The 234 Apartment

WASHINGTON — Homebuilders pulled back sharply on construction of apartment complexes in July, causing housing starts to tumble to a three-month low. The Commerce Department said Wednesday that housing starts fell 4 .8 percent in July to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.16 million. Groundbreakings for multi- family buildings such as apartments slumped 17.1 percent, while single- family house construction slipped 0 .5 percent. Home construction has increased 2.4 percent year-to-date, but the gains have done little to offset the dwindling number of homes listed for sale. The shortage of properties for sale has pushed prices up at a faster pace than income growth, making home ownership less affordable for many would-be buyers. Stephen Stanley, chief economist at Amherst Pierpont Securities , said that because of the lack of homes on the market "builders are attempting to meet that need but are hamstrung to a degree by shortages of skilled workers" and land restrictions...

DEVELOPMENT Apartment tower in Bay Village wins approval An apartment tower in Boston’s Bay Village neighborhood cleared a key hurdle this week when it was approved by the city’s Zoning Board of Appeals. Despite concern from some residents that the 199-foot building was out of scale with the low- slung brick neighborhood behind it, ZBA members voted unanimously Tuesday to approve the project. Transom Development wants to put 133 apartments on what’s now a surface parking lot and empty lot alongside the Revere Hotel. They hope to start construction in spring of 2018. — TIM LOGAN TRANSPORTATION Peter Pan reaches settlement in disabilities discrimination case A Massachusetts bus company accused of discriminating against passengers with disabilities has reached a settlement with federal prosecutors that resolves the allegations. The US attorney’s office in Boston said Wednesday that Peter Pan Bus Lines Inc. violated federal law by failing to ensure its motor coaches were access...

While all those clothes, shoes and bags you bought over the years have likely limited your chances of becoming a homeowner, it has certainly helped many in the fashion industry to continue climbing up the property ladder , snapping up impressive mansions in some of the wealthiest parts of the U.S. Here, WWD takes a look at fashion moguls ’ most expensive homes currently on the market across the country. MAX AZRIA’S L.A. MEGA-MANSION — $88M Fashion veteran Max Azria and his wife Lubov Azria are selling their Holmby Hills mansion known as Maison Du Soleil for $88 million, making it the sixth most expensive home for sale in Los Angeles. (The highest has a $ 350 million price tag .) At the same time, the Tunisian fashion designer ’s 60-room mansion, which dates back to the Thirties, is also on the market as a rental for a whopping $400,000 a month. Set on three acres, the 30,000-square-foot compound comes with 17 bedrooms, 22 bathrooms, a bathhouse and a 6,000-square- foot mov...

The Los Angeles Dodgers recorded their 90th victory Aug . 24, the fastest any Dodger club has reached that important milestone. If they achieve the projected 116 wins in their 162- game regular season , they’ll go down as one of the greatest baseball teams of all time. Of course, I have two adult children who weren’t alive the last time the Dodgers were even in a World Series so anything short of a ring this time is, well, a loss. This has been a truly magical season, which makes it all the more disappointing that the Dodgers’ covetous ownership continues to snub its fans with its cockamamie cable TV contract scheme . With all these exciting, charismatic, budding and veteran all-stars and their unbelievable exploits, it’s hard to understand why they would willingly write off a generation of new fans. Frankrupt McCourt would approve. It is said that greed is good. The Dodgers are both, and what an unfortunate missed opportunity this year has been. Meanwhile, I told you in my last co...

When Bill de Blasio became mayor of New York City in 2014, he made no secret of his intent to place affordable housing at the center of his term. Not long after his election, he rolled out his Housing New York plan–a 10-year strategy to build or preserve around 200,000 affordable units across the city’s five boroughs. advertisement Affordable, when it comes to housing in New York, is a slippery term. Critics of de Blasio’s plan have pointed out that the majority of the units built or converted under Housing New York remain out of reach of low-income New Yorkers–those earning less than $43,000 per year. And while the plan has succeeded making a nearly 100,000 unit dent in the city’s 550,000 affordable-unit shortfall, the terms of the new unit’s affordability are ephemeral: The majority of the units created and preserved under the mayor’s plan are only regulated temporarily, often for as little as two decades. There is no guarantee that a unit designated as affordable today will remain...

In March of 2016, having recently been let go from the Cleveland Browns due in part to truancy and public drug use, Johnny Manziel applied to live in an apartment. The property manager who processed his application was at first delighted that she would have the opportunity to rent to the Heisman Trophy recipient from Texas A&M. But she was quickly disheartened when she realized that, due to a criminal background screening policy that she had helped create which immediately disqualified applicants who had been arrested for or charged with a crime, she could not rent to Johnny Football. His criminal background check revealed that he had been arrested for domestic violence three months prior. But since she was a fan, and because it was her personal opinion that he was innocent, she successfully lobbied her building’s ownership to restructure their screening policy to disregard arrests, and only screen for convictions (using the logic that arrests are not proof of wrongdoing). ...

T wo weeks ago, a Manhattan Supreme Court judge handed down a decision designed to strike fear in the hearts of landlords. Justice James d’Auguste ordered that an independent receiver be appointed to manage two Midtown residential buildings where the landlords allegedly allowed illegal Airbnb rentals to occur. The case, which began when the city sued the landlords in February 2015, has become one of the battlegrounds in a larger war between city enforcement agencies and short- term rental sites like Airbnb. Airbnb, which was recently valued at $31 billion, refuses to release the exact addresses of hosts who break the law by renting their entire apartment for less than 30 days without being present. Without the addresses and names of Airbnb violators , the city mostly targets the owners of buildings that rack up the most illegal hotel complaints from 311 calls and the New York City Department of Buildings. “This entire model—and it was intentional [by the city]—is complaint-drive...