Free Republic

Bobby Prigel says building an organic creamery will keep his farm alive. But preservationists say it will spoil the rural landscape. GLEN ARM, Md. -- Bobby Prigel seems like a poster child for the local-food movement. A fourth-generation dairy farmer, he wants to build a creamery to make organic butter, yogurt, cheese and ice cream. He wants to sell those products to consumers in nearby Baltimore instead of shipping his milk out of state. He wants to make enough money to pass on the farm to a fifth generation. But some neighbors and conservationists are challenging Prigel's plans. Opponents, led...

ELLIE WOOTEN, the likable mayor of this likable Central Valley city, is on her way to the office when her cellphone rings. A constituent wants her mortgage payments reduced, and is hoping that the mayor has some clout with her lender. Although Merced has one of the highest foreclosure rates in the country, this borrower isn’t in such dire straits. She’s not even behind on her mortgage. But her oldest daughter is turning 18, which means an end to $500 a month in child support. She just wants a better deal. The mayor hangs up and shrugs: “It’s a surprise...

SACRAMENTO – California is on the verge of initiating a historic rewrite of local planning laws, fusing for the first time the issues of urban growth and global warming. Unprecedented nationally, the complex legislation would steer communities toward land-use policies to contain sprawl, using as much as $12 billion a year in state-controlled transportation funds as an incentive. “This bill will change the way California grows,” said state Sen. Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, its author. Under the measure, the state Air Resources Board would establish targets for 17 regions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as part of a broader campaign to...

BOSTON — As a wave of home foreclosures courses through the United States, some of the nation’s hardest hit cities think they have found a way to ease the blight left on their communities by the crisis. Using taxpayer and private money, Boston, Minneapolis, San Diego and a handful of other places are buying foreclosed properties to refurbish and resell them to developers and homeowners in an effort to prevent troubled neighborhoods from sliding into urban decay. The efforts so far have been taken on a small scale. But local officials say they can become an important pillar of any...

U.S. Rep. Henry Brown on Thursday defended a bill that would help future homeowners on the undeveloped southwestern end of Kiawah Island qualify for federally subsidized flood insurance. Brown, R-S.C., said he introduced the bill last month at the behest of the town of Kiawah Island, and that "I had no idea there was a developer" connected with the legislation.

It looks almost like an average-size house that's been sliced in half. At 12 feet wide, the neat, new single-family home is squeezed onto the slenderest of strips of land on a Brooklyn Park street of modest, post-World War II houses. The home joins an 18-foot-wide one built in the past year in the community that spans Anne Arundel County and Baltimore City. A similar house is planned for another of the 25-foot-wide empty lots in the area. While building on these infill lots in mature, developed communities with established roads, sidewalks and other infrastructure is considered "smart growth," residents...

Today’s dangerous housing problems in the Southwestern part of Houston have been greatly exacerbated by the actions of Houston city government in the settlement of large numbers of Katrina evacuees in the area. But the problem does not lie solely in past actions. The City of Houston, in violation of provisions of the 1968 Fair Housing Act, continues to act to concentrate the predominately low-income, African-American evacuees in these deteriorated, high crime, segregated apartments. So far neither the state or the federal government has acted to stop the city’s actions. Let’s look back to 2005 to see how this developed....

A fisherman turned drug smuggler turned retired old salt, Floyd Brown claims he can find his way back here – one of the last Florida frontiers – without a compass from anywhere in the Gulf of Mexico. It's a skill, he says, he put to use more than once when he ferried bales of marijuana from Latin America to the Shark River in the 1970s. A direct descendant of the 19th century pirates who first settled here in these 10,000 islands, Brown is like many residents in Everglades City. Together they've managed to engineer a modern day coup in Florida:...

As the military prepares to close Fort Lawton, an Army Reserve base nestled in Seattle's Magnolia neighborhood, a city proposal to develop a 200-home subdivision that includes housing for the homeless angers some residents. ___ A newly released city plan to redevelop the soon-to-be-closed Fort Lawton in Seattle calls for building a 200-home subdivision of market-rate and affordable housing on about 18 acres. At a final community meeting Saturday at Fort Lawton, those living near the Army Reserve base said they didn't oppose housing for the homeless, but they worried that the total number of homes proposed and the percentage...

