In a sign of sellers’ frustration with steadily increasing listing timesmore property owners are opting to pull their homes off the market rather than lower the asking price.
That’s according to the July 2025 monthly housing report from Realtor.com, which shows that delistings, or homes removed from the market without having been sold, were up 38% in June, since the start of the year, and 48% from a year ago.
“Fewer and fewer sellers are deciding to enter the market, and increasingly more are deciding to jump out” Jake Krimmel, senior economist at Realtor.com told CBS MoneyWatch.
Delistings for June appear in the July report as a one-month lag for delisting data is needed to determine that a delisted home is truly delisted and hasn’t been sold, Realtor.com notes.
Signs of deadlock
Unable to find buyers willing to pay the original listing price, a growing number of sellers are pulling their homes off the market, rather than compromise on the amount, according the real estate listings website.
One indicator that more sellers exiting the housing market is the ratio between the number of delistings and listings. For every 100 new homes listed nationally in June, 21 homes were taken off the market, the report found. That’s up from 13 delisted homes per 100 new listings in May.
The consequence? A rise in delistings could push buyers and sellers further apart, creating a deadlock in the housing market, according to Krimmel.
“The thing that’s going to prevent buyers and sellers from getting closer together is if all the sellers who maybe could or should be lowering their prices to meet the demand where it is, are instead taking their homes off the market altogether,” he said. “So it’s kind of like keeping us in this holding pattern.”
The trend comes as the supply of homes for sale begins to grow in certain U.S. regions, causing prices in those areas to drop. The number of homes for sale in July rose 24.8% year over year, according to the report, a post-pandemic high.
Despite the rise in housing inventory, sales remain relatively stagnant, with steep prices and stubbornly high mortgage rates continuing to deter many would-be homebuyers, experts told CBS MoneyWatch. That jibes with data from the Realtor.com report which shows that pending home sales, or listings under contract, fell 3% in July compared with last year, nearly double the 1.6% year-over-year drop in June.
Homeowners in no hurry to sell
When sellers are in a pinch, they typically opt to lower the price of their home so they can offload it quicker. However, those who are not up against the same type of time constraints may be willing to wait it out longer — especially if they’re benefiting from a favorable mortgage rate.
“Maybe you’re locked into payments that are relatively affordable for you,” said Krimmel. “You would prefer to sell, but not at a price that you’re not comfortable with.”
Another factor experts say is playing into the delisting trend the surge in housing prices during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the housing market was red hot. As newly remote workers flocked to previously untapped locations like Austin, Texas, home prices rose at record levels, giving sellers a chance to cash in. While the market has since cooled substantially, seller’s pricing expectations have been slower to catch up, experts say.
“Maybe we’ve gotten a bit spoiled by very high home prices over the last many years and but we are seeing some softness in the market right now,” Nancy Vanden Houten, lead U.S. economist at Oxford Economics, told CBS MoneyWatch.
That may not be true in all markets, however. Miami is one of the places where sellers have been most unwilling to budge on price. According to Realtor.com’s analysis of June delisting data, 59 homes were delisted for ever 100 new homes listed in the southern Florida city— the highest ratio among the cities Realtor.com tracked. Meanwhile, less than 18% of listed homes in Miami came with a price reduction in July, according to Realtor.com.
“If sellers are choosing to take properties off the market rather than lower prices, it may signal renewed confidence in Miami’s future, and a growing belief that this is a market worth holding for the long haul,” Ana Bozovic, a Miami-based real estate agent and founder of Analytics Miami, told Realtor.com.
Mary Cunningham is a reporter for CBS MoneyWatch. Before joining the business and finance vertical, she worked at “60 Minutes,” CBSNews.com and CBS News 24/7 as part of the CBS News Associate Program.
DENVER — The historic Denver Dry Goods Company building, a downtown landmark since the late 1800s, is on its way to a new chapter as part of a $67 million redevelopment project aimed at addressing the growing need for affordable housing in the area.
Developed by Jonathan Rose Companies, the Denver Dry Building has evolved over the years from a popular department store to a mix of apartments, commercial space and offices. With goals set on revitalizing downtown Denver, the company is reimagining the space to create affordable living options and enhance the neighborhood’s foot traffic.
Denver Dry Goods building to be renovated to address affordable housing shortage
Since the early 1990s, the building has served various purposes, including ground floor retail, two floors of office space and affordable apartment units.
The redevelopment will renovate 51 existing affordable units and introduce 55 new units, all income-restricted based on the area’s median income.
“This building has been part of our portfolio for a long time, since the early 1990s, and our real goal is to create housing for residents across the income spectrum,” Hayley Jordahl, director of development at Perry Rose LLC — the firm partnered with Jonathan Rose Companies — said.
The project marks an opportunity to reactivate downtown Denver, especially in light of the challenges faced since 2020 when the city — like many others — experienced a decline in retail and office occupancy. The pandemic has left many storefronts vacant, prompting this plan to enhance the area by attracting more residents and potentially increasing foot traffic for local businesses.
“We’re hoping that our work of historic preservation, creation of new affordable housing, and greening of this building will contribute to the next steps for downtown Denver,” Jordahl said.
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As part of the renovation, developers plan to restore the building’s historic exterior, focusing on its brickwork and windows. Renovations for the interior housing units will align existing units with upgrades seen in the newly constructed apartments, installing energy-efficient appliances and a modern heating system.
“The interior renovation will take about 13 months, with completion expected in early fall of next year,” Jordahl stated.
Leasing information for the new apartments will become available by late summer 2026.
This redevelopment is part of a broader effort to create a thriving, diverse environment that meets the needs of those who work, live and visit the area.
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Denver7 | Your Voice: Get in touch with Colin Riley
Denver7’s Colin Riley is a multimedia journalist who tells stories impacting all of Colorado’s communities, but specializes in reporting on transportation and our state’s senior population. If you’d like to get in touch with Colin, fill out the form below to send him an email.
RICHMOND — The General Assembly allocated $87.5 million in the current budget for the Virginia Housing Trust Fund, a financial resource that helps preserve and develop affordable housing units. That’s the largest investment from the state in the fund’s history.
More funding has equaled more affordable housing — in fiscal 2024, $60 million went toward the creation or preservation of more than 3,000 affordable units, compared to $5.4 million generating about 300 units in fiscal 2014.
But in 2021, the last time a comprehensive statewide housing needs assessment was conducted, the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission found the state would need to allocate closer to $1.6 billion annually to develop 20,000 units per year to meet the state’s need for affordable housing in 10 years.
“We still have a long way to go,” said Isabel McLain, director of policy and advocacy at the Virginia Housing Alliance, during a presentation to a Virginia Housing Commission workgroup at the General Assembly Building Tuesday.
The VHTF helps get existing projects with other funding sources over the finish line. The bulk — 80% — of the funds are administered to the Affordable and Special Needs Housing loan pool. Those loans then go to projects with units affordable to people earning 80% or less than the area median income. Affordable is defined as costing no more than 30% of one’s income.
The other 20% of the VHTF funds go toward homeless reduction grants, which can pay for projects like a new shelter or rental assistance.
State Sen. Emily Jordan, R-Smithfield, proposed a bill this past session that would change that formula to a 65-35 split. That bill died in committee. At Tuesday’s meeting, she made the case it should be reintroduced.
