Apartment City

Kansas City Councilman Scott Wagner ’s drive to get a controversial housing measure before voters this year fell short on Thursday. Members of the city council’s Housing Committee put Wagner ’s ordinance seeking an inspection fee for rental units on hold, meaning the city will not meet a deadline to put a question on the November ballot. Wagner and officials from the Health Department had wanted to follow the lead of more than 50 cities around the nation and create a program whereby owners of rental properties would pay an annual fee. The city would use the money to hire inspectors, who would respond to complaints from tenants and neighbors about unsafe or unhealthy conditions. In response to complaints from property owners, Wagner dropped the proposed fee to $25 per building, with a higher re- inspection fee required of landlords who fail to correct problems. “That’s far less stringent than what we see in most areas around the country,” said Ruth Ann Norton , president of Ba...

As part of preliminary terms of a development agreement between Stanford and the city of Menlo Park, Stanford officials have said the university will pay for half of the cost – up to a maximum of $5 million – to build a tunnel or overpass to allow safe crossing of the Caltrain tracks at Middle Avenue in Menlo Park. The Menlo Park City Council is expected to consider the terms of the development agreement for Stanford's proposed project a 500 El Camino Real at its meeting on Tuesday, Aug. 29. Under the proposed agreement, the city will administer the crossing project , but Stanford will help pay for it. A study by consultants from the transportation firm AECOM to develop preliminary designs for the crossing is in progress. The university also agreed to provide additional below-market- rate housing – a total of 10 units, two or three units beyond what is required as part of the city's below-market-rate ordinance – and to donate $1 million, or $100,000 for 10 years...

by Nena Perry-Brown As DC continues to reckon with its dearth of affordable housing, some laws that passed years ago but were never implemented, are resurfacing. One of those is the Rent Control Amendment Act of 2006. The law amended the original rent control law passed in 1985 to put in place the following provisions: Eliminating rent ceilings and rent ceiling adjustments that haven’t been approved in accordance with petitions; Creating parameters for how much and how often landlords can raise the rent on vacant and occupied apartments; and Requiring that the Mayor issue reports on establishing an income-based set aside program. While rent ceilings have been abolished and the latter provision has arguably been realized through the creation of inclusionary zoning, landlords have long been able to take advantage of the vacant-unit loophole over the years in order to increase profits and remove units from rent control restrictions . story continues below loading... story continues...

Dhan Subedi flipped through sheets of apartment listings on Thursday, 15 days before the deadline for her four-person household to vacate Glenbrook Apartments . She’d circled and called the most affordable units in Boise. The earliest one would be available was Oct. 15, nearly a week after her deadline to leave a one-bedroom, $575-a-month apartment. Her 13-month-old son, Kaden, rolled around the floor at the feet of her mother, Mina Subedi. The families of both Dhan and her husband, Prem Subba, are Bhutanese, though Dhan was born during her family’s two-decade stay at a refugee camp in Nepal. Subba’s was one of thousands of Nepalese- speaking families evicted from the country. Located at the corner of South Curtis Road and Cassia Street, the family’s sparse Glenbrook unit is close to the Boise Airport, where Subba works, and State Street, where Subedi works at a market. It’s also close to the former Boise International Market , where the couple owned the Bhutanese and Nepali grocery...