Law, who grew up in Blackheath and went to nearby John Ball Primary School, said the plans were not the answer to London's growing housing crisis. He said: My junior school was across from the site where this proposed development will take place. This plan does not answer housing needs. Instead this plan will enforce a strain on a wonderful old village that deserves our protection.
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.
Plans for an eight-story apartment building are taking shape in the East Whisman area of Mountain View, a part of the city that is better known for office buildings and surface parking lots than high-density housing. The applicant, Jeffrey Stone of WTA Middlefield, is proposing to build a 460-unit apartment complex with nearly 9,400 square feet of ground floor retail at 490 E. Middlefield Road, replacing a two-story office building. Currently, the site is surrounded by other office buildings, but more residential growth is planned for the East Whisman area, including a massive development down the street at 675 and 685 E. Middlefield Road.
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.
Despite its height, planning officers say the tower will be in-keeping with the area, pointing to the proximity of the 16-storey Juniper House, the 14-storey Travelodge hotel, and the twelve-storey Gateway Apartments building. It will be part of an existing cluster of tall buildings, the planning team told councillors, and would only lead to a minor loss of open skyline. Though councillors ultimately agreed the public benefits outweighed any harm to the town centre, six formal objections were received ahead of the meeting.
Fifteen-minute neighborhood, 20-minute neighborhood, smart growth, new urbanism. Right. I think they all are discussing the same thing, come to the same conclusion. And so, you know, how do we create a closer proximity of like housing and those essentials? I think parking lots are a big gap. And so Portland removed parking requirements, which kind of frees up this space to be developed into something else.
If you are inside the Texas Triangle and complaining about the state of single-family homebuilding, you are not seeing the opportunity correctly. The Texas Triangle today looks a lot like Southern California in scale and Hg weight. But Texas is growing faster, is less constrained by land and regulation, and is more affordable for firms and households. In 2004, the Texas Triangle encompassed five of the 20 largest U.S. cities and accounted for more than 70% of Texans, with a population of 13.8 million.
South London footie fans, pay attention: Southwark Council has officially approved plans to refurbish Dulwich's historic Champion Hill football stadium. The council has given the green light to plans that will see Dulwich Hamlet FC's old stadium transformed into a new 4,000-seat ground with a brand-new pitch and modern facilities. The footie club has been based in the borough for 123 years, and the new stadium is expected to secure the future of the team for years to come.
Tucked just inside the M25, Crews Hill near Enfield has been home to a cluster of horticultural businesses for decades, leading to it being nicknamed the golden mile. Many of these small, family-run businesses selling plants, fencing and paving fear they will be closed down and forced to move if the government selects Crews Hill and nearby Chase Park as one of its next generation of new towns.
The February 2021 closure of the CineArts at Empire movie theater on West Portal Avenue was the canary in the coal mine that the COVID-19 pandemic would be the undoing of many SF movie theaters. Over the years, a couple of defunct SF movie theaters have tried to find new life as housing, including the Richmond District's Alexandria Theatre, which has been stuck in the mud on those plans for nearly three years running.
In a year full of abundance discourse, New Rochelle Mayor Yadira Ramos-Herbert is living the abundance agenda. The skyline of her Westchester County city, just 20 miles north of Manhattan, is barely recognizable from a decade ago. New apartment and condo towers have shot up, the city's population is booming, and rents and home prices haven't risen nearly as fast as in other cities in the region and across the US.
TfL first announced plans to extend an Overground line to Bermondsey all the way back in 2009. It was finally approved by Lewisham Council in 2022. Then, after years of setbacks, in 2024 property developers said they wanted to drop £17 million on a brand new station next to Millwall Stadium. But with no more news, by the end of 2025 south Londoners had all but given up on their dreams of a new Overground hub.
Kermit Lynch has opened a shop in the North Bay. Photo: Clark Z. Terry Heads up: We sometimes link to sites that limit access to non-subscribers. Berkeley wine merchant Kermit Lynch has opened a new store the first expansion in its more than 50-year history at a shopping center in Larkspur. (San Francisco Chronicle) A professor's hidden camera caught a UC Berkeley doctoral candidate sabotaging another student's laptop, according to authorities who have charged the candidate with felony vandalism. (East Bay Times)
The plan, put forward by TfL's property arm, Places for London and Barratt Homes, would have seen approximately 300 new homes, including 40% affordable homes, built on the car park and on the light industrial land to the south of the station. The development had been recommended in the planning officer's report, but the councillors voted to reject it. The main reasons were strong local opposition to building over the car park and concerns about the buildings' height.
Sue Baker, a Labour councillor for Barnet Vale ward, told the committee she had received an overwhelming amount of negativity to the plans from residents. She listed the loss of the car park as problematic as it was used by many elderly residents as well as people with disabilities and mobility issues. Residents were concerned about the impact on the access road and station entrance as a school, St Catherine's RC Primary School, was also located close by.
Regardless of how people get to work or where they live, it turns out that most of us tend to spend the same amount of time commuting to work. Long suspected and at times disputed, a new review of people's commutes across 43 countries found a strong bias toward a daily commute of around 78 minutes (1.3 hours), regardless of how it occurs.
It's a pointless delay, and we know the reason why. It's because it's a new government and they have new priorities," he said, adding that money for new roads was now being "nicked" from public transport projects. "Public transport moves real numbers, it's what serious cities do ... if we keep taking money away from these projects and delaying them, we're just going to condemn more people to slowly losing the will to live in gridlock and missing out on time with their families.
In a city of about 120,000 residents, it takes only about 50 to trigger the process. If that designation is issued on the grounds that the site has some historic value, future attempts to alter the property become much more challenging. It's a tool councilmembers and housing advocates say has been weaponized to prevent or delay housing development in the city.
Aiming to clear roadblocks to building housing in Berkeley, the city may soon create stricter requirements for its landmark designations process. In a city of about 120,000 residents, it takes only about 50 to trigger the process. If that designation is issued on the grounds that the site has some historic value, future attempts to alter the property become much more challenging. It's a tool councilmembers and housing advocates say has been weaponized to prevent or delay housing development in the city.
Both multifamily residential projects were proposed by DeNova Home Inc., which has come under public scrutiny after federal prosecutors charged its former owner and vice president with corruption in April. The father-and-son duo allegedly offered cash in a coffee thermos to an unidentified Antioch councilmember in an attempt to secure a vote in favor of a different housing development known as the Aviano project. The councilmember reported the matter to the FBI.
Plans to build a new neighbourhood in Southall have been revealed. Property developers Berkeley have unveiled proposals to create a 1,200-home district in the west London area, as the capital continues to expand along the Elizabeth line. Called Quarter Yards, the new 9-acre development will have 1,273 new homes and more than 105,000-square-feet of commercial space. It's part of a billion-pound regeneration of Southall and an 88-acre new town called the Green Quarter.
