Apartment Look

Council Member Laurie Cumbo (@cmlauriecumbo) Hundreds of Crown Heights residents and community activists laughed and jeered at a recent community forum as a lanky man wearing a paper mask of Mayor Bill de Blasio joked about bringing affordable housing to their neighborhood. The event was punctuated by moments of levity but mostly dominated by anger from residents who feel their elected representatives have sold out their interests to the real estate industry , with a focus on the proposed redevelopment of the vacant Bedford Union Armory . The de Blasio administration , with a developer, is proposing a combination of affordable and market rate rental apartments , condominium units, and recreation space for the massive site. City Council Member Laurie Cumbo , who represents the district, did not attend the August 2 forum focused on the project -- she was just days from giving birth to a son -- and when representatives of her office tried to speak, they were shouted down. The ev...

The Pleasanton City Council is set Tuesday to consider final approval of a proposed ordinance to implement stringent smoking regulations for rental apartments across the city. On track to take effect early next year, the new restrictions would include banning smoking inside individual units , on balconies and patios, in all indoor and outdoor common areas and within 25 feet of those locations at apartment complexes under single ownership with two or more leased units. The council gave unanimous support to the proposed ordinance during a first reading in June, but asked city staff to do more research on how to handle medical marijuana before giving final approval . Under the recommendation from city staff, the ordinance would allow medical marijuana smoking inside apartment units "if tenant provides landlord written documentation that tenant needs it for medical purposes , no alternative means of delivery or ingestion are available and tenant is unable to smoke o...

Baystate Brightwood Health Center is part of the provider network for Commonwealth Community Alliance 's Senior Care Options plan . The health plan delivers coordinated care to a high-risk population of low-income seniors who might not otherwise see a primary doctor on a regular basis and receive the medical help needed to avoid costly hospitalizations . Dr. Jeffrey Scavron said the center for which he has long worked in the city's North End "had a jump started on how to do this" when it shared its primary care model with CCA to help the company launch its SCO plan in 2004. "We got into this because we truly recognized that long ago we were not treating people correctly by way of how much of total cost we were spending on primary care for folks with high healthcare costs ," said Scavron of the center that serves more than 8,000 patients of all ages, the majority of whom are Hispanic and Spanish speaking. "We thought by putting more care up front yo...

by Jean M. Twenge Jean M. Twenge has been writing about generational differences for 25 years, producing bestsellers like Generation Me and The Narcissism Epidemic . In her latest book, Twenge zeroes in on iGen, the kids born in 1995 and later who have grown up with smartphones, had an Instagram page before they started high school and do not remember a time before the internet. The average teen checks her phone more than 80 times a day. The oldest iGen-ers, as she calls them, were early adolescents when the iPhone was introduced in 2007 and high school students when the iPad entered the market in 2010. Twenge argues the complete dominance of the smartphone among teens has had ripple effects across every area of iGen-er lives, from their social interactions to their mental health. Twenge draws on national surveys of 11 million Americans, conducted since 1960, to reach her conclusions. From about 2012, she started seeing "large, abrupt shifts in teens' behaviour and emoti...

It’s served as a classroom annex for the former Lancaster Boys’ High School just around the corner. In 1909, part of it was converted into a basketball court for the school, “with the maximum cost of equipment not exceeding $25,” according to newspaper records. It was the home for Lancaster Bible College ’s precursor, Lancaster School of the Bible. It’s housed more than one church congregation — most recently, Foursquare Gospel Church . Standing solidly on North Mulberry Street , the square, pale yellow building looks over Shreiner-Concord Cemetery and Thaddeus Stevens’ gravesite. And it’s been a public hub of one kind or another in this west-end section of Lancaster city since it was built in 1880. Now, 128 N. Mulberry St. is gearing up for its newest incarnation: Four apartments carved out of cavernous church space . For Ben J. Cunningham, a Millersville University professor and part owner of the project, its been part investment, part neighborhood effort and a test of the crea...