“In Hampton Roads, we know that we have an affordable housing issue,” she said. “What this bill sought to do is provide some flexibility in that ratio so we could try to, in the immediate forefront, find some additional funding to address our targeted homelessness population as we work towards addressing the affordable housing crisis we have in Hampton Roads.”
Members of the workgroup did not have additional comments or questions for Jordan, but chair Del. Briana Sewell, D-Woodbridge, said the group looked forward to working with Jordan on the issue in the future.
Three senators, five delegates and three governor appointees sit on the Housing Commission. There are two workgroups within the Commission: the one that met Tuesday studies affordable housing solutions, and the other studies local land use and and community living. The workgroups, which include stakeholders from different housing sectors, provide recommendations on proposed legislation to the full commission, which in turn makes legislative recommendations to the legislature.
“We wanted to correct decades of precedence where affordable housing has been disproportionately clustered in certain neighborhoods,” she said. “We wanted to unpack some of those structural patterns, we wanted to disrupt some of those cycles of concentrated poverty and oversaturation.”
But Anthony acknowledged the language of the bill could have had unintended consequences, like introducing caps on how many affordable housing units could be in specific neighborhoods.
“I absolutely understand the intent of this bill,” said workgroup member Erin Kormann, legislative counsel with the Virginia Association of Realtors. “I would encourage you to work, and I’m sure you already have, with the affordable housing people and how to tweak that language so that it can’t be used to keep this kind of housing out of certain areas.”
Sen. Glen Sturtevant, R-Midlothian, presented his bill to limit how many single family houses private equity firms and hedge funds can buy. That bill was incorporated with legislation proposed by Sen. Schuyler VanValkenburg, D-Richmond, before it died in committee. Sturtevant said he planned to reintroduce the bill this coming session with added provisions, recommended by the Virginia Poverty Law Center to include limits on how those firms can buy mobile home parks.
“This is only going after the biggest of the big entities, the Wall Street hedge funds and private equity groups,” Sturtevant said. “The threshold that we have come up with is those institutional investors that have $50 million or more in assets.”
Under the guidance proposed by Sturtevant, entities would also only be prohibited from purchasing single family homes if they already had 50 or more properties. Sturtevant acknowledged that only own a small portion of homes — about 6.3% in Richmond, he said — were sold to institutional investors. But he said it matters for first time homebuyers.
“When you have a skewing of market forces by an entity that has a ton of money and the ability to pay cash to be able to come into a housing market, that is going to have in the aggregate effects throughout the rest of the market,” he said. “Homes are for people and are supposed to be owned by people, not as part of some stock portfolio investment strategy.”
The VPLC said that there are also maintenance concerns when often out-of-state private equity firms own mobile home parks.
“What we have seen, especially down in Southwest Virginia, is that they do not put people on staff on site,” said workgroup member Daniel Rezai, a housing attorney with the Virginia Poverty Law Center. “Trying to get someone on the phone to come and take care of a major maintenance issue is almost impossible.”
But some members of the commission appeared skeptical of a ban on mega investors.
“My concern is where a lot of this conversation pops up around the country, it’s motivated by a fear of rental properties in traditionally single-family home ownership communities,” said workgroup member Andrew Clark, vice president of government affairs at the Home Builders Association of Virginia. “But if the focus is truly to make sure that we’re having housing stock and increasing supply and not having these mega investors come in… I don’t think we’d necessarily be moving the needle at all by prohibiting these folks from purchasing these properties when we should be looking at zoning, financing opportunities, all those things that are constraining supply.”
“We found, regardless of where they are, that housing is a huge challenge for them if they don’t already own a house,” explained Van Schoales, senior policy director at Keystone Policy Center. “You need to have great teachers that are well-trained, committed and live hopefully near the school and know the community.”
In some districts, the study found more than half of educators spent 40% of their income on housing while 58% said they would be interested in district-provided affordable housing.
“It was an interesting question to ask teachers how would they feel if their employer was also their landlord — how did people feel?” asked Denver 7’s Danielle Kreutter.
“This was a huge surprise for me,” Schoales answered. “I expected that most people would say, ‘Well, I’m not so comfortable with this.’ And in fact, we found that 70% of those surveyed said they were fine with it, and I think that speaks to what a challenge it is.”
About 40 miles east of Denver, in Byers, teachers are facing the same struggles. But after a school district consolidation in the 1960s, the Byers School District had a bold idea for how to use the funds.
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“We have 10 apartments ranging from one-bedroom apartments up to three-bedroom apartments. Then we have two houses,” Tom Turrell, superintendent of Byers School District, explained about the affordable workforce housing.
He said hundreds of teachers have benefited over the years from this option.
Rent for a one-bedroom apartment, depending on how long an employee has been with the district, can be as low as $200 a month. The price has stayed the same for decades.
“The goal is to get their feet underneath them and then have enough for a down payment to stay in the community and purchase their own home. I mean, that’s ultimately the goal. And many, many staff members have done that,” Turrell said.
This is an investment into Byers’ future, he said. And it allows teachers like Nathan Phipps to be a part of their students’ community.
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Phipps is a high school social studies teacher in the Byers School District and moved to Colorado from out of state.
“Coming straight out of college, there was very limited options when it came to housing, even renting on a teacher’s salary,” he told Denver7. “It makes a huge difference. You see what your students are going through, who they are. I mean, the amount of times that kids ride through here on a dirt bike or on a bicycle and say, ‘Hi, Mr. Phipps, how’s it going?’ and I’m sitting out on the front porch — I think has really helped build relationships.”
Denver7 asked Turrell how the school district makes money from the housing units and he said it is “not a money-making venture for us,” and instead is all about retaining teachers.
He explained the properties are already paid for, and the affordable rents cover the utility bills.
If other districts have the resources to consider this option, or something similar, as a solution, they definitely should, he said.
“I don’t think you pass up the opportunity and if you wait until tomorrow, you’re kicking the can down the road, and the need is now,” he said.
Denver7 | Your Voice: Get in touch with Danielle Kreutter
Denver7’s Danielle Kreutter covers stories that have an impact in all of Colorado’s communities, but specializes in reporting on affordable housing and issues surrounding the unhoused community. If you’d like to get in touch with Danielle, fill out the form below to send her an email.
After more than 46 years in the making, the Matinecock Court affordable housing development in East Northport will welcome its first residents in just a couple of weeks.
LIBN has learned that developers expect to receive certificates of occupancy for about half of the buildings at the limited-equity cooperative complex and other necessary final approvals by the end of the month.
A kitchen in one of Matinecock Court’s 146 homes. / Photo by David Winzelberg
The $97 million development, located on 14.5 acres on the northwest corner of Elwood Road and Pulaski Road, brings 146 residences in 17 two-story residential buildings consisting of 18 one-bedroom units, 89 two-bedroom units, 38 three-bedroom units and a two-bedroom unit for the superintendent. Eight of the units are reserved for individuals with developmental disabilities and five are set aside for veterans. The project includes a 2,500-square-foot community building with a fitness center, administrative offices and meeting areas for residents. It also has its own sewage treatment plant.
Monthly maintenance fees at Matinecock Court range from $1,300 to $2,100, depending on the size of the unit. Prospective residents have to meet income requirements that restrict ownership in the gated community to households earning between $47,000 and $95,000 a year.
“We held a lottery a couple of months ago and received over 1,000 applications for 146 units,” Peter Florey, a principal of Levittown-based D&F Development Group, which partnered with Greenlawn-based nonprofitHousing Help on the East Northport project, told LIBN.
