#affordable-housing

#affordable-housing

A decade ago, a multimedia artist from The Bronx got a lucky break. She was one of the winners of a lottery - to which over 53,000 people applied - that allowed her to live in one of the 89 affordable apartments in a stately former public school in East Harlem. At the time, she was living in Staten Island, paying for a space that was smaller, more expensive and more difficult for people who wanted to see her art to visit.

According to the transit advocacy organization, the Transit Costs Project, a $40-billion, 40-year effort would add 41 miles of new subway lines and 64 new stations, resulting in 40,000 units of affordable housing and tens of thousands of more units of market-rate housing without even a single change to the current zoning regulations around the stations.

"When I think about the best cities for young adults, I start with what recent high school and college grads actually value: access to jobs, reasonable housing costs, walkable or active social scenes, and the ability to build independence without being financially stretched from day one," says Danielle Andrews, realtor with Realty One Group Next Generation. But where exactly are these young person-friendly spots?

While houseboat dwellers spend significantly less on monthly bills, upfront costs and regular maintenance have to be factored in

You don't have to live long in Williamsburg or Greenpoint to know New York is becoming too expensive for working families. Rents are out of control, and far too many of our neighbors are being priced out of the communities they've called home for generations. As president of the Cooper Park Residents Council, I see every day how the housing crisis affects seniors, parents, and young people who are just trying to stay in the city they love.

A fire early Tuesday morning destroyed one of the buildings at the vacant former Pacific Steel Casting complex in West Berkeley. No one was injured, but dramatic video from the scene showed flames shooting out of the large warehouse next to Interstate 80. (KTVU, Berkeley Scanner, Instagram) Hundreds of students and others protested against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement at UC Berkeley on Wednesday. (The Daily Californian)

The New York City Council on Thursday voted to override 17 vetoes that former Mayor Eric Adams issued on his last day of office, Dec. 31, 2025.

Google cofounder Sergey Brin is one of the many California-based billionaires pouring millions into donations ahead of the state's proposed wealth tax. Brin, along with other tech executives, venture capitalists, and philanthropists, donated a combined $35 million to ballot measure committees in January, supporting affordable housing ballots in California, per a disclosure seen by Business Insider. The disclosure was filed by the coalition "Building a Better California." Brin was the largest contributor in the filing, donating $20 million. Others donated large sums on various days in January, like former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and PayPal CEO Max Levchin, who donated $2 million and $1 million, respectively.

In an attempt to assuage concerns that the proposed four-story building to replace the shuttered Western Plywood warehouse at 2600 Harrison Street in the Mission is incompatible with the "design, scale and mass" of the neighborhood, Kerman Morris Architects has redesigned the project. The new design reduces the street-level wall along Harrison, includes a more open Production, Distribution & Repair (PDR) space, and adds an area with benches and raised planters along the street.

BOERUM HILL - AN AFFORDABLE HOUSING lottery opened for 23 newly built apartments at 556 Baltic Street, a 12-minute walk from the Atlantic Ave-Barclays Center subway station, with rents starting at $1,020 a month, reports. The building includes studios, one-bedroom and two-bedroom units available to households of one to five people earning between $40,595 and $175,000 annually. Amenities include in-unit washers and dryers, central air, gym,

District 5 Supervisor Bilal Mahmood is calling for more transparency at the San Francisco Mayor's Office of Housing after he discovered that the department had "lost track" of about $5 million sitting in an account waiting to be used for an affordable housing project in the Tenderloin. The city approved a development project with 85 affordable housing units at 101 Hyde St., a former post office, in 2015. The city approved a development project with 85 affordable housing units at 101 Hyde St., a former post office, in 2015. The building has been in the city's possession for nearly as long: Shorenstein Properties bought the site in 2016 and gave it to the city that year in a deal to fulfill its affordability requirements for a separate project.

Marvel actor Dominic Cooper is one of many high-profile public figures who has voiced concerns about developer Acorn's plan to build 20 terraced homes and 25 flats on the Blackheath station car park site. Dominic Cooper (Ian West/PA) The plans would see the car park capacity reduced from 162 spaces to only 17, while the development itself would deliver 21.3 per cent affordable' housing by habitable room. Lewisham Council's Planning Committee has been advised by planning officers to grant permission at a meeting on Tuesday, but the plans have been strongly opposed by locals and celebrities alike.

