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An oak tree that is more than 100 years old at the McCalla Center at the northeast corner of Central and Schaefer avenues is being proposed for removal because an arborist said it is infested with beetles and wood-boring pests.

The recommendation for removing the tree and planting two replacement trees will be considered by the Chino Planning Commission at 7 p.m. on Monday in council chambers, 13220 Central Ave.

The tree is located in a field near Central Avenue, west of Subway, which has caused constraints for applicants who want to develop that portion of the center.

The McCalla Center site encompasses 12 buildings totaling 137,430 square-feet, including Subway, Mercury Insurance, JoJo Nail Salon, and several other businesses.

City Planner Warren Morelion said all of the McCalla Center has been developed except for the vacant site where the tree is located.

Some buildings in the McCalla Center are under construction and close to completion, including industrial buildings on the northeast side of the center and a commercial building nearest to Central Avenue, he said.

Over the years, arborists have recommended different measures to protect the trees health, Mr. Morelion said.

Its not getting any better and the pests have a potential to spread further, he said. The tree is one of two oaks that grew at the site, but in 2011 the commission voted to remove one of the trees after deciding it was beyond saving. Since then, the remaining oak tree has been cared for, but arborists dont believe it can survive, according to a staff report.

The tree removal is one of three items to be discussed at the Planning Commission meeting. See Page B1.

Written comments may be submitted to planning@cityofchino.org and will be accepted by the Development Services Department through 5:30 p.m. Monday, Aug. 15 or at the hearing.

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Commission to weigh in on removal of dying oak tree - Chino Champion

For three years, the residents at the Oasis Mobile Home Park in the east valley have been without clean water. On multiple occasions, the EPA has found high levels of arsenic in the park's water system.

The issue continues to this day, but now some of the park's residents are dealing with another major issue on top of being without water, no electricity.

Residents say for several days now, power failures have forced them to endure the hot weather of the desert without air conditioning.

Cecilia Hernandez told Telemundo 15's Marco Revuelta that she and her family are going through unbearable days.

"It's a desperate thing, for me, for my children," Hernandez said. "Sometimes, when my baby can't take it anymore, she won't stop crying."

Hernandez is one of more than 200 families, or 1,100 people, living in the troubled mobile home park. She says the power outages began last Sunday.

"Since that day they have been shutting down for an hour, half an hour, sometimes for three hours," Hernandez said.

On Wednesday, Hernandez said she spent a total of four hours in the heat wave.

"For me this is an emergency, for these families, I'm not the only one here, my neighbors also have a baby," Hernandez said.

A spokesperson for the Imperial Irrigation District said they are aware of the situation. They add that the failures are in the infrastructure of the site which falls under the responsibility of the RV park managers.

Activists point out that this is a reflection of the discomfort faced by those who live there.

"The problems in the park go far beyond the water. It's the lights, the garbage, the problems with the handlers, there are many more problems in this parking lot and that's why we are asking for the relocation of the Oasis residents as soon as possible," said Omar Gastelum, a member of the Leadership Counsel for Justice & Accountability.

Riverside County has been working to relocate residents. In June, the Board of Supervisors approved the allocation of$7 million for phase 1 of the Oasis Villas Apartments. The project will create new affordable and safe housing opportunities for families living at Oasis Mobile Home Park and other dilapidated housing in the east valley.

The $7 million for the project comes froma $30 million state grant Riverside County receivedto provide relocation assistance for the park's residents.

Gastelum said that with temperatures in the triple digits, action needs to be taken urgently.

"We know the effects that being exposed to extreme heat for a long time can have, so that problem has been going on for more than a week and a half now, so we think it's time for someone to take some kind of action," Gastelum said.

Hernandez tells us that there are 15 homes impacted by the power outages.

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Residents of troubled Oasis Mobile Home Park now dealing with power failures amid high temperatures - kuna noticias y kuna radio

Welcome to Whats Up With Water your need-to-know news of the worlds water from Circle of Blue. Im Eileen Wray-McCann.

In Europe, countries continue to endure an extremely hot and dry summer. Another heat wave is pressing across the continent, influenced by climate change. The impacts are widespread. In southwestern France, a massive wildfire forced more than 10,000 people to flee their homes, according to Reuters news service. Temperatures over 100 degrees Fahrenheit have made the region a tinderbox.

