Apartment City

A building at Woodcreek Apartments in Ypsilanti Township remains abandoned as the management and insurance company settle a dispute over the insurance settlement. Tom Perkins | For AnnArbor.com An eight-unit, burned-out apartment building in the Woodcreek Apartments off East Forest Avenue continues sitting vacant after a Molotov cocktail attack damaged it in a July 10 arson. A building left vacant with no timetable for demolition or repair is rare in Ypsilanti Township , where officials are tenacious in their efforts to quickly address blight . But this time, the township is caught in the middle of a settlement dispute between an insurance adjuster, Woodcreek management and the building's insurer. Also at stake is $120,000 in insurance money. The insurance adjuster, Craig Trombley of American Adjusters, was hired by Woodreek's owner, Ken Sharrock . Trombley is paid a percentage of the $120,000. The two accuse an Ypsilanti Township building official of putting residen...

The parent company of highly criticized Pasadena - based OneWest Bank will spend a recent $2. 5 million equity investment on low-income and distressed communities, CIT Bank, N.A. announced. CIT’s investment in the Clearinghouse Community Development Financial Institution marks the largest such investment in Clearinghouse’s 20-year history. “We couldn’t be more thrilled and plan to leverage these dollars to create positive change in communities that need it the most,” Clearinghouse President and CEO Douglas J. Bystry said. Under fire The move comes as OneWest has come under fire from several directons, including the California attorney general ’s office. In January, a leaked 2013 memo from the AG’s office indicated OneWest allegedly engaged in “widespread misconduct” to boost foreclosures, including backdating mortgage documents . The California Reinvestment Coalition — a San Francisco group that advocates for fair and equal access to banking services for low-income communities...

click to enlarge hosting 60 med students in Spokane" /> WSU is hosting 60 med students in Spokane UNLEASHING DEVELOPMENT How a city gets built often depends on the course of the markets — but choices made by the city government can alter the course in dramatic ways. At Monday's Spokane City Council meeting , the council passed several ordinances intended to spur DENSER DEVELOPMENT and improve neighborhood centers . For years, City Council President Ben Stuckart says, the city had offered 12-year, multifamily tax exemptions that were supposed to catalyze the development of affordable apartment housing . The problem, Stuckart says, is that nobody wanted to take them. The strings attached — set aside a fifth of the property as affordable housing for those making only 50 percent of the Spokane average income — made the prospect unprofitable for developers. On Monday, the council voted to dramatically weaken the income requirement , raising the affordable housin...