The 234 Apartment

As Towson University students prepare to head back to campus this week, university officials say complaints of loud, unruly gatherings near the campus are down by as much as 50 percent in some neighborhoods since the Baltimore County Council passed an ordinance to deter problem behavior . After numerous neighborhood complaints of public urination, property damage and excessive noise in residential neighborhoods, the council passed the Social Host–Unruly Social Gatherings ordinance in January 2016 to target problem landlords and renters through their pocketbooks. The two-year pilot, which was introduced by County Councilman David Marks , will expire in January. With a full school year having passed since the enactment of the ordinance, neighbors, Towson University officials and county police officials say it is working to curb problem behavior . Marks said he will seek reauthorization of the legislation. "I think it's having the effect we wanted and it's had, mor...

June Jacobs has been in the beauty and wellness business for over 30 years, and a New Yorker for more than 50. Jacobs is the creator of the June Jacobs Spa Collection , offered to guests in Grand Hyatt hotels and also found at spas, resorts, and in stores.  We caught up with June to talk about her Upper East Side neighborhood , her love of wraparound terraces , and why she craves a little bit of the old New York City and a little bit of the new. Is this your dream neighborhood, or is there someplace else in NYC you’d prefer to settle? I wouldn't say that it is my dream neighborhood, but it is by far the best neighborhood for me to live in. It’s very accessible to all of the parts of the city that I want to be near, and I don’t picture myself moving elsewhere. Do you own or rent? Rent. How’d you find it? One of my close friends was renting the apartment I live in now and I was always envious of it. She got engaged and was going to move in with her fiancé, so I knew it was going for...

Until Saturday, August 12th, Debra Godfrey liked to sit on her front porch in the afternoons. She’d smoke a Newport and watch what little traffic there was pass by. Godfrey, who is fifty-one, lives in Belmont, a quiet neighborhood on the southeast side of Charlottesville, Virginia. Kids would play together after they got off the school bus a couple of houses down. Neighbors would walk past with their dogs, waving hello, as they headed to a nearby park. These days, Godfrey mostly stays inside in the afternoons. The neighborhood is still quiet, she said. “But it’s more quiet. People are more alert.” August 12th was the day of an alt-right rally called “Unite the Right,” which devolved into violence as thousands of white supremacists and counter-protesters swarmed through the city’s downtown streets. The unrest made international headlines and left a thirty-two-year-old counter- protester named Heather Heyer dead , with dozens more injured. For Godfrey, who is black, the day’s chaos has...

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...

EXPAND The new USC Village is dominated by dorms and apartments that will house 2,500 students — but it also has a Trader Joe's. Hillel Aron The University of Southern California has long been criticized for being an inward-looking institution, one that insulates itself from the surrounding neighborhoods of South Los Angeles . Its new expansion project, USC Village, is hailed for changing that. The 15-acre, $ 700 million housing and retail development brings a Trader Joe's to South L.A. for the first time, as well as a Target, with many other businesses (15 restaurants and nearly as many shops) to come — and with them, jobs. A recent New York Times piece lavished praise upon the development, which has its official groundbreaking on Saturday, saying the project "brings together one of California’s poorest areas and one of its wealthiest universities." Indeed, as part of the project, the university contributed $20 million to the city's affordable housing trust fu...

Hunting for a new apartment to rent can lose its excitement very quickly, but in some cities the search gets much worse, much faster. If you’ve ever been on the lookout for a new home in Philadelphia, you may have experienced the worst of renting, according to a new study. A recent report from financial website WalletHub cultivated a list of the 150 best and worst cities to live in, and while smaller cities in states such as Arizona, Nebraska, and South Dakota topped the rankings, big cities like Detroit, Baltimore, New Orleans, and, yes, Philadelphia, were staggered at the bottom of the rankings, with Philadelphia falling at No. 128 in the 150-city survey. Rankings were defined in a couple ways: rental market and affordability (weighing factors such as rent-to-price ratio, security deposits, cost of living, historical rental price changes, and others) and overall quality of life (weighing factors such as job market, driver friendliness, and the weather). Considering the weight on ...

AvalonBay Communities, Inc. (NYSE:AVB) Q2 2017 Earnings Call August 03, 2017 1:00 pm ET Executives Jason Reilley - AvalonBay Communities, Inc. Timothy J. Naughton - AvalonBay Communities, Inc. Sean J. Breslin - AvalonBay Communities, Inc. Matthew H. Birenbaum - AvalonBay Communities, Inc. Kevin P. O'Shea - AvalonBay Communities, Inc. Analysts Nicholas Joseph - Citigroup Global Markets , Inc. Nick Yulico - UBS Securities LLC Richard Allen Hightower - Evercore ISI Juan Sanabria - Bank of America Merrill Lynch Andrew T. Babin - Robert W. Baird & Co., Inc. Austin Wurschmidt - KeyBanc Capital Markets , Inc. Dennis Patrick McGill - Zelman & Associates Wes Golladay - RBC Capital Markets LLC Alexander Goldfarb - Sandler O'Neill & Partners LP Vincent Chao - Deutsche Bank Conor Wagner - Green Street Advisors , LLC Richard Hill - Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC Robert Stevenson - Janney Montgomery Scott LLC Operator Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to AvalonBay...