In Germany, transport authorities are monitoring the Rhine River as water levels drop to critical levels. The AP reports that the key waterway could soon be too low to move most cargo. Conditions are not quite as extreme as in 2018, when the river reached a record low. But the Rhine is currently so depleted that large ships carrying salt, coal, gasoline and other goods must drastically reduce their loads to avoid running aground. The cargo restrictions are another blow to a continent already trying to manage an energy crisis due to Russias invasion of Ukraine.

And in Great Britain, officials who are considering an emergency drought declaration will not have a backup water supply at the ready. A major desalination plant in London said it will be at least another year before it will supply drinking water to residents. The Guardian reports that the Thames Water Plant opened in 2010, intending to provide drinking water for up to 1 million people during water shortages. Now, the company says it has scaled back the plants estimated capacity by a third, and that it will take more work before it can begin operating.

As Europe suffers a lack of water, a weather calamity of an opposing nature has afflicted mountainous regions of the American Southeast. This week, Circle of Blue reports on what flooding in Kentucky means for its poorest residents.

At the end of July, catastrophic downpours killed dozens of people in Eastern Kentucky, after a powerful storm system passed through some of the poorest counties in the United States.

Scott McReynolds lives in the town of Krypton. He says that calling the rising waters historic would be an understatement. The Appalachian foothills near his home became high-velocity funnels, sending violent torrents into areas that had never flooded before. In the dead of night, residents were forced to make a harrowing choice: try to ride out the storm at home or brave the violent waters to escape to higher ground. In desperation, one mother bound herself to her children using the cord of a vacuum cleaner as waters swept their trailer down river. The floods took the lives of thirty-seven people, three of them young children.

This part of Kentucky is already beset with poverty, and the path of recovery is almost as daunting as the floods. The hardest-hit countiesClay, Knott, Letcher, and Perryhave a median annual income thats about 40 percent lower than the national average. About a quarter of residents live below the poverty line. In some census tracts, over half the housing units are mobile homes. In Eastern Kentucky, as in many of Americas poorest communities, poverty and flood risk are two halves of a brutal cycle: low-income people are more likely to be located in flood zones, and less likely to access relief funds for repairing the damage. McReynolds has worked as an affordable housing developer in the area since the early 1990s, and hes watched this story unfold from the front lines. He said Our region has been a persistent poverty region for as long as theyve tracked poverty statistics. One of the effects of that is that we have more than our fair share of really bad housing. Its not surprising that a lot of those got flooded.

Many of the flood victims will be applying for government aid, but the housing assistance funds available are no match for the demand, both in Kentucky and nationwide. Only about one in four U.S. residents who are eligible for federal rental assistance receives it. Families wait an average of two and a half years to receive housing vouchers. With limited resources at his disposal, McReynolds must make heartbreaking choices: should he help two people in extreme poverty, or five who are only considered very low income?

In times of disaster, this chronic deficit becomes a crisis. Many trailer parks are built on cheap and risky land, so its not surprising that they bore the brunt of the flood damages, both this year and last. Its in keeping with nationwide trends. Analysts at Headwaters Economics found that one in seven mobile homes are built in an area with high flood risk, compared to one in 10 for all other housing types. State officials say the floods have left hundreds of Kentuckians homeless.

After dealing with the initial trauma, low-income flood victims may face additional challenges during the many steps of the recovery process. Mobile home owners face obstacles in getting access to federal and state assistance. Homeowner verification is difficult for inherited properties that lack proper documentation. Stigma and confusion around whether trailer parks qualify for disaster assistance can also interfere with getting help. Because mobile home residents lack the same legal protections as renters, evictions from mobile home parks are significantly higher after disasters. Most often, renters have no option but to rebuild in the same vulnerable location. Said McReynolds It really comes down to limited means: an older mobile home is sometimes the only thing people can afford. Folks wind up fixing up their mobile home if they can, and staying in the floodplain. This is an economic reality. Its that or homelessness.

Global climate change is only accelerating this cycle. Downpours are getting more intense, and have caused more flash flooding that spreads outside river floodplains, so previous flood risk maps dont help much anymore. The eastern U.S. is seeing a steep increase in the number of extreme rain events, and the trend is expected to continue as the planet warms further. McReynolds said that the climate outlook underlines the need to pursue development options that lower flood risk. He said How do we begin to get the state and federal resources that we need, at the level we need, in order to address the folks who are really vulnerable? We cant just keep putting people back in the floodplain.

