California communities are approving residential building permits at a slower rate than they did last year, a sign Gov. Gavin Newsom faces an even bigger hurdle to reach his housing goals than when he took office in January.
In the first five months of 2019, cities and counties issued permits for an average of 111,000 residential building units per year, according to data released Friday by the California Department of Finance.
That’s a decrease of 12.2 percent from the same period in 2018.
— The Sacramento Bee
The news is mostly bad for California governor Gavin Newsom's plan to build 3.5 million new housing units by 2025, as high land costs, a labor shortage, the effects of President Trump's tax cuts, and virulent NIMBYism threaten to stamp out regulatory reforms enacted over recent years. ... View full entry
A proposed observation tower at the edge of Pacific Highway is a polarizing symbol of change that could make or break the larger, $2.4 billion redevelopment effort planned for downtown’s Central Embarcadero. — San Diego Union-Tribune
Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) and developers 1HWY1 have proposed a 500-foot cylindrical observation tower for San Diego's waterfront Central Embarcadero as part of a massive $2.4 billion Seaport San Diego project. The part-hotel, part-theme park development could include 385 hotel rooms, a... View full entry
Construction on Sendero Verde, a sizable Handel Architects-designed affordable housing development in New York City, is expected to break ground later this summer. Patch reports that L+M Development Partners, Jonathan Rose Companies, and Acacia Network, the developers behind the... View full entry
New York native Maurice Cox is stepping down from his role this fall as Detroit's planning director. He's expected to take on a role as the top planning executive for the City of Chicago, a city official confirmed. — detroitnews.com
After four years at the helm of Detroit's planning department, Maurice Cox is headed to Chicago to serve as the city's top planning executive under the Windy City's new mayor, Lori Lightfoot. A Brooklyn native, Cox is an architectural designer, educator, and former mayor of Charlottesville... View full entry
In the first half of 2019, New York City apartment building sales fell 48% from the same period a year earlier, B6 said in a report. It was the biggest decline for any six-month period in data going back to 2009. In northern Manhattan, which includes Harlem, the drop in multifamily purchases led to a 61% slide in all commercial-property transactions, the firm said. — Bloomberg
Across New York City, as the effects of the New York State's recently-enacted rent control laws begin to take shape, apartment building owners are having a tough time finding investors to purchase their properties. According to Bloomberg, apartment building sales are down nearly 50-percent... View full entry
Municipal laws in New York City are hampering the city's real estate developers and building owners as they look to embrace the use of drones to perform periodic building and facade inspections on their properties, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. In New York City... View full entry
“A Pattern Language” is not about architecture, but about how specific design choices can help us build better relationships. By fitting a series of those choices—the patterns—together, you get a room, a house, a neighborhood and eventually a city. — Curbed
Curbed architecture critic Alexandra Lange takes us on a journey through some of the key lessons from Christopher Alexander's seminal work, A Pattern Language. The book, originally published in 1977 has long been out of fashion in architecture schools, but, Lange argues, with the rise... View full entry
MIT’s Self Assembly Lab and Maldives-based Invena have unveiled Growing Islands, a provocative underwater structural system that redirects wave energy and sand accumulation flows to build new islands and help rebuild existing beaches ravaged by rising sea levels. Diagram showcasing the... View full entry
Miami’s high-end real-estate market has drastically slowed in the past several years, as the Latin American buyers who led a frenzy of postrecession purchases have all but disappeared. South American economies that were roaring in the early years of the decade, including Brazil, Argentina and Venezuela, are now facing severe economic distress, which has devalued their currencies and left purchasers from those countries with far less buying power in the U.S. — wsj.com
Oversupply, the unknown threat of climate change, and shifting immigration patterns are pushing high-end condominium prices downward in Miami, where, The Wall Street Journal reports, sales have fallen off 24 percent from last year. “There’s just an abundance of inventory,” Alexandra... View full entry
[Oslo] has just phased out the last on-street parking spaces in the city centre, giving an edge to transit, pedestrians and cyclists without banning cars.
The initiative included incentives for cyclists such as new bike lanes, including better lighting and snow removal, along with subsidies for electric bikes and cargo cycles. Council also expanded transit services and lowered fares.
— Corporate Knights
London, Berlin, Paris, Toronto, and an increasing number of cities are aiming to reduce traffic congestion, polluted air, and valuable urban space occupied by parked cars through policy changes that promote walkability, pedestrian- and cyclist-friendly (and in certain cases, car-light or even... View full entry
“We’re in the midst of new cities fever,” says Prof Sarah Moser. The head of the new cities lab at McGill University has documented more than 100 cities that have sprung up across Asia and Africa since the early 2000s for her forthcoming Atlas of New Cities. — The Guardian
The Guardian kicks off its new Cities from scratch series with an overview of noteworthy planned metropolises that are replacing big swaths of desert, jungle, or sea across Asia and Africa. While some new cities started out ambitiously but had to eventually give up on key features, others took... View full entry
With earthquakes in the news following a pair of recent tremors in California, it’s important to remember that seismic design is an integral and increasingly complex aspect of building design architects work hard to address. An ever-improving standard, seismic codes not only save lives, but also... View full entry
Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante, right, has struck a deal with Quebec Transport Minister Chantal Rouleau, center, and Treasury Board President Christian Dubé to help fund Quebec City's tramway project in exchange for a commitment from Quebec to support part of Plante's proposed Pink line from downtown Montreal to Lachine. — CBC
Discussion over Montreal's proposed Pink Line is well underway thanks to a deal negotiated by Plante and Quebec Transport Minister Chantal Rouleau and Treasury Board President Christian Dubé. When Plante was first running for mayor, her pro-transit platform was designed to ignite an additional... View full entry
The city’s early building code had more of a tear-down mentality where every project had to comply with the new construction code. The rehab code that was introduced in 1983 did recognize that rehab projects had some distinct differences and did not need to fully meet new construction standards. — Urban Land
The city of Chicago is comprised of close to 500,000 buildings. Filled with many historic and influential structures, Chicago is a mecca for architectural historians and enthusiasts. In April, the city adopted a new series of building codes which will allow for better building reuse and... View full entry
We have a very special July 4th episode for you today. Today’s show offers an especially American conversation with the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Paul Goldberger. The discussion between myself and Goldberger was recorded live at Archinect Outpost last month for the launch of his latest... View full entry