Welcome to Hyattsville, population 15,000, where the downtown looks more like New York City and the neighborhoods more like Iowa. The City Council this spring passed a law reaffirming residents' rights to grow vegetables on front lawns. Three months later, some residents have 8-foot-high corn patches in front of their homes, and neighbors say they don't mind. "I think some people might consider different types of landscapes unsightly, just like different painting schemes or building additions - which may increase or decrease property values - but it is still permitted by our code," Mayor William F. Gardiner said. Residents always...

Think there's no such thing as too much parking? Take a look at Tysons Corner, where there's more parking than jobs, more parking than office space, more parking than in downtown Washington. That must change, said advocates and politicians seeking to transform Virginia's largest business hub from suburb to city. Reducing parking, charging for parking and finding new uses for the acres of parking that separate Tysons' buildings and the people inside is at the heart of plans to remake the area.... "Who wants parking spaces to be the hallmark of a development?" said Clark Tyler, chairman of a Fairfax...

American visitors to Paris, Rome, Prague, or Barcelona, comparing what they see with what is familiar from their own continent, will recognize how careless their countrymen often have been in their attempts to create cities. But the American who leaves the routes prescribed by the Ministries of Tourism will quickly see that Paris is miraculous in no small measure because modern architects have not been able to get their hands on it. Elsewhere, European cities are going the way of cities in America: high-rise offices in the center, surrounded first by a ring of lawless dereliction, and then by the...

A Brooklyn neighborhood finally recovers from decades of misguided urban policies ___ These days, when Morris Todash walks the streets of Bushwick, a two-square-mile neighborhood of 100,000 people in central Brooklyn, he likes what he sees. On the long-abandoned seven-acre site of the former Rheingold Brewery, new two-family homes and condominiums have sprung up. On the side streets along Broadway—not so long ago, pockmarked with desolate lots where stray dogs wandered amid burned-out cars—more new homes arise and old ones get impressive face-lifts. New businesses—an organic grocery store, a fashionable restaurant—seem to be opening on every corner. Todash, whose insurance...

PORTLAND, Ore. — Not every neighborhood in this city is one of those Northwest destinations where passion for espresso, the environment and plenty of exercise define the cultural common ground. A few places are still described as frontiers, where pioneers move because prices are relatively reasonable, the location is convenient and, they say, they “want the diversity.” Yet one person’s frontier, it turns out, is often another’s front porch. It has been true across the country: gentrification, which increases housing prices and tension, sometimes has racial overtones and can seem like a dirty word. Now Portland is encouraging black and...

Across the state, a four-letter word is spoken — sometimes righteously, other times disdainfully — in council chambers, planning offices and courtrooms. COAH. The revised, third-round Council on Affordable Housing Rules could bring the most confusion — and legal wrangling — yet seen in the decades-old, statewide program. The council's new regulations and requirements plan for 115,000 new affordable housing units statewide. The cost estimate for the building of those units is estimated by attorneys and planners to amount to as much as $18.5 billion across the Garden State. Statewide concerns on both sides of the controversy span from the...

IS IT getting too expensive to build affordable housing in Massachusetts? more stories like this Emergency Hub ranks high on inner city business list What happens when doctors want to get a life? American pilots blame management for delays, poor service American pilots to protest at Logan On average, it costs more than $200,000 a unit to build such housing and many projects cost significantly more. A new proposal in the state Senate would make those projects even more expensive. The Senate housing bill would require nonprofit entities and for-profit firms that build most of the region's affordable housing to...

New homes built in Montgomery County would have to meet federal energy efficiency standards under innovative legislation approved yesterday by the County Council over the objections of builders who said that the mandate would drive up costs for consumers. The measure, meant to reduce energy consumption by 15 to 30 percent, is part of a far-reaching environmental initiative. It includes property tax credits for residents who switch to renewable energy, a requirement that residents disclose utility costs when they sell a home and a plan to get county officials to trade in their government-issued sport-utility vehicles. "We are attacking literally...