And thats Whats Up With Water from Circle of Blue, where water speaks. More water news and analysis await you at circleofblue.org. This is Eileen Wray-McCann thanks for being here.

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What's Up With Water August 16, 2022 - Circle of Blue

Call upon Me in the day of trouble Psalm 50:15

I cried at the Mexican restaurant last Saturday. Normally a place of chips, salsa, and laughter, I was reflecting on the day. I tried to describe it to my beloved through the tears.

My friend Paige and I wanted to help in some way. We had baked cornbread and cake to be given out with meals in areas devastated by recent flooding but hoped to do something hands on. We found that a neighbors family in Knott County had been hit hard by rising water on July 28.

Travelling to the Beaver Creek area Saturday morning, we saw first-hand what an ocean of raging flood water could do. Pictures and videos had not done the devastation justice. We were stunned. Cars stood on end in the creeks and were smashed into guardrails. Mobile homes were torn in half. Enormous piles of debris were at every household. There was much to take in.

When we arrived at our destination, we found that the bulk of mud-out had already taken place. We could see the water line on the outside; everything on the inside had been deconstructed, down to the studs.

The lady of the house, a beautiful retired teacher, told us her husband had longed to live in that very house since he was a little boy. When it came on the market last year, they had jumped at the chance to buy it but were not able to begin remodeling then because her mother was dying. After caring for her and her death earlier this year, they were finally able to completely renovate the dream house.

Theyd just moved in.

We saw her brand-new gas stove and refrigerator that had been delivered nine days before the flood. Now filled with gunk, they sat in a wall-less kitchen.

Paige and I cleaned with brushes, brooms, and shop vacs, trying to get mud out of each nook and cranny. Everything had to be pristine before building back. It will be awhile.

I was glad I had a mask on and was on my knees so no one could see my tears. Tears for the homeowner and the magnitude of the task before them.Mud was still wet in some corners. There is a constant fight against the black mold that comes after floods. So much had been lost. They were so tired.

The homeowner shared that she had experienced many things since the flood: fear, anger, disappointment. She knows the Lord but admitted that it is still hard getting through it all. I thought of the story of Naomi in the book of Ruth. Her loss had been great. She was full of heartache and other emotions, yet the Lord helped her start a new chapter in her life. An amazing chapter that was more than she could have ever dreamed: beauty from ashes. In our area, it will be beauty from mud. Somehow, He can do that here.

She shared another tragic story: The flood had come at night. They received a surprising call to check outside and were stunned to find that they were already surrounded by water. As they hurried to safety, she saw small lights and could hear yelling from a few houses down. A man was being swept away in his trailer. Neighbors were yelling for him to jump out of his home, into the water. It was scary yet the only way he would survive. He saw their flashlights waving. He heard their cries. But he was too afraid to leap.

I cried on the way homea place with walls and no mud. As of Sunday, Samaritans Purse still had a work order for 471 homes. Each one filled with sludge and heartache.

Call upon Me in the day of troublearound these parts, the day of trouble was July 28, 2022.

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FIRST-PERSON: In the day of trouble | Perspectives | kentuckytoday.com - Kentucky Today

LEADVILLE A coffee shop downtown finally got fed up with the question and posted an answer: No, you cannot leave your bicycle in here. Everyone has a $10,000 bike.

The sign got laughs from the locals, whove earned the right by living year-round at 10,000 feet to poke fun at Front Range and out-of-state tourists and their fancy bikes.

Gobs of them flooded this mountain town during the pandemic, bought second homes to work remotely for the summer, drove up property taxes and the cost of breakfast burritos, and pinched out the workers who commute over the hill to clean hotels in Vail and Frisco.

Just a few years ago, Leadville was a quiet place where houses were affordable, workers were available and business was slow compared to nearby mountain towns. Folks who live here figure the high elevation kept people away.

Thats over now.

Leadville has gained international notoriety with its Leadville 100, a grueling, 100-mile ultra-run at high elevation that happens this weekend. Its mountain bike race, 100 miles topping out at 12,424 feet, attracts competitors from around the world, including Lance Armstrong, who won in 2009. Theres also skijoring, in which a horse pulls a skier down the snow-covered main street, and burro racing, in which a donkey and a trail runner take turns pulling each other up and down a 3,000-foot mountain pass.