First residents are expected to move into Matinecock Court early next month. / Photo by David Winzelberg
Florey added that he expects the first move-ins at Matinecock Court in the first week of September, and once final approvals are granted for the rest of the buildings, all residents should be in by November.
“We’re confident that we have enough people for full occupancy, with a substantial waiting list,” he said. “It will likely be a 45-day process to get everyone in.”
First pitched in 1978, the East Northport development has survived multiple court challenges, one of which went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, as the Town of Huntington and local residents tried in vain to derail it. The project, advanced by Housing Help, was stalled under other developers until D&F was tapped in Jan. 2021 to see it through.
“Matinecock Court represents more than just new housing, it’s the result of decades of persistence, advocacy, and community partnership to ensure that affordable housing is a reality on Long Island,” said Pilar Moya-Mancera, executive director of Housing Help. “We are grateful to D&F Development for helping bring this vision to life. When the lottery for its 146 apartments opened this summer, we received 1,000 applications—85.7% from Long Island and 32.1% from the Town of Huntington—proving the need is overwhelmingly local. Matinecock Court is not the finish line. It must be a blueprint for future projects, so we don’t wait another 45 years to meet our community’s housing needs.”
Housing advocates have hailed the opening of the project.
“We commend Housing Help and D&F Development for their perseverance in bringing Matinecock Court to the finish line,” Roger Weaving, president of the Huntington Township Housing Coalition, said in a written statement. “This attractive development stands as an excellent illustration of contemporary affordable housing.”
Weaving added that affordable housing opportunities like Matinecock Court can help stem the exodus of people leaving Long Island, and much more is needed.
“The few units of housing being created on Long Island today are overwhelmingly single-family homes, but this doesn’t meet the needs of smaller households,” he said. “When people can’t afford housing, they leave town and look for opportunities elsewhere.”
Matinecock Court is not the first limited-equity cooperative complex that D&F, headed by Florey and Leonard D’Amico, has developed. In 2017, D&F completed Long Island’s first limited-equity housing co-op called Highland Green in Melville. The $34 million project created a two-story, income-restricted, 117-townhouse community on an 8-acre site once occupied by a commercial nursery on Ruland Road. Purchasers bought into the co-ops for low down payments – from $1,880 to $2,600 – and part of their $940 to $1,300 monthly maintenance charges builds equity in the complex while helping to pay down a tax-exempt bond used to finance its construction.
When presented with the problem in the past, builders and developers were able to turn lima bean fields and orange groves into row after row of homes. But the vast swaths of open land on the city’s fringes vanished decades ago.
The California Department of Housing and Community Development has said that Los Angeles should add 456,643 new units by 2029 — a number that has generated controversy. To meet those demands, the city will have to create new ways of growing its inventory — strategies that will allow the city’s established communities to welcome many more residents than they are able to accommodate now.
The big questions are, as always: where, how and how much new housing should be built.
Los Angeles knows how to weather a crisis — or two or three. Angelenos are tapping into that resilience, striving to build a city for everyone.
The Times reached out to two sources with scenarios that challenge conventional thinking — two plans for the San Fernando Valley, which, half a century ago, provided the space for much of the city’s growth.
The first scenario proposes awakening a sleepy commercial corridor with low- and mid-rise apartments. The other focuses on 20 miles of vacant land — below electrical transmission lines that snake through the Valley.
Reseda reimagined
Like many L.A. suburbs, Reseda began as a small town center surrounded by fields.
As the West San Fernando Valley developed after World War II, those fields filled with an expansive grid of single-family homes.
Vestiges of Reseda’s small-town beginning still survive in block after block of single-story businesses like the Traders pawnbroker and jewelry store at the intersection of Reseda Boulevard and Sherman Way.
But snapshots of the future have begun to appear. A few blocks to the north, a five-story apartment building rises between a Thai restaurant and a used car lot.
How many more of those would be needed for Reseda, or any similar community, to contribute its fair share of the state’s Regional Housing Needs Allocation for the city of Los Angeles?
The Times posed that question to Los Angeles-based policy think tank Center for Pacific Urbanism, which has spent years examining the causes of and solutions for L.A.’s housing shortage.
Its recent research created an equity scale to calculate targets for individual communities based on five factors: affordability, environmental quality, transit availability, past down-zoning and socioeconomics.
In the modern era, housing construction across Los Angeles peaked twice, once before the Great Depression and then in a postwar boom.
Reseda was a part of the postwar boom. Initially dominated by single-family homes, growth then shifted to medium-size apartment buildings. Construction of both types fell off precipitously by 1990, as anti-development sentiments gained ascendance. A tiny sliver representing accessory dwelling units has appeared in the last decade, part of a shift in housing topology that is just beginning.
The Reseda-West Van Nuys community falls near the middle of the city’s 34 community planning areas and will need 13,885 new housing units to meet its target. At one extreme, 14,000 single-family homes would meet the need. At the other it would take 1,400 10-unit buildings. The first is unfeasible — there isn’t that much land — and the other, a new high-rise canyon, would be unpalatable.
The Pacific Urbanism staff imagined a hybrid model that, they believe, would allow Reseda to achieve its goal with the least amount of community angst.
The plan looks a lot like a return to the building patterns of the 1970s but with a few significant differences. Like then, more than half of the new units would be provided in large and medium-size apartment buildings. But in place of single-family home construction that was already dwindling, almost a quarter of the new units would come from new housing types that did not exist then — accessory dwelling units (ADUs) and the conversion of existing commercial space into housing.
Above all, the pace of development would have to increase precipitously to reach the state’s 2029 goal.
The reimagined Reseda includes 37 buildings of 100 or more units, 73 medium-size buildings of 25 to 99 units and 484 duplex and small apartment buildings of up to 24 units. There would be 1,854 ADUs, including more than 1,000 that have already been built or permitted since 2020 and more than a thousand units in commercial conversions.
Here’s how the Pacific Urbanism hybrid model could work
The reimagined Reseda includes 37 buildings of 100 or more units, 73 medium-size buildings of 25 to 99 units and 484 duplex and small apartment buildings of up to 24 units. There would be 1,854 ADUs, including more than 1,000 that have already been built or permitted since 2020 and more than a thousand units in commercial conversions.
Existing
Permitted
Projected
The low-density area could see a variety of new building sizes with the largest added along the main corridors
At the moment the majority of the structures are one to four unit properties.
Single-family
2-24 units
25-99
100+
City of Los Angeles, Los Angeles County Assessor and Pacific Urbanism
A similar result could be achieved with a different mix of housing types. But Dario Alvarez, Pacific Urbanism president, says that his organization’s hybrid scenario, based on building trends across the city, is the most feasible, if those trends persist.
Some progress has been made. Since 2019, city law has given single-family homeowners a right to build second units on their property. A raft of recent state laws provides incentives to builders and homeowners such as increased density for affordable housing and up to four units on single-family lots. And Mayor Karen Bass’ Executive Order 1 streamlined the approval of affordable projects.
Those changes have helped, but don’t “get us anywhere close to what’s needed to meet the target, much less in an equitable way where all communities contribute a fair share,” Alvarez said. According to his calculations, the current rate of construction in Reseda would have to increase 16-fold to meet the target by 2029.
Pacific Urbanism proposes upgrading the zoning from medium- to high-density near the intersection of Reseda Boulevard and Sherman Way and creating medium-density zones to replace much of what is now single-family residences and small businesses.