Economists say home prices are nowhere near hitting bottom. But even in regions that have taken a beating, some neighborhoods remain practically unscathed. And a pattern is emerging as to which neighborhoods those are. The ones with short commutes are faring better than places with long drives into the city. Some analysts see a pause in what has long been inexorable — urban sprawl. The Washington, D.C., metropolitan area has been hit hard. Prices tumbled an average of 11 percent in the past year. That's the big picture. But a look at Ashburn, Va., about 40 miles from the center...

BOULDER, Colo. -- When suburbanites look out their front doors, a lot of them want to see a lush green lawn. Kipp Nash wants to see vegetables, and not all of his neighbors are thrilled. "I'd rather see green grass" than brown dirt patches, says 82-year-old Florence Tatum, who lives in Mr. Nash's Boulder neighborhood, across the street from a house with a freshly dug manure patch out front. "But those days are slipping away." work. A school-bus driver, Mr. Nash rises at 5 a.m. and, after returning from his morning route, spends his days planting, watering and tending his...

Fed up with the encroaching sprawl, Linda Jimenez fled Silicon Valley for Tracy in 1990 in search of more affordable housing and the small-town way of life of her Santa Clara County youth. Eventually, the sprawl caught up. In 1990, Tracy, a friendly agricultural community separated from the Bay Area by the Altamont Pass, had fewer than 34,000 residents. Today, the mushrooming town, located at the western gateway to the Central Valley, has a population nearing 81,000. The town sits as a symbol of the quest by working- and middle-class Bay Area residents to find housing they can afford -...

Taking the advice of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's top planning appointee, a Valley Village woman has sued the city over a new rule that allows developers to build taller, bulkier buildings if they include affordable units. Last month, city Planning Commission President Jane Ellison Usher sent an e-mail to community groups, criticizing the recently adopted density bonus ordinance and laying out a legal strategy to challenge it. On Thursday, homeowner Sandy Hubbard filed the first lawsuit using Usher's suggestions. A group of home and business owners is also considering a lawsuit. Usher and community groups have complained that the density bonus...

High-Level Officials Wrote of Punishing Philadelphia Housing Director ___ After Philadelphia's housing director refused a demand by President Bush's housing secretary to transfer a piece of city property to a business friend, two top political appointees at the department exchanged e-mails discussing the pain they could cause the Philadelphia director. "Would you like me to make his life less happy? If so, how?" Orlando J. Cabrera, then-assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, wrote about Philadelphia housing director Carl R. Greene. "Take away all of his Federal dollars?" responded Kim Kendrick, an assistant secretary who oversaw...

A massive housing project may mean the end for Neenach, in the Antelope Valley. ___ Eight hundred people, give or take, live in Neenach. Recreation consists largely of trying to grow a bigger squash than your neighbor or trying to buy his truck. One man races pigeons. The school closed a few years back when they ran out of kids, and its rose-painted walls are still the brightest thing on the prairie. When the abutting development is built -- if it is built -- it will be called Centennial. It would be the end, for all intents and purposes, of...

Strange days are upon the residents of many a suburban cul-de-sac. Once-tidy yards have become overgrown, as the houses they front have gone vacant. Signs of physical and social disorder are spreading.___ Arthur C. Nelson, director of the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech, has looked carefully at trends in American demographics, construction, house prices, and consumer preferences. In 2006, using recent consumer research, housing supply data, and population growth rates, he modeled future demand for various types of housing. The results were bracing: Nelson forecasts a likely surplus of 22 million large-lot homes (houses built on a sixth of an...

LAKE ELSINORE -- The Planning Commission will decide tonight if "McMansions" are a good fit for a Lake Elsinore neighborhood. The architect for seven proposed homes has called his design "McMansion" in style. The city's planning department believes "McMansion" has a negative connotation -- a term used to describe "cookie-cutter" homes that don't mesh with surrounding homes. The commission is being asked to weigh in because the architect, Larry Vesely of Riverside, and the city's planning staff have been unable to come to an agreement on what would be an appropriate architectural style for the homes planned for a vacant...

