Saturday, March 31, 2007

Veterans condemn El-Alamein golf resort plan | International News | News | Telegraph
Sometimes I feel like there are real estate developers who plan their projects while reading The Onion and smoking funny cigarettes. I think a naming contest for this development is in order. And I do agree that 20 million mines and a zillion massive bomb craters will make for challenging fairways.

The desert battlefield of El-Alamein, where Field Marshal Montgomery's Desert Rats famously defeated Rommel's Afrika Korps in the Second World War, is being developed into a golf resort by Egyptian businessmen. British war veterans reacted angrily yesterday after hearing of the plans to turn the historic site into a complex including luxury villas...Not only will massive bomb and mine craters provide extremely challenging fairways but, say developers, the project will be the perfect excuse to get rid of millions of mines which have blighted the region since 1942.
Criticism of boring suburban lifestyle is nearly timeless | Chicago Tribune
Interesting historical essay...
FCC proposes rule limiting HOA power
Nancy Levy sent this link. I'm going to follow up to see which "associations" have been "questioning the Commission's ability to do so."

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), in a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, proposed to regulate the ability of homeowners associations to make exclusive video programming contracts to serve multiple dwelling units (MDUs). Some associations have begun questioning the Commissions authority to do so. The FCC also seeks comment on the current competitive landscape among video providers within MDUs and asks whether further FCC rules would improve or impede competition. In rural areas, regulations on exclusive contracts could affect service providers’ plans for building out Internet protocol television (IPTV), especially those that may seek exclusive video service contracts with new housing developments.

Friday, March 30, 2007

Condo Redondo!
From Fred Pilot:
The Redondo Beach rezoning initiative is the product of citizens who want to protect our quality and life and attract business to Redondo rather than convert business property into condos. A recent city survey shows 60 percent of Redondo voters feel Redondo has too many condos. Only 6 percent feel we need more. Most Redondo residents are concerned with residential growth.
With five private jets, Travolta still lectures on global warming | Showbiz | This is London
But he has a great idea! Space travel and dome cities (no doubt run by hoas), and don't miss the photo of his house with two jets parked next to it:
But although he readily admitted: "I fly jets", he failed to mention he actually owns five, along with his own private runway. Clocking up at least 30,000 flying miles in the past 12 months means he has produced an estimated 800 tons of carbon emissions – nearly 100 times the average Briton's tally. Travolta made his comments this week at the British premiere of his movie, Wild Hogs. He spoke of the importance of helping the environment by using "alternative methods of fuel" – after driving down the red carpet on a Harley Davidson. Travolta, a Scientologist, claimed the solution to global warming could be found in outer space and blamed his hefty flying mileage on the nature of the movie business.

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

newsobserver.com | Autism can't bend subdivision rules: covenants anger parents who need fences to protect kids
Nancy Levy sent this along. I think people need legal protection against being treated like this. But the industry would say their only recourse should be to mobilize other like-minded residents and elect a new board of directors. Not so easy when only 1 out of 150 kids is autistic, according to the article.

CLAYTON - Hunter Guyader, 2, shows signs of autism, and he is a climber. He broke out of his crib when he was 11 months old. He almost fell from an upstairs window while scaling a couch. Michele and Rene Guyader hoped to build a 6-foot fence to keep their fast-growing boy from falling into a sewage drain hole at the back of their steeply sloping lot. The homeowners association of their Clayton subdivision turned them down.

China's real estate market up 69 percent in 2006: report
Now, that's what I call a real estate boom. And this report just covers commercial real estate. The same sort of thing is happening in residential, where you find enormous numbers of the Chinese equivalent of common interest housing, including private management companies.

Transactions in China's real estate market surged 69 percent in 2006, funded to a great extent by foreign investment, a leading research firm said Wednesday.
"There is increasingly more investment going into industrial property," Kenny Ho, a Shanghai-based head of research with Jones Lang LaSalle, a real estate money management and services firm, told AFP. Despite government measures to cool the real estate market, China's heady growth in the past and strong potential for the future have made it "a magnet for cross-border investors," said a report by the firm.
China's real estate market up 69 percent in 2006: report
Now, that's what I call a real estate boom. And this report just covers commercial real estate. The same sort of thing is happening in residential.

Transactions in China's real estate market surged 69 percent in 2006, funded to a great extent by foreign investment, a leading research firm said Wednesday.
"There is increasingly more investment going into industrial property," Kenny Ho, a Shanghai-based head of research with Jones Lang LaSalle, a real estate money management and services firm, told AFP. Despite government measures to cool the real estate market, China's heady growth in the past and strong potential for the future have made it "a magnet for cross-border investors," said a report by the firm.

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

No end in sight for quiet community riven by feud - New Zealand news on Stuff.co.nz
You think HOA feuds are bad? Try this. And check out the T-shirt...

In a quiet street in Grenada North a war between neighbours is entering its third year, with little sign of resolution. In the past two years police have dealt with more than 70 incidents in Tobago Crescent in the north Wellington suburb. There have been allegations of animals disappearing, bottles being hurled at houses, intimidation, assault and death threats. Hostile T-shirts have been distributed, one man has been evicted from his Housing NZ home and "urgent" neighbourhood meetings have been called. The dispute will feature on a television show, Neighbours at War.

KOTV.com -Living Next Door To 'Mister Ed'
A horse is a horse, of course, of course, and no one can build a subdivision about a horse, of course...That is, of course, unless the horse is the famous Mr. Ed.
TAHLEQUAH, Okla. (AP) -- A man who owns the property where famed television horse Mister Ed supposedly is buried wants to take advantage of its notoriety and develop it. Tahlequah homebuilder Todd Carroll has a monument to the horse on his 16-acre property in Tahlequah, where the horse may, or may not be, buried. His plan is to build 12 to 15 log homes and create a subdivision, with the entrance going past the Mister Ed monument.