumulating wealth at a faster rate than any other black community in the country. A non-racial regional decision to create an urban boundary line had positive impact on racial minorities. There are still issues but the environmental community in Portland has started to focus on racial justice issues.

In Detroit, there is a growing coalition between those who want to save farms and those that want to save the cities. And throughout the country, faith-based organizations are successfully taking up this issue. Unfortunately, the civil rights community is not present.

Tags: housing, race

Cottage Editorial

Tue, 26 Feb 2008 15:47:55 GMT

clipped by: obvious
clipper's remarks: Great quote: Small is a radical departure... but reality is hitting home.

Clip Source: www.thesunchronicle.com

How does any community these days attract young professionals and retain newlyweds and empty nesters when housing costs remain out of sight?

Mirrione argues that his company can provide one remedy to population drift - cottages clustered three to five per acre, with maximum size of the one- or two-bedroom units 999-square-feet

many of these buyers could be teachers, college professors, white-collar business people

As NECC would surely point out, cottage housing is not only an option but for some families may be a rung up toward more expensive housing in a town where the median price of a home rose from $268,900 in 2000 to $415,000 in 2005. "Small" is a radical departure from America's litmus test of success, a sprawling edifice on immense acreage. But reality is hitting home with the recent red flags regarding the R word - recession - and an awareness among some people that larger is not necessarily better.