Construction Maison

San Francisco Supervisor Aaron Peskin has asked the city attorney to explore legislation to impose a vacancy tax on large property owners who leave residential and commercial buildings empty . During a supervisors meeting this month, Peskin said he continues to receive complaints about the impact of “ghost buildings” on neighborhoods. The problem is, nobody really knows how many vacant homes there are in the city and whether a vacancy tax would be legal or effective in freeing up much-needed housing. In an interview, Peskin cited a 28- unit apartment building at 1656 Powell St. that was vacated after a fire damaged some units in December 2013. It remains empty. The three-story building is in a prime North Beach location across from Washington Square Park . Four businesses on the building’s ground floor — a liquor store, a bar, a Thai restaurant and a seafood restaurant — are open, but the apartments above still have boarded-up windows and a littered lobby. Some work was done in the...

The former BP station on East Post Road in White Plains. Photo by Bill Heltzel The White Plains Housing Authority has sued BP Products North America for allegedly contaminating water and soil at a former gas station near Winbrook Apartments . A toxic plume under the former BP station at 34 E. Post Road, the housing authority claims , has migrated toward an apartment building. The plume allegedly threatens the health of residents and potentially jeopardizes financing for a $350 million plan to replace five buildings. The lawsuit was filed on Aug. 17 in federal court in White Plains. BP did not respond to a voicemail and an email request for comment. Winbrook is the city’s oldest public housing site , comprising five 90- unit structures built in the late 1940s. The apartments are in downtown White Plains on South Lexington Avenue , Fisher Court and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr . Boulevard. The gas station was next to Winbrook’s Building 33, home of about 350 residents. BP owned or o...

"); } if ($(imageDivId).length == 0) { $("#wrapper").after(contentText); } })(jQuery); BREMERTON, Wash. - Crystal Turner stood in the kitchen of her cramped apartment and stared at the cracks in the fake wood flooring beneath her feet. Surrounding her was the home she'd made for herself and her two sons in the past year, since they moved out of her Toyota Camry and into Admiral Manor, a low- rent apartment complex in west Bremerton . There was the single bedroom with two kids' beds on the floor. The living room she'd decorated with signs that said "Hope" and "Love." A dingy bathroom with a leaking toilet that had never been fixed. In this undated photo, Matthew Daigneault pushes his son Aden as he plays outside on the swings of his rental home in West Bremerton , Wash. (Larry Steagall/Kitsap Sun via AP) © 2017 Cox Media Group . Admiral Manor wasn 't the place Turner, a recovering addict, wanted to raise her boys. It was the place...

WARNING: Disturbing content By Hannah Parry and James Wilkinson A mother accused of dumping her baby girl in a bush told prosecutors she didn't want to be a mother and doesn't want to see her child. Sidney Woytasczyk, 21, is charged with child abandonment after abandoning her newborn in a flowerbed near her Houston apartment, the Daily Mail reported . Advertisement Prosecutors say she gave birth to the child in her kitchen, cut the cord and left it exposed to the elements in a flowerbed to stop her oblivious boyfriend from being scared away, according to ABC 13. Woytasczyk, 21, is charged with child abandonment. Photo / Supplied Woytasczyk, 21, is charged with child abandonment. Photo / Supplied She was arrested arrested a passerby spotted the baby, covered in ants and called the cops. During the 21-year-old's second court appearance, at Harris County, on Wednesday (US time) she told investigators she did not want to be a mother and did not want to see he...

A mother accused of dumping her baby girl in a bush told prosecutors she didn't want to be a mother and doesn't want to see her child.  Sidney Woytasczyk, 21, is charged with child abandonment after abandoning her newborn in a flowerbed near her Houston apartment. Prosecutors say she gave birth to the child in her kitchen, cut the cord and left it exposed to the elements in a flowerbed to stop her oblivious boyfriend from being scared away, according toABC 13.  She was arrested arrested a passerby spotted the baby, covered in ants and called the cops.  During the 21-year-old's second court appearance, at Harris County, on Wednesday she told investigators she did not want to be a mother and did not want to see her baby.     Sidney Woytasczyk, 21, (pictured in court on Wednesday) is charged with child abandonment after abandoning her newborn in a flowerbed near her Houston apartment Video (pictured) shows the child being found at 5am Thursday. Prosecutors say she claims not...

OVERVIEW “Wherever there is conflict in the world, a few years later you start to see that population showing up here,” says Andriana Abariotes, executive director of Twin Cities LISC ( Local Initiatives Support Corporation ). Minneapolis-St. Paul has a long history of welcoming immigrants and refugees from around the world and is home to many organizations serving these populations. St. Paul’s East Side, where LISC has worked for years, is home to a rich cultural mix of immigrants including Hmong , Somali, Karin, Bhutanese, Sudanese, Latinos and others, alongside Native and African Americans. “Wherever there is conflict in the world, a few years later you start to see that population showing up here.” “It is a hard to reach population,” says Amy Gillman at the LISC national office . These are “highly impoverished and culturally diverse residents , who face significant barriers to physical and social activities related to health.” To make matters worse , the city is experiencing a ...

Gardaí in Ballymun have issued an appeal for information on the two cars used by the gunmen who shot dead an innocent mother-of-six and a young locksmith there last week.Antoinette Corbally was shot on Wednesday, August 16,several times at the front of her home on Balbutcher Drive as the intended target , her convicted gunman brother Derek Devoy , fled the scene.The second victim was Clinton Shannon, a locksmith from Swords, Dublin, who was hit by a number of bullets as he sat in a car on the street outside the property. Detective Superintendent Colm Fox , Senior Investigating Officer , today thanked the Ballymun community for their help in the investigation. He said: "We have had an excellent response to our last appeal for information which is greatly assisting the investigation. I am endeavouring to establish the prior whereabouts of two vehicles used in the commission of the murders of Antoinette Corbally and Clinton Shannon at Balbutcher Drive on the 16th of August." He...

NEW YORK, NY — In the summer of 1977, New York City was — literally and figuratively — on fire. It was the summer of disco fever, of Studio 54. It was the summer of Yankees mania. It was the summer that catapulted Ed Koch to City Hall. And in mid-July, it turned into the summer of darkness, when an epic, five-borough power outage — deemed an "act of God" by Con Ed — plunged the city into two days of total blackout. Airports shut down. News stations went off the air. Thousands were stuck in underground subway tunnels . Meanwhile, in the streets, the down-and-out — at their breaking point after years of municipal layoffs and a steady surge in violent crime — rioted and looted with abandon. Arsonists reportedly set more than 1,000 fires across the city in a single day. The Bronx, it would later be said, was burning. It was also the Summer of Sam. Want more local news? Sign up here to receive free newsletters and alerts from the New York City Patch . In spring 1977, police con...