The 234 Apartment

Public restrooms in an East Village park have been mostly locked for months, even while a hepatitis A outbreak fueled in part by lacking hygiene has plagued homeless San Diegans . Pinnacle International developed two high- rises bordering Fault Line Park , agreeing years ago to build and maintain the park and restrooms in exchange for perks including the right to build more apartments in the towers and a garage underneath the park. The restrooms have been a problem since they opened, as inewsource reported last year. Homeless people have settled at the edge of the park, and city officials , Pinnacle staff and owners of the restaurant that houses the bathrooms have described near- constant safety hazards , including a stabbing that some restaurant workers witnessed . “They basically got used all the time for drug use and prostitution and crime,” said John Long, whose restaurant Stella Public House oversees the restrooms for the developer. Long, the city and the developer...

EAST VILLAGE (KUSI) — City planning officials gave final approval Wednesday to the building of Quartyard II, an innovative urban park in East Village. The project, first conceived by a group of students at the New School of Architecture and Design, was built with old shipping containers at Park and Market but closed in June when the property was turned over for re-development. Last month, the agency that handles development matters granted a conditional use permit to a new site at the corner of 13th and Market. The proposal included tables , games, food and beverages, an off- leash dog area and a stage for live entertainment. Lt. Colonel (Ret.) David Gapp, who lives in the area decided to appeal the permit, saying the live music was not appropriate for the neighborhood.  Gapp said while there were no residential buildings adjacent to the old Quartyard location, he said 2,000 people live in seven nearby buildings in the area around the new site. Gapp says many of those residents are...

As rents climb across the U.S., more people are being driven into homelessness. In some of the country’s hottest housing markets , rent increases have a strong connection with upticks in the homeless population , according to a study released this week from real- estate website Zillow . In New York City, a 5% rent hike would lead to nearly 3,000 more people becoming homeless. In Los Angeles, the same increase in rent would leave around 2,000 people without a place to live. To produce the report, Zillow created a model that analyzed different variables, including how population growth and changes in rent affect the homelessness rate. The model also considered the accuracy of homeless counts. Zillow then passed Census population figures , homelessness counts and its own rental data through the model to determine the relationship between rental prices and homelessness in different cities. The Census population numbers also take into account people who move in or out of a city, inclu...