Construction Maison

"It's the same old story. First the builder picks the property, then he gets the Planning Commission to designate it, then the people get bulldozed out of their homes." - Jane Jacobs Under Title I of the Federal Housing Act of 1949, federal funds became available to cities for demolition or rehabilitation of blighted areas, and throughout the 1950s, Robert Moses' Slum Clearance Committee lived up to its name, razing entire New York neighborhoods in the name of urban renewal. In 1960, the city's Housing and Redevelopment Board took over those duties, promising to displace residents less brusquely than had been Moses' way. But the city Planning Commission continued to support the basic tenets of urban renewal, believing that New Yorkers would ultimately be much happier in modern, less crowded housing with lots of open spaces. Jane Jacobs, a 45-year-old editor at Architectural Forum, had another opinion: Urban planners , she believed, were des...

The Late Victorian period in the United States—roughly the last third of the 19th century—produced some of the most beautiful neighborhoods in the history of Western civilization . It also produced some of the most hopeless slums. In response to the crisis of industrial cities, the modern discipline of city planning emerged . The tools of this new profession helped clean up many unhealthy aspects of urban industry , but also stifled some of the best innovations of Late Victorian urbanism . By the 1920s, planners in the industrial world had established the legal authority to promulgate land-use regulations, and over the next generation, they succeeded at slowing the construction of slum housing and segregating noxious industries from incompatible activities, such as housing and office space. Through some of the same devices, however, planners curtailed some positive features of 19th- century urbanism , including the rich variety of free- form industrial development and the adaptiv...

April 28, 2001 | By Andrew A. Green | Andrew A. Green,SUN STAFF A developer is to break ground Tuesday on an apartment complex in downtown Towson that Baltimore County officials hope will demonstrate to other builders that suburbanites are interested in the urban idea of living close to work, shops and entertainment. Residents of the $20 million, 264- unit Dulaney Crescent apartment building will be able to walk to the Super Fresh without crossing a major street. They'll be closer to the Hecht's in Towson Town mall than Hecht's is to Nordstrom. Based on the surrounding traffic patterns , it will be more trouble to drive to the barber shop and dry cleaners than to walk. As sprawl has become a dirty word in recent years, the idea of creating compact communities that unify living, working and playing has become the urban planning vogue , in contrast to much post- World War II development that segregated houses from offices from shops. "I think [the apartments are]...

Whitney and Luke Bowerman dream of building cottages on one of the few larger lots remaining in Olympia’s Eastside neighborhood. They want to leave the existing trees on the Fairview Street Southeast lot , and reflect the character of the neighborhood in their design. The cottages would join a new, three-bedroom house also designed to fit the area. But the city of Olympia has made it expensive to build cottages, the Bowermans said. They estimate that city fees alone will run $30,000 to $40,000 per cottage. And the cottages will be just between 500 and 800 square feet. “The impact fees for a 500-square-foot cottage are almost the same as for a single-family home,” Whitney Bowerman said. “But you can’t rent them for as much,” Luke Bowerman said. If changes aren’t made to reduce the costs, the Bowermans said, they might have to abandon the cottage idea and build a more traditional subdivision. Out of respect for the neighborhood, they don’t want to do that. Meanwhile, Olympia is poised...

The innovative project looks to transform this downtown district through the infusion of a diverse set of programs that will provide activated street frontages and a variety of housing typologies at all levels of affordability. The Exchange LOS ANGELES - Aug. 25, 2017 - PRLog -- KTGY Architecture + Planning unveiled today the preliminary design for a new mixed-use development that was selected as part of Salt Lake City 's plan to revitalize its downtown core developed by The Domain Companies , one of the nation's leading real estate investment and development firms specializing in sustainable mixed-use development, and the GIV Group, which combines a non-profit and entrepreneurial approach to community development. Called The Exchange, the design envisions a pedestrian- and transit-oriented mixed-use district focused on innovation and includes "startup" micro-unit apartments, business incubator space , creative office space , affordable and market-rate apartm...

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...