A review of the Reseda-West Van Nuys community plan, including the zoning, is underway and is in the consulting phase. It’s expected to be complete in a year or two.
Considering the fight that single-family communities generally put up to preserve the character of what has come to represent the “American Dream” — and the single family home and yard —there’s no guarantee those changes will be made. The state housing mandate requires the city only to create a pathway to the housing targets by adjusting zoning that is currently too restrictive.
Bury the transmission lines; build on top
If you’ve spent time in the San Fernando Valley, it would be easy to view the overhead electrical transmission lines that stretch for more than 20 miles simply as essential wallpaper of modern living. The lines help ensure that 1.6 million households and businesses across the city can turn on the lights through a mostly uninterrupted band of 100- to 200-foot tall towers on a 150-foot wide strip of land.
This 20.5-mile path of electrical transmission lines in the Valley could fit 23,000 housing units
California Energy Commission, City of Los Angeles
But what if that land, which travels through the heart of Northridge, Granada Hills, Mission Hills, Arleta and North Hollywood, could continue to power Los Angeles while also meeting the housing needs of tens of thousands of people? The idea is almost too simple: Put the transmission lines underground and homes on top.
We wish such an innovative concept was ours. But it comes from Jingyi “Jessy” Qiu, a Boston-based landscape designer who conceived of the idea while studying at the Harvard Graduate School of Design a few years ago. In Qiu’s vision, the project reclaims dead space in the middle of bustling neighborhoods for the public good.
Qiu calls the right of way beneath the power lines “a land of opportunity to solve the housing problem in L.A.”
The project ticks many of the boxes for what large, sustainable development in Los Angeles can be.
It’s climate-friendly. As the region becomes hotter and drier, taking down overhead power lines lowers the risk of sparking wildfires. And by building in established communities, new residents will be able to reduce their commutes for work and shopping, while existing residents will have new offices and stores nearby.
There’s a way to pay for it. At one point, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, which owns the lines and the land underneath, told us it would cost roughly $100 million to put the lines underground. More recently, the public utility said it couldn’t provide a price tag, and that, although possible, undergrounding transmission lines is rare, complex and expensive. An optimist would respond that revenue from the new development could cover much of, if not all, the cost, especially since the land itself would be free.
It’s a lot of housing. By Qiu’s calculations, 23,000 homes could be built along the 20 miles.
Qiu modeled the project through designing superblocks that could be repeated end to end throughout each community.
Courtesy Jingyi “Jessy” Qiu
Neighborhoods and topography along the route differ and so does the planned development. In North Hollywood, a denser mix of small apartments, mixed-use complexes and single-family homes with casitas fills the flatlands. In Granada Hills, lower densities fit in the highlands. In Northridge, student housing is prioritized near the state university.
Today, people who live near the power lines complain of dust, litter and loitering, and worry about wires falling in high winds and storms.
It’s not that the right of way under the power lines now is unkempt. Many nursery businesses fill the land underneath. Landscaping is maintained. It’s just that, as one neighbor put it, barren land attracts negative activity. Of all things, the right of way is dark at night.
Besides housing, the development opens up space to the broader community. There’s room for continued nursery operations while adding parks, courtyards and shared gardens. Qiu even proposes repurposing some existing transmission towers, especially in the hills, into platforms for bird-watching.
How one Granada Hills block might look
Courtesy Jingyi “Jessy” Qiu
One fear, of course, is adding this many new homes to an existing area could cause congestion. But the 20-mile stretch of homes ensures that traffic would be spread out. Superblocks could tie into the current road network and add parking while also providing long and unified bike and pedestrian infrastructure — not to mention the centralized open and community space — to neighborhoods lacking it now.
A future Los Angeles that takes its housing and climate challenges seriously will have to look for opportunities to make better use of space. Fitting 23,000 new homes into the Valley by redeveloping a land now used for a relic hits that mark.
From selling food and sweets at flea markets to now owning a brick-and-mortar location, Mika Altidor said getting here wasn’t easy.
“I’m first-generation American, first to do many things and first to make this dream a reality,” Altidor said.
She was born in Michigan but spent most of her life in Winter Haven.
She has seen just how much the city has grown and transformed over the years.
“It’s nice to be a part of the change and be a part of development and to have my family be a part of this too,” Altidor said.
She opened her business, Vegan Monarch Bakery and Café, in 2021, serving vegan meals and treats.
She said the downtown area has grown over the years, but the most prominent addition has been more housing.
It is something Altidor said has been positive for her business.
“We get to see more of that foot traffic,” she said. “We get to see more of that business from the residents and then make that human connection,” she said.
Right now, Winter Haven has about 300 multi-family units.
As the city continues to grow, it is also looking to incorporate new housing opportunities like townhomes.
“We’ve been adding about a thousand units per year within the city limits of the city of Winter Haven,” he said. “That’s total housing, single and multifamily. We will probably continue that trend for a couple years.”
City leaders say for a community to be considered a healthy one, they need to have 33% to 35% of rental product.
Winter Haven is on track to meet that percentage with 30% as of right now.
Altidor and several other business owners have seen the change in the customer base, too.
“I like the fact that people are driving intentionally from Orlando and Tampa to come here,” she said.
So that she can continue sharing a taste of her café — always ready to serve new and old customers with a smile.
Construction is currently underway on the newest apartment complex in downtown Winter Waven.
The Breeze Apartments is nearing completion and is expected to be ready for residents in the next few months.
The Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday approved a plan to spend nearly $425 million collected from Measure ULA, directing the money to a series of affordable housing and homelessness programs.
The spending plan for the 2025 fiscal year that started Tuesday is the largest yet under Measure ULA, also known as the mansion tax.
The voter-approved measure, which taxes property sales above about $5 million, has drawn criticism from the real estate industry for years and recently been the subject of several reports that found it has limited property sales and thus reduced property tax revenue and the construction of new housing.
Backers, however, tout the measure as providing crucial dollars to affordable housing and homelessness prevention programs at a time when the state and county have cut funding.
In all, the 2025 ULA spending plan is greater than all other years combined.
“Don’t believe the hate from big-money real estate or their lies appearing all over the media,” Joe Donlin, director of United to House LA, said in a statement. “Measure ULA is doing the steady work to create stable homes and good jobs for Angelenos.”
Under the plan approved Tuesday, more than $100 million is set to flow to homelessness prevention programs, including income support for at-risk tenants and eviction defense.
The majority of the 2025 funds, more than $288 million, is to be spent on the production and preservation of affordable housing.
Since voters passed the measure in late 2022, the tax has collected more than $702 million, according to the city’s Housing Department.
POLK COUNTY, Fla. — The Bay area’s affordable housing crisis impacts a variety of people across the region.
According to Community Assisted & Supported Living(CASL) President Melissa Larkin-Skinner, 31,000 people in Florida experience homelessness. And about a quarter suffer from some kind of mental health issue.
The goal of a new housing development in Winter Haven is to ease those numbers.
What You Need To Know
The Bay area’s affordable housing crisis impacts a variety of people across the region
A ribbon cutting took place Tuesday at Jersey Commons, Polk County’s newest affordable living community
A ribbon cutting took place Tuesday at Jersey Commons, Polk County’s newest affordable living community.
Tri-County Human Services, in partnership with Blue Sky Communities and CASL, is opening its new 68-unit apartment community in Winter Haven. Fifteen of those units are designated for high-need indviduals.
The other 53 units will be home to others for those experiencing homelessness or living with disabling conditions.