A statewide cap on driving? Here’s the thing nobody is quite willing to say out loud about implementing California’s climate change law in the land use arena: The state may have to place an overall cap on vehicle miles traveled (VMT), even as it must accommodate more growth. Last Friday at UCLA Extension’s annual Land Use Law and Planning Conference, keynote speaker Anthony Eggert, senior policy advisor at the California Air Resources Board, issued what amounted to a plea for help from the 400 land use practitioners gathered in the room. CARB is charged with implementing AB 32. Land use...

A measure on the June 3 ballot would phase out limits that now apply to 1.2 million state residents. ___ Having toiled in machine shops during World War II and worked for decades in other manual jobs, 84-year-old Mary Kubancik felt entitled to live out her years in a pleasant mobile home park in Sylmar. Instead, the frail Kubancik is preparing to move out after 19 years. Her $919 monthly Social Security check won't cover her essentials and the $702 that her mobile home space will cost when the latest double-digit increase takes effect in April. "I worked since I...

Neighbors call it "the French Embassy." The new, 8,200-square-foot mansion is by far the biggest house on the 1800 block of North Wood Street, leaving Fred Ehle's four-bedroom home next door in its shadow. "I don't mind gentrification and development -- I live in Bucktown -- but it has gone out of control," Ehle said. "It's crazy. It's so obviously different than what the neighborhood was and still is." Zoning rules had prohibited such a behemoth from going up on the block. But that was before the developer got a break from then-Ald. Ted Matlak (32nd). Two weeks after the...

In the year 2108, after the general collapse of society, Washington residents will flee the violent decay of the city and migrate to utopian "ecohubs" in the middle of the Potomac River. There, civilization will be reborn amid renewed natural resources, wind- and solar-generated power, clean water and man-made wetlands brimming with wildlife. Or, a century from now, Washington will be ringed by 2,000-foot towers -- erected on the sites of 28 Civil War forts -- where rain will be collected for water, power will be generated by wind and sunlight, and multitiered hydroponic farms will grow food for the...

More proof that compassion isn't just good for the soul, but also good for one's pocketbook: Seattle and King County's housing projects targeting the chronically homeless work, and they save us $3.2 million each year. The Housing First projects are fiscally prudent, and, indeed, the very thing that made them controversial also makes them effective by seriously lowering the number of homeless patients needing emergency medical care. Critics blasted one project's approach -- the 1811 Eastlake building -- to dealing with homeless alcoholics. The housing project, which attracted national attention for allowing its residents to drink, was seen by some...

San Francisco median home prices continue hovering between $750,000 and $800,000 and as yet are relatively undamaged by the national housing market slowdown. So it comes as little surprise that private developers remain willing to brave The City’s daunting permit bureaucracy in hopes of constructing new high-end units. And in order to build, would-be developers are generally required by City Hall to include an assigned percentage of lower-income units priced at approximately $200,000 to $250,000. But this trade-off leaves out of the equation something absolutely essential to San Francisco’s future economic and social well-being — badly needed additional middle-income residences...

Using data from the 1990 and 2000 Census of Population, an analysis of workers and jobs in the central cities and lower- and higher-income suburbs of the largest 150 metropolitan areas indicates that: Roughly 65 percent of all residents and nearly 60 percent of all jobs are now located in the suburbs, with over a third of each in the higher-income suburbs. More individuals now live in the higher-income suburbs than in the central cities, and nearly as many jobs are in the higher-income suburbs as well. Population grew strongly during the 1990s in the lower-income suburbs, while job growth...

Norman Pishny is a soft-spoken former farm boy who loves nothing better than puttering around his 40-acre spread in south Johnson County. But the 53-year-old financial planner — and hundreds of others like him who cherish their bucolic lifestyle — feel threatened by Overland Park. The city wants to annex 15 square miles and extend its borders nearly to Miami County, the largest expansion in the city’s 47-year history. Hundreds of angry landowners, including professional golfer Tom Watson, have packed hearing rooms in the past several months to tell the city the “land grab” is arrogant and robs them of...

