I can’t get no
One person, Arie Shashou, 77, thought just that. That was before Shashou received an eviction notice in March. Shashou’s $825-a-month rent-controlled apartment, and 17 other units, will be demolished to make way for a...
Building lures
The changes are backed by the building industry but have drawn protests from advocates for low-income tenants. “It’s a race to the bottom,” said Darryl Rutherford, executive director of the Sacramento Housing Alliance. Mixed-income, or inclusionary...
Golden bucks
Customers of California’s big utility companies will receive “climate credits,” small payments of money raised from the state’s cap-and-trade system for controlling greenhouse gas emissions. “What we’re hoping for is to engage ratepayers in the...
Lessons on value-add
According to a December article in the Wall Street Journal, a flood of new student housing development from large REITs and private equity firms is squeezing out smaller owners. More supply than demand is driving...
Zero net energy living
The $300 million West Village campus project opened to much fanfare two years ago, riding on the hope that it would serve as a model for future construction. Touted as the largest planned "zero net...
The golden state and distributed power
One of the state's highest-profile leadership roles has been on the issue of the environment. For example, California legislators passed and Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed the most restrictive greenhouse gas emissions law in the...
Apartment play house
Now it's back and steaming ahead. Demolition and of two vacant warehouses on the 2.9-acre site is underway and construction has begun on 320-units. The project comes as a JV between toy manufacturer and wholesaler MegaToys,...
A bright idea
Ashoff manufactures fluorescent lamps with motion sensors. He designed it to replace bulbs in building stairwells which burn around the clock, and found that they slash energy costs for stairwell lighting by 97 percent....
How green is that building?
Ecologically-sustainable building practices -"green labels"-will now be included on official land records maintained by the city, according to Assessor-Recorder Phil Ting and Department of Environment Director Melanie Nutter. That means that along with information...
Celebrity magnet El Royale tower sells for record price
The 12-story building at 450 N. Rossmore Ave. was built in 1929 for the Hollywood crowd and early residents included Clark Gable, William Faulkner and Loretta Young. It was designed in a mix of...
SF landlord won’t let tenant charge electric car
California is trying to promote green technology, but one of San Francisco's biggest landlords has told a tenant he cannot use a plug to charge his new electric car. Neither can the other tenants. Richard...
Should smoking be banned in apartments?
The new rule will affect complexes located in unincorporated areas of Marin County. Marin itself was recently named the healthiest county in California by a report from the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute...
San Francisco gold rush
Largely in response to the city's growing technology sector, 22,000 residential units are in various stages of approval and construction. In a few years, residents could be signing leases for new addresses in South...
Is multfamily’s future in TOD?
The citizens of Seattle have just such an opportunity by encouraging development of dynamic pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods in the areas surrounding Sound Transit's light-rail stations. Nationally, these "new" neighborhoods are called transit-oriented developments (TODs). Locally,...
The great shrinking state
Unable to afford Orange County's skyhigh rents, she opted for Portland, Ore. "A big motivator was that I lived with roommate after roommate after roommate," said McCluer, 30. "Friends said you could probably live...