Larkin-Skinner has been in the behavioral health treatment field for 30 years. She said this type of housing and services can help with several issues.
“People can’t fully take advantage and thrive with the services, the mental health treatment services, when they don’t have a safe place to be, or live or lay their head and they are constantly wondering, ‘Where am I going to spend the next night? When I am going to eat again?’” said Larkin-Skinner.
PASCO COUNTY, Fla. — In October 2024, Pasco Hope opened their doors to take care of people who lost their homes in the that year’s hurricanes.
Taking care of anywhere between 75 to 100 people at a time, director of shelter services Danielle Husband said they’re beginning to move more residents into permanent housing.
“We have intakes every week in here, but we also have positive exits, which is also very exciting,” Husband said. “We’ve had about 15 households leave us, now moving into permanent housing, which is absolutely phenomenal to see in such a short amount of time.”
Uryana Gonzalez Montijo, one of the residents living at the shelter, lost her home in Hurricane Helene.
She said the memories from the night of the hurricane still linger.
“I was outside for the longest time before I even went back to my place and could actually walk through and get to my place,” she said.
Montijo has settled into her new life, but is looking forward to something more.
She’s expecting to be at the shelter for a few more weeks.
Pasco Hope is helping her move into a new place and she can’t wait for a new chapter of her life to begin.
“It’s just a blessing,” she said. “I’m just so overjoyed and everything like that. I’ve never had any of stuff that they’re helping me with.”
SAN JOSE — A big San Jose apartment complex has landed a key loan that will bankroll a wide-ranging upgrade of the property, which consists of affordable units.
Monte Alban Apartments in San Jose has landed nearly $30.2 million in a refinance loan, according to JLL, a commercial real estate firm.
The U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department provided the new loan, which was structured as a cash-out loan that provides funds to undertake renovations and improvements at the apartment complex.
The 192-unit apartment complex is located at 1324 Santee Drive in San Jose. It consists of garden-style units within 12 buildings.
The residential property is near one of the Bay Area’s major interchanges, where U.S. Highway 101 connects with interstates 280 and 680. It’s also fairly close to downtown San Jose and the city’s international airport.
“The community maintains 100% occupancy with many long-term tenants and provides rents that are 40% to 60% below market rates,” JLL stated.
The 30-year, fixed-rate loan from HUD exceeds the estimated value of the property, which was $24.8 million as of January 2024, according to documents on file at the Santa Clara County Assessor’s Office.
San Francisco-based The John Stewart Co., the property owner and loan recipient, intends to conduct upgrades on the site.
“The refinancing allows for $47,000 per unit in property renovations and upgrades,” JLL stated. That would equate to a total of about $9 million.
John Stewart Co. and JLL didn’t specify whether these upgrades wiould occurr within the units, in the common areas, or both.
Monte Alban Apartments was built in 1970 and renovated in 2006 and contains a mix of one-, two-, three- and four-bedroom units, according to the Apartments.com website.
“Monte Alban Apartments offers a range of amenities including air conditioning, appliances, a community room, laundry facilities, an exercise room, a basketball court, two swimming pools and two playgrounds,” JLL stated.
Elected officials, state agency executives and community leaders will join a Long Island-based developer Tuesday to cut the ribbon on a $64 million affordable housing project in the Fordham section of the Bronx.
Medford-based Concern Housing, a nonprofit agency that provides affordable housing options and support services, developed the nine-story, 102-unit apartment building called St. James Terrace at 2520 Jerome Ave. The project was built on a site adjacent to the historic St. James Episcopal Church, which opened in 1865.
The new development brings a mix of studios, one-, two-, and three-bedroom apartments with monthly rents ranging from $1,134 to $2,129. The supportive units are for renters at and below 50 percent of the area median income (AMI) and the remaining affordable units are for renters at and below 70 percent of the AMI. All of the apartments in the building are now leased and occupied by tenants.
St. James Terrace includes a rooftop terrace, resident lounges and multi-purpose rooms, laundry room, bicycle storage, fitness room and office and social service space for use by Concern’s on-site social service staff. In addition to providing affordable and supportive housing, residents of St. James Terrace and the church community will have access to a new landscaped courtyard located between the church and the residential building.
The development site is owned by St. James Episcopal Church and is adjacent to the church and St. James Park, a city-owned public park. The site had been occupied by a one-story church building built in 1958 that was demolished to make for the apartment building, which also has a new community facility space on the first floor.
Ralph Fasano, the executive director of Concern Housing is expected to be joined at the ribbon-cutting ceremony by Ruthanne Visnauskas, commissioner of New York State Division of Housing and Community Renewal; State Assemblymember Ydelka Tapia; Najwa Awad, New York City Field Office director of New York State Office of Mental Health; and Dana Greenberg, director of the Bureau of Housing and Support Services at the New York State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance.
Concern Housing, a provider of housing for veterans, persons with disabilities and families in need of affordable housing, currently serves more than 1,500 individuals and families in over 250 locations throughout the New York metropolitan area.
Catholic Charities’ All Saints Senior Housing at 2595 S. Federal Blvd. Oct. 25, 2025.
Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
A new 63-unit senior housing project just opened in the Harvey Park neighborhood at 2595 S. Federal Blvd.
It’s the latest example of a movement that is sometimes called “Yes In God’s Backyard,” which has affordable housing developers partnering with local churches. The goal is to meet housing demand, and often provide some revenue for the churches, by building on parking lots and other church-owned land.
In this case, the land was near the Church of All Saints — hence the apartments’ name, “All Saints.”
The building includes income-restricted studio and one-bedroom apartments for people over 62 years old making between 30 and 60 percent of the area median income, currently $27,400 and $54,780 for an individual.
Catholic Charities’ All Saints Senior Housing at 2595 S. Federal Blvd. Oct. 25, 2025.Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite
It’s a project of Catholic Charities Housing, the charitable branch of the Archdiocese of Denver. The group operates nearly 2,000 units of affordable housing in Colorado and Wyoming.
All Saints was built on land owned by the Archdiocese. The city’s Department of Housing Stability provided nearly $2.5 million in financing. The Colorado Housing and Finance Authority and the Colorado Division of Housing also contributed.
How much with this affordable housing development help?
Denver Housing Authority leadership has said the city needs up to 60,000 more units of income-restricted housing. The city is currently financing 1,671 units at 23 sites that are under construction. Another 754 are in the planning stage.
The new build includes community gathering spaces, rooms where residents can access mental health care, bike storage and nearby public transit.
“Affordable housing for our growing number of seniors is a crucial need in southwest Denver,” said City Councilmember Kevin Flynn, in a statement. “There is no more fitting location for it than here on Federal Boulevard, on a long-vacant piece of holy ground that seems it’s just been waiting for this purpose.”
Las Vegas — For nearly a year now, 32-year-old renter Mason Cunha and his realtor have been struggling to find the right home in Las Vegas at the right price.
“It just doesn’t really make sense right now to buy a home with the interest rates where they are, and with the inventory what it is,” Cunha said.
Vice President Kamala Harris has said that if she wins the general election in November, she plans to work with the private sector to build three million new homes and rental units.
Cunha, a Harris supporter, is in favor of the proposal.
“I think it’s going to definitely help, if you were to double or triple or quadruple the inventory,” Cunha said.
Harris is also proposing outlawing price fixing by corporate landlords and giving first-time homebuyers who have paid their rent on time for two years with up to $25,000 in down payment assistance.