GULFPORT --The Warr administration will propose making SmartCode optional to developers, which some advocates call disastrous. City Councilman Brian Carriere said Mayor Brent Warr was the first Coast leader to tout the benefits of SmartCode after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, but now the mayor seems to be changing his mind. "He's waffling big-time," Carriere said about Warr. "Making SmartCode optional basically means every individual developer could choose to do whatever they wanted." Warr has been out of town and unavailable for comment. And Andres Duany, a Miami-based New Urbanism pioneer hired as the city's lead design consultant last month, also...

OLYMPIA-- With or without Seattle's approval, the state will tear down the earthquake-damaged Alaskan Way Viaduct in 2012, Gov. Chris Gregoire said Thursday. "It's coming down in 2012. I'm taking it down -- the middle," she said, referring to the elevated portion of the span that runs roughly from Battery Street Tunnel to Pioneer Square, which has been the most vexing and controversial piece of the transportation puzzle. "That's the timeline. I'm not going to fudge on it. And if we don't have some alternative by then, boy are we going to have a mess on our hands because it's...

While landowners, attorneys and planners untangle the development rules redefined by voter approval of Measure 49 in November, the property rights "poster girl" who was at the center of Oregon's land-use battle three years ago is no further along than when she started. Dorothy English, 95, hasn't developed her land despite winning initially at the ballot box and then in court. Now voters' latest move on land use and property rights has clouded the picture. "Nothing, not a thing," she said recently. "I haven't got anything, period. And I'm furious." She referred questions to her grandson, Doug Sellers, the family...

For the first time, the Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation has adopted a policy in favor of high-density housing developments in rural areas to preserve farmland.But the state's largest organization of farmers, with 43,000 member families, also recommended that the current power of cities and villages to impose their zoning regulations three miles outside their borders be severely cut back. The policies, which set the farm bureau's legislative priorities for next year, were approved by 250 delegates representing members of the 61 county chapters around the state. Paul Zimmerman, executive director of public affairs for the farm bureau, said preservation of...

Ever since it took over the public housing projects of New Orleans more than a decade ago, the Department of Housing and Urban Development has been itching to tear them down. Now, after years of lawsuits and delays, it looks as if the agency will finally get its Christmas wish. The New Orleans City Council is scheduled to vote on Thursday on whether to sign off on the demolitions of three projects. HUD already has its bulldozers in place, engines warm and ready to roll the next morning. Arguing that the housing was barely livable before the flooding unleashed by...

There are encouraging signs that New Urbanism is beginning to take root in American design. The U.S. Green Building Council has begun using a pilot system called LEED Neighborhood Design, which will include location and transportation use in its green ratings. Duany and his peers in the movement are helping city and town planners to dismantle the postwar zoning regulations that helped make the car king, and you can find New Urbanist projects sprouting across the country. Americans may say they hate their long commute, but there's little evidence that they're eager to abandon a lifestyle built around the car....

For several miles along the U.S.-Mexico border, the wall separating San Diego and Tijuana is made from old metal landing pads used by the U.S. Army during the first Gulf War. The metal sheets driven upright into the dirt are six inches north of the actual border, a half-foot into U.S. territory, creating a very narrow no-man’s strip for about 20 miles. Its width is roughly equal to the length of a new pencil. It is these forgotten spaces that fascinate Teddy Cruz. A San Diego-based architect who was raised in Guatemala and educated in Mexico City, Cruz believes in...

Stephen O'Brien wants to buy a foreclosed apartment building on Warwick Street in Roxbury. He wants to keep the ground-floor tenant, James Evans, 77, who is partially blind and living on Social Security. But the company that is selling the foreclosed building told O'Brien it must be emptied of tenants before it can be resold, a standard industry practice. "It's insane," said O'Brien, who lives near Evans and owns three apartment buildings in the neighborhood. "It's just obviously insane. And even if they're trying to manage it in a way that benefits them, then the problem is that they have...

The housing market is flat-lining, but that isn't deterring Anaheim officials from changing zoning in the city's sports district to permit nearly 20,000 new homes -- twice the number of condos, lofts and apartments already planned in the so-called Platinum Triangle. The city wants to create a dense downtown near Angel Stadium and the Honda Center, an area now dominated by industrial facilities and office parks. Despite the sour real estate market, city leaders say the demand for housing in Anaheim is there. "These homes are not going to be built overnight," said Councilman Bob Hernandez. "Like everything else, the...

