In the first three months of this year, the rate was at 63.5%, not seasonally adjusted. That is down from 63.8% in the fourth quarter of 2015, according to estimates published on Thursday by the Commerce Department. That puts it back near its 48-year low of 63.4% in the second quarter of 2015.
“Cities have long leaned on policies that address affordability head on. Vouchers, rent control and requirements for builders to supply affordable units are all tools that continue to be used. But planners and academics warn that such approaches have their limits. Housing-assistance programs often help the neediest, while leaving a large swath of the population shut out. And requirements that builders set aside affordable units or pay into a fund to build such units come with their own challenges, notably that growth in affordable housing comes to rely on a much larger increase in market-rate housing.”
The School Facilities Program has little new money to hand out – especially for the more costly new construction and modernization projects – but the board has been reluctant to declare it depleted. To do so would trigger a provision in state law that places the burden of school construction costs fully on the backs of housing developers by allowing districts who meet the criteria to charge them 100 percent of building costs.
Not Houston. From 2010 to 2014, the Texas city added more than 140,000 people, a 6.7% increase and second only to New York in the U.S. But the difference between Houston and other high-growth cities is that it has expanded its housing stock to accommodate its new residents. In roughly the same period, the Houston metro area issued construction permits for 189,634 new units, the most in the nation. It is not surprising, then, that more than 60% of homes in the larger Houston metro area are considered affordable for median-income families, according to the National Home Builders Association, compared with about 15% in the Los Angeles area.
“Southern California continues to have the highest gas prices in the country by far, with price averages in local metro areas hovering about 20 cents above the $2.60 state average price for Hawaii,” said Auto Club spokesman Jeffrey Spring. . . California pretty much relies on 14 in-state refineries for gas made to meet state smog standards. When one or more is down or even producing fuel at less than full capacity, your wallets suffer.
This week, San Francisco became the first major US city to require solar panels on all new buildings that have 10 floors or less. (Larger buildings are exempt for now.) Analysts estimate that the resulting solar installations could help avoid 26,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually. If we use the EPA’s handy greenhouse gas calculator, that’s the equivalent of taking 5,500 cars off the road. . . So if San Francisco relaxed its restrictions and enabled, say, an additional 10,000 people to move from elsewhere in the Bay Area to the city, we could expect that to cut 79,000 metric tons of CO2 per year (to a first, crude approximation). This is three times as much CO2 as the solar panel law would save.
As a whole, U.S. cities are expanding as rapidly as they have throughout the last half-century. . . On the one side are cities such as San Francisco, Boston, New York and Miami that have slowed their pace of expansion dramatically since the 1970s, in part as they have added layer upon layer of building regulations. On the other side are cities concentrated in the southeast and Texas, which have grown outward and seen much slower price growth.
Today Ms. Trauss’s group is one of several pro-housing organizations (GrowSF and East Bay Forward are others) that represent a kind of “Yimby” party, built on the frustrations of young professionals who feel priced out of the Bay Area. BARF has won the backing of technology millionaires — Jeremy Stoppelman, co-founder and chief executive of Yelp, is the group’s largest individual donor — and the encouragement of local politicians.
The reason why California faces a housing affordability crisis is simple, many experts say: Lots of people want to live in the state and there aren’t enough houses for them. . . Legislators have shied away from tackling broad efforts to increase housing supply, such as overhauling the California Environmental Quality Act or reforming the tax code to incentivize residential development. Doing so would force lawmakers to take on some of the largest and thorniest policy issues in the Capitol.
Consumer interests wanted PG&E to nix the contract or negotiate a lower price. According to the Motley Fool investment website, Ivanpah got 20 cents/KWh in the summer of 2015 for the project’s electricity and 13.5 cents the rest of the year. That compares to the average solar system in California booking 5 cents/KWh for new contracts.
In our March PPIC Statewide Survey, most Californians see the system as fair. But when asked about their personal state and local tax burden, a majority of residents (56%) said they pay more than they should. A little over one-third of Californians (37%) said they pay the right amount in state and local taxes, while only 4% said they pay less than they should.
The February 2015 explosion, which triggered state and federal investigations, led to higher gas prices in Los Angeles than the rest of the nation. The fully operational refinery provided a fifth of the refined gasoline capacity in Southern California and 10% of the statewide capacity.
Elio is developing a low-cost ($6,800 to start) very high mileage (80-plus MPG) commuter car. . . Elio, in contrast, merely offers its cars – which you’re free to buy or not. And if you don’t want one, they’re not gonna force you (via Uncle) to “help” other people buy one. . . The execrable element is that Tesla expects you to pay for its toys. Not for yourself. But so that other people – affluent people – can play with them. . . that every “sale” entails an extortion payment extracted from a real car company – a “carbon credit” that is “sold” to offset the less-than-Teslian characteristics of functionally viable but “greenhouse gas” producing conventional cars… that it is necessary to bribe even rich people who have money to burn on toys with thousands of dollars of tax write-offs (the costs for these written off onto the backs of those who pay the taxes) in order to complete each transaction.
“With the gas storage field kept at about one-fifth of its full capacity, power plants could run short of natural gas to burn for power. State law permits power plants’ gas service to be cut off when supplies run short, preserving gas for homes and small businesses. State energy officials have predicted that the L.A. Basin and surrounding counties could face up to 14 days this summer and 32 days in the coming year when utilities might order limited power outages to avoid larger blackouts.”
The Affordable Care Act suffered another jolt late last week with the news that UnitedHealth Group, the nation’s largest health insurer, was making good on its threat to pull out of Obamacare, beginning with its operations in Georgia and Arkansas.