I met Carole Guscott, a retired former carer, on a clear winter's morning in the Somerset town of Minehead. She was walking her whippet, Gracie, on the way back to her new flat, past the local Premier Inn and on to a cul de sac called Rainbow Way. I knew as soon as I saw it, she told me. I just thought: I can make this place my home.'

Traditional construction is often marked by inefficiencies like material waste, labor intensity, and long project timelines that push up the final cost per square foot. In contrast, 3D printing, or Additive Manufacturing in Construction (AMC), introduces a fundamentally different approach, shifting from subtractive to additive building processes. Its central ambition is to make housing more accessible by lowering material and labor costs while enabling faster delivery of structurally sound, architecturally considered homes.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani's legal administration is taking the reins with an ambitious plan to expand the city Law Department by at least 200 lawyers. But who are his top lawyers and how will their different roles intersect with his agenda? Just before his inauguration, Mamdani named longtime public interest attorney Steven Banks as his pick for the city's next corporation counsel, the head of the massive agency that manages the city's litigation, and named Ramzi Kassem as chief counsel, the mayor's personal lawyer.

Santa Clara wrapped up 2025 with an impressive 2,768 new residential units, far surpassing the 155 completions from 2024 and earlier years. Most of these additions came as apartments and condominiums, with a small portion from accessory dwelling units and single-family homes. This wave of development marks a high point for the city, reflecting years of preparation that now deliver much-needed options amid the Bay Area's tight inventory.

An affordable housing nonprofit has put the kibosh on selling some Santa Monica buildings to developer Leo Pustilnikov. At a Santa Monica City Council meeting last week, officials disclosed that they had privately discussed a potential sale of 419 and 1616 Ocean Avenue, properties controlled by Community Corporation of Santa Monica, the Santa Monica Daily Press reported. Any transaction would require city approval because Santa Monica deeded 419 and 1616 Ocean to the nonprofit in 2016 and retained reacquisition rights.

London has rapidly emerged as Europe's data centre capital, much to the Government's delight, but locations close to the City, where some of the UK's biggest data users are based, are rare and much prized. That is because, when it comes to financial trading in the 21st century, milliseconds matter. The shorter the physical distance between trader and data centre, the faster instructions can be processed, creating a minute but crucial competitive advantage.

Palo Alto's Architectural Review Board has given a thumbs up to plans for a seven-story housing development at El Camino Real and Curtner Avenue, so long as developers make improvements such as adding off-street parking locations and more elevators. Sares Regis Group is responsible for the application on behalf of Palo Alto developer Vittoria Management. The application calls for demolishing existing buildings along 3727-3737 and 3773-3783 El Camino Real, 378-400 Madeline Court and 388 Curtner Ave. to make room for a 183-unit, 190,132-square-foot development.

When families seek out apartments, they are searching for more than a place to lay their heads. They are searching for safety and community in neighborhoods with decent schools. When we fail to deliver affordable options that meet these needs, parents are forced to raise their children in overcrowded apartments, to shuttle between unstable living arrangements, or even to turn to temporary shelters.

An east London authority is set to spend almost 6m fixing fire safety faults at two recently completed council-backed housing and commercial developments. The issues include missing back-up power supplies at a block of 156 affordable homes, and sprinkler system problems at an industrial scheme that have left many business units unlettable. London Borough of Barking and Dagenham documents show the problems have delayed occupation, limited rental income and forced costly retrofits funded by taxpayers.

Another affordable housing lottery has launched at Williamsburg Wharf, a large luxury development along the East River just south of the Williamsburg Bridge. The lottery applies to one of the project's five 22-story buildings. The lottery is for Williamsburg Wharf A3, aka 470 Kent Avenue, and includes 55 studio, one-, and two-bedroom apartments. All of the units are rent stabilized and income restricted, reserved for households earning 80 percent of the Area Median Income or $75,532 to $140,000 annually for households of one to five people, according to the listing.