Fitzgerald, Ga. - Across the street from the Po' Boy Opry, Web designer Jannis Paulk, a "refugee" from Atlanta, is helping everyone from rural real estate agents to dog breeders expand their markets via the Internet. "I'm a unique breed," says Ms. Paulk from her cluttered desk in the back of a downtown clothing consignment shop. It's a scene that offers a none-too-subtle symbol of the dot-com world merging with small-town Americana. Paulk is among the high-tech pioneers who are helping locales including Fitzgerald become bright spots in rural America. "It's not just about historical preservation or farming, but also...

For years, a swath of land on the shores of Table Rock Lake in southwest Missouri has been a point of contention between businessman Robert Plaster and Stone County officials. Each time Plaster has tried to develop it, he has been rebuffed by the county. Now because of a new state statute nicknamed the "village" law, Plaster may be able to incorporate his land, circumventing the county and its zoning laws in the process. "The negative impact this law could have on every county is limitless," said George Cutbirth, presiding commissioner of Stone County, where Plaster's property is located. The...

Photo Essay ___ 10,000 Filipino families live in this massive graveyard in Manila. I recently spent five days walking among its residents taking photos and hearing stories of struggle and survival. Some families ended up here almost accidentally. Some inherited the mausoleums that they now live in from their great-grandparents. Others came from the provinces and couldn’t make enough money to live in the big city. In all cases, they’re basically families with nowhere else to go. The people who live here manage to extract livelihoods from the dead. Teenagers carry coffins for 50 Filipino pesos—about 50 American cents. Children...

Traffic congestion will get far worse over the next three decades unless the region comes up with billions more in spending for highways, roads, light rail and trails, a transportation panel said Thursday. With Portland-area population projected to grow by 1 million by 2030, the region would need to spend at least $22 billion to keep up with increasing traffic, the Joint Policy Advisory Committee on Transportation said. The committee approved a regional transportation plan that forecasts $9.07 billion in spending through 2035. "We're in big trouble," said Rex Burkholder, a Metro councilor who is committee chairman. "We have a...

OFFICIALS from seven counties in southern New York State want to give a total of $87.5 million to local towns and villages as an incentive to build more housing affordable to young professionals — who by many calculations are leaving Long Island and other counties at high rates. Steve Levy, the Suffolk County executive, who formed the coalition with county supervisors from Suffolk, Dutchess, Orange, Putnam, Rockland and Westchester, announced the group’s proposal for state legislation here late last month. The law, if enacted, would give cash to local governments based on the number of affordable homes or units built...

A band of new suburban neighborhoods that held promise for thousands of Charlotte families is now struggling with crime, blight and falling home values. These neighborhoods were hit hard by the wave of foreclosures rattling the nation. Damage is most visible in starter-home subdivisions across northern Charlotte, and in pockets in the east and southwest. The best of them show subtle signs: Vacant houses. Overgrown weeds. Trash piled at the curb. The worst of them already resemble decaying urban neighborhoods that keep police and housing inspectors busy -- and cost Charlotte millions to repair. While the crime rate citywide held...

Pine beetle kill trees have new purpose. Playing with Lincoln Logs as a child meant getting to be an architect constructing dream homes. Now, in Summit County, that toy is the inspiration for making those homes a reality while putting the lodgepole pine beetle kill trees to use. Using a log lathe machine, the bark is removed (which kills the pine beetle), smoothed and a notch is put in it similar to they way Lincoln Logs look so the logs will seamlessly fit together. And as this business has come together, it has gained state attention. Recently, a representative from...

When the U.S. Forest Service received no bids on two small timber sales in Eagle County earlier this year, the agency's local rangers encountered what is becoming a problem throughout the intermountain West. The federal agency got a lesson in market economics and the three-way tug of war over lumber in national forests. There were no bidders for the timber "salvage" sales designed to remove trees killed by infesting pine beetles. The Forest Service also wants to sell the dead trees so they won't add extra fuel to wildfires. The glut of dead trees is occurring at a time when...