“I would want to review what the qualifications are for that,” said 32-year-old Andrew Lum of Las Vegas, a wedding DJ and married father. “Where is that $25,000 coming from?”
Lum sold his home when his family expanded. He now rents a bigger house but he can’t afford to buy. Lum says his life was better when former President Donald Trump was in office.
“In 2020 we were able to buy a home,” Lum said. “We were able to buy it at an interest rate that was possible. We were able to buy it with, you know, minimal down payments.”
Trump’s plan involves reducing mortgage rates by slashing inflation. Trump has also said he would open limited portions of federal lands to allow for new home construction, a plan the Biden administration is already enacting. As an example, one such 20-acre plot in Las Vegas was recently transferred from the federal government to Clark County, and now it has been designated for affordable housing.
According to the Congressional Research Service, 80.1% of the land in Nevada is owned by the federal government.
Trump has also said that that his promised mass deportations will make more housing available. It is an argument that both Lum and Cunha don’t seem to agree with.
“It just seems a little farfetched to me that all the houses are being purchased by immigrants,” Lum said.
“I think everything that Trump says has to be taken with a really aggressive grain of salt because he is known to inflate the truth,” Cunha said.
Carter Evans has served as a Los Angeles-based correspondent for CBS News since February 2013, reporting across all of the network’s platforms. He joined CBS News with nearly 20 years of journalism experience, covering major national and international stories.
“How expensive?” tracks measurements of California’s totally unaffordable housing market.
The pain: Housing eats up at least half of paychecks in one-fifth of California households.
The source: My trusty spreadsheet looked at the latest Census Bureau stats tracking household expenses in 2023, focusing on what government experts call “extreme burdens” – folks paying 50% or more of their income for housing.
The pinch
California is by far the nation’s largest housing market, so it’s not terribly surprising that it’s also home to the most households spending half of their income on shelter – 2.7 million, or 14% of the nation’s 19.3 million. Next is Texas at 1.7 million, Florida at 1.6 million, New York at 1.5 million and Pennsylvania at 687,900.
What’s distressing is the size of the 20% slice of the Golden State’s population that it represents. That’s the largest slice among the states, and well above the 15% slice nationwide.
New York and Hawaii are next in shares of households spending half-plus on housing at 19%. Then comes Florida and Nevada at 18%. Texas was No. 14 at 15%.
And where is it the hardest to find deeply housing-pinched households? North Dakota and West Virginia were at 9%, South Dakota at 10%, and Iowa and Missouri at 11%.
Pressure points
This metric is just more evidence that family finances are far worse for renters.
Yes, California has the most folks paying 50% or more to the landlord, at 1.63 million. That’s 15% of the US total, followed by Texas at 993,500, New York at 934,800, Florida at 843,500, and Pennsylvania at 373,100.
But perhaps surprisingly, California ranked only fourth-highest for share of renters paying half-or more at 28% vs. 26% nationally.
Tops was Florida at 31%, then Louisiana at 30%, and Nevada at 29%. Texas was No. 17 at 25%. Lows? North Dakota at 16%, then Wyoming, South Dakota and Kansas at 19%.
Not that owners – those with or without mortgages – escape this high-cost category. The pain is just far less.
Again, California ranked No. 1 at 1.1 million owners saddled with housing costs gobbling up half or more of incomes. That’s 13% of the nation’s 8.4 million. No. 2 was Florida at 760,800, then Texas at 685,700, New York at 537,500, and Illinois at 324,300.
Sadly, California had the highest share of its owners in this financially stressed niche at 14% vs. 10% nationally.
After California came Hawaii at 14%, New York and Florida at 13%, and New Jersey at 12%. Texas was No. 15 at 10%. Lows? North Dakota at 5%, West Virginia at 6%, then Iowa, South Dakota, and Indiana at 7%.
Politically speaking
It’s that season, so we sliced these housing-cost pressure points by which states supported President Biden in the 2020 election.
Blue states had 16% of all their households spending 50% or more on housing in 2023 vs. 14% in red states.
When it came to renters, blue states had 26% spending 50% or more, vs. 25% in red states. As for owners, blue states had 11% spending half-plus on shelter vs. 9% in red states.
Jonathan Lansner is the business columnist for the Southern California News Group. He can be reached at jlansner@scng.com
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Communities all over the Tampa Bay area are struggling after the recent hurricanes.
The storm damage and displacement is a huge blow for people already living in low-income and underserved communities. That’s the reality in south St. Petersburg’s Bartlett Park neighborhood.
What You Need To Know
Hurricane Helene and Milton’s aftermath is a huge blow for people already living in low-income and underserved communities
South St. Petersburg’s Bartlett Park neighborhood suffered damages from both storms, from flooding to damaged roofs
Some landlords said they’re allowing residents to break their leases and return their deposits due to the storm’s impacts, but it brings little relief to resident Gregory Ruffin and his wife
City officials said FEMA has visited the complex, assisting people to move, but some residents say that hasn’t happened for them yet
It’s a familiar story in the neighborhood. Hurricane Helene flooded the first-floor homes in one apartment complex. Then, Milton flooded the area and damaged the roofs.
For the people in the Lakeside apartments, that means the affordable housing they desperately need is gone.
Parts of the roof are on the ground, flood damaged cars are in the parking lot, and piles of debris are scattered around the front of buildings.
Sadly, it’s where Gregory Ruffin calls home. The apartment he shares with his wife is livable for now. At least for them, it has to be.
“We’ve just been living in here until we find somewhere to go,” Ruffin said.
Flood waters from Hurricane Helene are the cause for most of the damage. The waterline inside is as high as the doorknobs. Hurricane Milton’s impacts only added to it.
“I had a nice apartment. The cabinets, as you can see, they (swelled) up. I don’t know if you can open the back one up,” he said.
Ruffin managed to clean up his apartment as best he can, but the mold is growing along with the discovery of even more water damage.
“My sofas were floating, and it got damaged too, but I took pillows out there in the sun and let them dry, and turned the sofas on end and whatever water was on the bottom part of it ran down, and I put the fan on it, and I flipped them up the other way,” said Ruffin.
He’s on a fixed income and desperate to save what he can.
“I had to retire because I had prostate cancer surgery. Got that taken care of, but I had other issues. I had to get off the road. I paved roads all around this place. That was my job,” he said.
With his home destroyed and not many affordable housing options, he’s now trying to get his old job back.
“The first and last month’s rent. That’s what kills you. If I got rent money, the first and last they throw that in there, and that blows you right out the water. They don’t show compassion,” he said.
Compassion is what he’s hoping for, but a safe place to stay is what he desperately needs.
“I can’t do but so much, man. Hurting, sick. I’m trying but (I’m not) giving up, God is good,” Ruffin said.
Ruffin’s landlord at Times Square Properties said they’re allowing residents to break their leases and return their deposits. But it brings little relief to Ruffin and his wife.
When asked what they were doing to help underserved communities, the city of St. Pete said they were offering a list of local programs. City officials also said FEMA has visited the complex, encouraging people to move, because they were providing them with assistance. Some residents say that hasn’t happened for them yet.
The Denver City Council on Monday cleared the way for Denver Nuggets and Colorado Avalanche owner Stan Kroenke to build new skyscrapers on the expanse of parking lots around Ball Arena where those teams play.
They also ensured the teams will stay on Kroenke-owned land in central Denver for another quarter century.
