Construction Maison

Cross posted from our sister-site, Santa Monica Next . California state legislators are back in Sacramento after a month- long summer recess and they are looking to tackle the state’s growing housing crisis with a package of bills that could generate more than $3 billion for affordable housing as well as streamline new housing approval and construction. But lawmakers and political observers alike have noted that it won’t be an easy task to get the votes necessary to pass some of bigger-ticket legislation, like S.B. 2 and S.B. 3 , both of which have passed the State Senate but still need to get through the Assembly. And both require a two-thirds supermajority to pass. S.B. 2, introduced by State Senator Toni Atkins (D-San Diego), would place a $75 fee on real estate transactions and generate roughly $250 million a year annually. State Senator Jim Beall (D-San Jose) introduced S.B. 3, which would put a housing bond before the voters in 2018 that would generate $3 billion. “We ne...

"); } 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...

The California legislature is responding to spiking Bay Area rents by moving bills that would force cities to loosen restrictive land use rules that have impoverished renters and created massive profits for apartment owners. Year-over- year apartment rents at the end of March 2016 were falling hard in the Bay Area, with annual percentage decreases of 15% in Redwood City, 13% in Santa Clara, 8% in Palo Alto, and 5% in Oakland. But prices stabilized after the election of President Donald Trump ignited a new technology stock price boom , and have recently begun to take off and spike to new all-time-highs over the last 12 months. But the most recent Zumber survey found that Bay Area one- bedroom apartment rents rose by 2 percent in July. San Francisco  has the most expensive rent in the state at $3,450, followed by Mountain View at $3,060, and Redwood City at $2,970. The least expensive area rents were Vallejo at $1,270, followed by Napa at $1,540, and Santa Rosa at $1,550. The fear...

Cities must do more to ensure that investments in energy efficiency reach the low- and moderate-income households that bear the heaviest burden from high energy costs via Shutterstock By Laurie Mazur As the saying goes, “The poor pay more.” This is certainly true when it comes to energy costs: Low-income households (both owners and renters) pay more for energy per square foot than their affluent counterparts. And as a percentage of income, low- and moderate- income families pay up to three times more than average on utility bills. Energy efficiency is part of the solution: It can reduce energy burdens by as much as 30 percent. But even the best- intentioned efficiency programs often fail to reach low- and moderate-income households. Those households may not be able to take advantage of incentives because they lack the upfront capital to invest in efficiency upgrades, for example. And they lose out on tax incentives because they don’t live in high- efficiency housing or can’t af...

SAN FRANCISCO — A forum Thursday on the Bay Area’s egregious housing situation — the high prices, the scarcity of new construction — brought together academics, developers, real estate agents , government officials and housing advocates, all in the name of seeking creative solutions to the crisis. It was both a cry for help and a call to action. “They have their crazies. We need our crazies,” said panelist Laura Foote Clarke , executive director of YIMBY Action, which advocates for housing growth. Yes, that’s YIMBY, as in “Yes In My Backyard,” and the “they” she referred to was the other side — the many and often well-organized “Not In My Backyard” NIMBY opponents of housing development and densification in neighborhoods around the region. For more Bay Area housing affordability , home sales and other real estate news follow us on Flipboard. Held at LinkedIn San Francisco in front of an engaged audience of about 175 people, the forum was titled “California Housing Crisis : Examinin...

The kind folks at the Orange County chapter of the Building Industry Association were nice enough to invite me to join a recent panel on local housing market conditions . I decided an early- morning seminar required a quick start, so I offered the audience of industry insiders and local elected officials a “pop quiz” on some housing supply and affordability trends. The theme to my questions was that decades of rising housing costs aren ’t as out of line with monetary sanity as one might think. That reality check doesn ’t make it any financially less challenging to live here, but I think it does give policymakers some leeway when seeking cures to local housing hurdles . So here are my 10 questions that say a lot of about limited affordable housing options . #1: Relative value? Q: In past 30 years, Orange County home prices have increased five-fold while inflation has just doubled. Not a shabby return for owners. But, how did the Dow Jones industrial average do, better or worse? A...

How plunging oil prices are reversing fortunes across Texas. Read all the stories in this series. MIDLAND — Thousands have been laid off. Tax collections are plummeting. Many are on the brink of homelessness.   Rows of drilling rigs and white company trucks sit idle — there’s no telling for how long. And, yet, amid the worst oil bust in decades, the energy capital of West Texas hasn ’t slowed down much. Several oil companies have recently built  office complexes in the area, and drilling continues , albeit at a more sluggish pace. The city plans to build a new convention center, and construction of a municipal courthouse is underway. Several more hotels, apartment complexes and eateries are expected to open   this year, and a second H-E-B grocery store just came online . "For hire" signs are ample, road crews prolific . And people still complain about the traffic. “People from the outside come in expecting to see boarded-up windows, 'for sale' signs everywhere,...