The ability to construct buildings as tall as 30 or 40 stories around the arena is a critical component of plans to greatly expand downtown Denver. That density will provide room for up to 6,000 new apartments and condos in a city desperate for more housing, according to Matt Mahoney, senior vice president for development at Kroenke Sports and Entertainment.
“We are committed to downtown. Our company offices downtown. Our teams win championships downtown,” Mahoney told council members Monday night. “Our plan is a pedestrian-focused development, placing a priority on open space and people, not cars.”
View protections pierced
The first in a series of six bills related to the future of the 70-acre Ball property that the council voted on Monday amended the city code to provide an exemption to the Old City Hall view plane.
That view plane is essentially an invisible triangle the caps building heights on the properties that fall within it. It’s a legal mechanism to protect westward views from a specific point on the ground at the intersection of 14th and Larimer streets where the city’s original city hall once stood.
City planning and legal staff informed council members that the view plane is already largely defunct. The Auraria Higher Education Center campus buildings along Speer Boulevard — built by a state agency exempt from city rules — have already blocked it out.
That was reason enough for some council members to vote for the exemption Kroenke and company were seeking even if they had concerns about the broader impact on mountain views.
“I’ve come to the conclusion that I am going to vote yes on this exemption … because of the fact that this view plane no longer exists,” Councilman Kevin Flynn said. “I would have actually preferred the (Community Planning and Development) had come to us and just said repeal this view plane.”
Flynn voted with the majority in a 10-1 decision to allow properties with a specialized zoning to pierce the plane.
The council also approved rezoning the arena property. The land was already zoned for buildings as tall as eight stories in places, according to city planning staff, but the specialty zoning that the council unanimously signed off on Monday allows for buildings that are much taller in exchange for the inclusion of more affordable housing on site.
While the view plane vote allows Kroenke Sports and Entertainment and its namesake billionaire owner to move closer to its goals, some neighbors from the Lower Downtown neighborhood had their hopes of preserving their largely unobstructed views of the Rocky Mountains dashed.
Casey Pitinga was among the residents of the Larimer Place condo tower at 1551 Larimer St. that urged council members to vote no on the view plane changes. She argued that it was not just her building that would be impacted by the appearance of new skyscrapers west of downtown. Businesses that tout rooftop views — including the recently expanded Colorado Convention Center which added a terrace as part of its $233 million expansion completed last year — could also be hurt, she said.
“Most importantly, the unique beauty of Denver will be compromised forever,” Pitinga said.
Amanda Sawyer was the one council member who sided with those neighbors. She noted that residents of her eastern Denver district benefit from a view plane that protects westward views from Cranmer Park.
“It’s not a precedent I am willing to set,” she said of amending those legal protections even for a development she acknowledged may be something that could benefit the city.
Benefit agreements inked with community group and the city
An overwhelming majority of speakers who testified during a public hearing covering the rezoning spoke in favor of allowing dense development on the land and the new housing that it is expected to bring.
“It’s exactly the type of project we need as a city,” Denver resident Matthew Larsen said. “It’s dense. It’s infill development. We need projects like this to meet our greenhouse gas goals in the state.”
KSE last week signed a detailed community benefits agreement with a committee representing nearby neighborhoods and community organizations. That agreement, which was created with support from city leaders but independent of the authority of the city, includes a bundle of specific obligations that KSE must fulfill.
Those include dedicating $3 million to programs, internships, and scholarships for young people who are from surrounding neighborhoods, are Indigenous or are from families that were displaced from the historic Auraria neighborhood that is now home to the arena and the neighboring higher education campus.
La Alma-Lincoln Park resident Simon Tafoya co-chaired the committee that brokered that deal with KSE. In comments Monday night, he delved into some of the specifics including a guranteed that 50 housing units built in the forthcoming neighborhood will be reserved for people making 30% of the area median income. That’s $27,000 per year for a single person and $39,100 for a family of four.
Councilwoman Jamie Torres is a descendant of people displaced from the Auraria neighborhood. She noted how important that agreement was to her constituents and her comfortability in supporting the package of bills.
“The city did not dipalce 900 residents in the 1970s for us to build a shiny neighborhood that was inaccessible to them,” she said. “I could not be a part of something like that.”
The council also approved a bill cementing the city’s own development agreement with KSE.
That sets requirements including mandating that 18% of all new housing built on the Ball lots been reserved as income-restricted affordable housing. That figure exceeds the city’s existing affordable housing requirements by at least 3% and could result in 1,080 new units of affordable housing, according to city planners and KSE officials.
The city ensured the agreement mandates that the affordable units be spread across the property instead of concentrated in one area, according to senior city planner Tony Lechuga.
Property tax plan leaves some council members uneasy
The council approved three other measures related to Kroenke’s ball arena plans before calling it a night on Monday.
The very last of those bills amend an existing arena agreement between the city and KSE tying the Nuggets and Avalanche to the property until 2050.
The chamber, largely filled with KSE staff members as the final was cast after 10 p.m., enrupted in applause when that passed unanimously.
Another bill approved at the meeting extended the timelines for a development agreement governing the neighboring River Mile property, also owned in part by Kroenke. That agreement also now runs until the middle of 2050, matching with the Ball Arena timeline.
The city agreed to vesting language that provides some zoning certainly for both properties for the next 26 years. Manhoney emphasized that KSE is approaching the combined 130 acres as one interconnected neighborhood.
He acknowledged that Elitch Gardens Theme and Water Park will be moved as part of the company’s long-term development plans though a landing place for the park has not yet been determined.
Only one bill drew multiple no votes. That measure established five metro districts, special property-specific taxing entities with the power to take on $1.2 billion in debt to pay for the construction and upkeep of infrastructure around the arena. That included essential items like roads, sewers, parking structures and parks.
While the residents of affordable housing on the property would be shielded from some of associated taxes needed to pay back that debt, KSE estimates that the mill levy rate associated with those cost for market-rate residential and commercial property owners could reach as high as 70 mills.
Thatt was too steep for Councilwoman Sawyer. She voted no, as did council members Sarah Parady and Serena Gonzales-Gutierrez.
Council president Amanda Sandoval acknowledged those future taxes could be a burden on residents but metro districts are the mechanism the city relies on to build new infrastructure in many cases. She was the eight members who voted yes.
“We don’t have any other tools right now,” she said.
A new affordable housing development in North Bethesda in Maryland stands on the site of a former Metro parking lot.
Housing, transit and local officials cut the ribbon on a new housing development in Montgomery County, Maryland. (Courtesy Strathmore Square)
Housing, transit and local officials cut the ribbon on a new housing development in Montgomery County, Maryland. (Courtesy Strathmore Square)
“We want to make sure that everybody in Montgomery County has a place to live.”
That’s what the Maryland county’s council President Andrew Friedson said minutes before cutting the ribbon at Strathmore Square in North Bethesda.
Backing up to Rock Creek Park, next to the Grosvenor-Strathmore Metro station, Ravel and Royale is the newest affordable housing project in the county.
It’s Metro’s fourth development in 2024, totaling 1,300 new housing units. Metro worked on the project in partnership with Fivesquares Development, Strathmore, Aimco, Amazon Housing Equity Fund and Montgomery County officials.
The Amazon fund makes the apartments available to a range of income levels.
“Here, we actually have gone from a commuter parking lot to a new community,” Andy Altman, with Five Squares Development, said.
“This has become, and will continue to be, a model for how we are turning parking lots into places,” Friedson said. “In land use, we often focus on the what and the where. The what is housing at Metro; the most sustainable, most transit-oriented place possible. The where is critical for environmental and equity reasons, for economic reasons. But the why is just as important. The why is about the arts, the why is about the connection to the environmental footprint right here in a critical area.”
The connection to the arts is particularly apparent in the developing Strathmore Square neighborhood.
“As I walked up to this incredible structure, I walked by and saw ballet taking place,” Friedson said.
The new affordable housing project is located right next to The Music Center at Strathmore and also sits above City Dance.
“Dance rehearsals happen here every day,” said Monica Jeffries, the president and CEO of Strathmore. “Imagine life in a community enlivened by the arts, and today we’re living that vision.”
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SALEM — Earlier this month, developers broke ground on a 124-unit affordable housing development at Leefort Terrace on Salem Neck, which will replace 50 aging garden-style apartments owned by the Salem Housing Authority.
The new climate-resilient complex will consist of a three-story and four-story structure with a mix of one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments. In addition to the new buildings being all-electric and Passive House certified, the units will be built well above the expected 2070 floodplain levels, whereas the previous units were on the ground floor in a coastal floodplain.
All apartments will be made affordable to households with incomes at or below 30% and 60% of the area median income for 99 years; 50 one-bedroom units will be further restricted for 99 years with the households in those units having additional rights and rent restrictions consistent with state public housing regulations.
“Leefort Terrace is the gold standard for affordable and climate-resilient public housing,” said Ed Augustus, secretary of housing and livable communities. “Not only does this project replace 50 public housing units, it adds 74 new 100% affordable homes for extremely low-income residents. It will be a 100% electric building and able to withstand the weather of the future.”
Beacon Communities began demolition work in June, and is now preparing the site for geotechnical groundwork.
This comes after four years of feasibility studies, redesigns, permitting, and public hearings, which sparked intense debate among supporters of the redevelopment and opposing residents who raised concerns including an increased burden on taxpayers, increased traffic, and that a large-scale development would disrupt the quiet and remote life that tenants had become accustomed to.
“We are grateful to our partners at the local, state and federal level, as well as to the Salem Housing Authority, for their collaboration and commitment to expanding housing opportunities that will reduce our carbon footprint and be affordable for generations to come,” Dara Kovel, CEO of Beacon Communities said. “We appreciate the patience and support of the residents and look forward to welcoming them into their new homes in early 2026.”
On-site amenities will include a fitness center, a community room, a wellness office, computer stations, a tenant’s organization office, a property management office, and laundry rooms on each floor. Additionally, there will be a publicly accessible open space along Collins Cove, as well as a private residential courtyard for residents, featuring a grilling area, a bocce ball court and victory gardens.
“The new Leefort Terrace facility will create new homes with dignity for tenants of the Salem Housing Authority and create additional 100% affordable housing for other Salem residents in need,” Mayor Dominick Pangallo said. “The new, more resilient Leefort Terrace represents a step forward for our community in meeting our affordability, climate, and open space goals. Most importantly, it will provide some of our most vulnerable residents with a safe, accessible, and comfortable place to call home.”
Through a collaboration of public and private entities, the project is financed through 4% Low-Income Housing Tax Credits (LIHTC), American Rescue Plan Act funds, Salem Community Preservation Act funds, brownfields and other housing funds, as well as RBC Community Investments, Citizens Bank, Eastern Bank, Massachusetts Housing Partnership, MassDevelopment, MA Affordable Housing Trust Fund, energy efficiency tax credits, and rebates, and real estate tax relief through an Urban Center Housing-TIF agreement.
“As an administration, we are dedicated to addressing two of our most pressing challenges: Housing and climate change,” Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll said, Salem’s former mayor. “That’s why we’ve passed the Affordable Homes Act into law because it’ll help create thousands of new units of housing that we need and it invests $275 million exclusively to sustainable and green housing initiatives. Our administration has made strides in ensuring that people who say yes to building housing have the support they need to make it happen.”
Leasing for the property is estimated to begin in early 2026 and will continue through the end of the year.
Colorado’s 7th Congressional District, centered on suburban Jefferson County, hasn’t had a Republican in the seat since Bob Beauprez left Congress nearly 20 years ago.
But Sergei Matveyuk, an antiques repairman from Golden and the GOP contender for the seat in the Nov. 5 election, urges voters not to count him out in his battle with incumbent Brittany Pettersen. The first-term Democratic congresswoman is seeking reelection.
“People are hurting economically,” Matveyuk, 57, told The Denver Post. “They want someone who feels the pain.”
He’s running in a once-battleground district that has turned decidedly blue in the last decade or so, with Democratic former Rep. Ed Perlmutter winning election eight times running, until his retirement announcement in 2022 ushered in an open race.
Pettersen, 42, a former state lawmaker from Lakewood, won the 2022 election by 16 percentage points over Republican Army veteran Erik Aadland. The bulk of the district’s electorate calls left-leaning Jefferson and Broomfield counties home, while redder areas in the district — such as Teller, Custer and Fremont counties — simply don’t have the populations to give Matveyuk a sizable boost.
As of Sept. 30, Pettersen had raised more than $2.2 million this cycle, compared to about $35,000 collected by Matveyuk, according to campaign finance filings. There are two minor party candidates on the ballot this time: Former state lawmaker Ron Tupa is running on the Unity Party of Colorado ticket, while Patrick Bohan is running as the Libertarian candidate.
Matveyuk, a political neophyte, said that as a small business owner, the historically high inflation of the last two years has hurt those like him who are particularly sensitive to escalating prices. But it’s his personal story that he thinks will resonate with voters in the current political climate, in which border policy has taken center stage. Matveyuk, who is of Polish descent, and his family left the Soviet Bloc in the late 1980s after experiencing life under communist rule and immigrated to the United States.
“As an immigrant myself, I know how hard it is to start a new life — but it has to be legal,” he said.
Matveyuk doesn’t echo former President Donald Trump’s calls for mass deportations but says migrants who “are hurting our people and committing crimes need to be deported, for sure.”
“We need immigration reform — 40 years ago we had a regulated border and now we have a porous border,” he said.
According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data through August, there have been more than 8.6 million migrant “encounters” at the southern U.S. border since President Joe Biden took office in 2021. That influx has prompted many big city mayors across the country, including Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, to cut city services to pay for migrant housing and plead for help from the federal government.
Pettersen acknowledged that the U.S. asylum system is “absolutely outdated.” But many of the arriving migrants are filling jobs that businesses in the district, like nursing homes, are desperate to staff, she said.
Making people wait years before getting work permits is an unworkable policy, Pettersen said.
“We don’t have the people in the U.S. to meet our economic needs,” she said. “We need legal pathways based on economic need.”
Though Pettersen is in the minority party in the U.S. House, a bill she sponsored was recently signed into law by Biden. It directs the federal government to study and report on illicit financing associated with synthetic drug trafficking.
Last month, she introduced a bill that seeks to incentivize more states to offer substance use treatment through Medicaid, six years after she sponsored a bill in the state House requiring Colorado to provide that care. Pettersen has often spoken publicly of the struggles her mother faced battling opioid addiction.
If reelected, she said in The Denver Post’s candidate questionnaire that she would work to protect abortion rights and to address the opioid epidemic. Her top priority would be “modernizing our tax code to rebuild the middle class.”
“We need to lower costs by reinvesting in access to affordable housing, childcare, health care, and higher education,” she wrote.