The extreme-terrain events have been amping up Leadvilles profile for years, yet unlike all the resort towns around it where tourism fueled a booming economy over the past few decades Leadville still felt like a quiet, old mining town.

The coronavirus pandemic, though, shoved Leadville and Lake County full speed into the kind of vacation-rental economy thats now common in Colorados high country. While second homes in the county sit vacant or are listed as short-term rentals, a housing shortage has doubled or even tripled home prices. Half of all home sales in 2020 and 2021 were to second-home owners. Some restaurants have had to close a couple of days a week because they cant find workers who can afford to live there.

Town leaders at least had the advantage of seeing the affordable housing crises unfold in Vail, Breckenridge and Aspen, and they jumped ahead of the curve in passing an ordinance that caps non-owner-occupied vacation rentals at 12% of all housing in the city limits. Now theres talk of lowering the cap, which the city quickly reached and had to put want-to-be landlords on a waiting list.

County commissioners, for their part, made it easier for homeowners to build garage apartments and other so-called accessory dwelling units, simplifying the permit process.

We want growth on our terms, said Jeff Fiedler, one of three Lake County commissioners. We want to keep whats special about this place. We have one school district, one Safeway, one post office. We all know each other. Nothing against people who visit, but we dont want to be 70% short-term rentals and second-home owners.

Of course there is grumbling about property taxes and Texas license plates in the county of about 8,000, as well as plenty of opinions usually expressed in Safeway aisle No. 7 or at the coffee shop on historic Harrison Avenue rather than in public meetings, Fiedler said. The long-time residents pine for quieter times, before their property taxes doubled and the streets were packed with people who drove in for the weekend to watch a racing event and eat a fry-bread taco.

Most, though, are talking about how to deal with the growth in a thoughtful way, trying to figure out how to keep the old-time charm but create affordable housing and more child care options.

On the bright side, the boost in tax dollars is helping Lake County begin to catch up on gaps in services left lingering for decades. County commissioners have moved ahead with plans for a $45 million justice center after major liability and safety concerns about the dilapidated jail. The jail in Leadville hasnt been updated in 65 years and, before closing two years ago, had cell doors so rickety that deputies had to ask inmates to help wiggle them open.

The county has been driving criminal offenders all the way to the eastern plains, at a cost of about $250,000 per year.

You could get arrested for a DUI or drunk and disorderly on Saturday, and you wake up Sunday morning on the Kansas border, Fiedler said. And then you have no way home.

Growth brings plenty of problems, but at least there are more tax dollars flowing into the city and county to fix some of them, he said. Commissioners recently boosted salaries so now the lowest-paid county workers make a minimum of $40,000 per year. Construction on the new justice center is expected to start next year.

We are catching up on that kind of deferred maintenance. We are able to provide raises to county staff, said Fiedler, who became a commissioner a year and a half ago. We havent had the money to consider doing that.

Vanessa Saldivar moved to Leadville about a year ago after accepting a job with a local nonprofit. She and her husband had dreams of buying a home and settling into the small-town life. Except there were no homes, to buy or even to rent.

The move from Denver was delayed by months as Saldivars new coworkers networked through friends to find a rental house. They took the rental and kept looking for a home to buy, watching as the prices were inflating at an alarming rate, Saldivar said.

At this point, we have given up hope, she said. It impacts our long-term plans and our ability to put down roots here.

To add to their stress, the couple had a baby last fall but hasnt found child care. They are 12th on a waitlist and Saldivars husband is staying home to take care of their daughter.

Its such a lovely place to live that we just keep pushing through, she said.

The price for Leadvilles growth is being paid for by the families that live in this town who, by and large, are not super affluent, Saldivar said. Weve reached a point where people cant innocently own a second home in Lake County and Airbnb it and think theyre not hurting people. If we cant house teachers, health care workers, our nonprofit leaders, our families that live here are the ones that pay for that. Not the vacation-home owners.

Ted Green, who moved to Leadville from Chicago with his wife and three kids a year ago, spent the first few months dismantling suspicions about his intentions. Green left behind what on paper was the picture-perfect life, spacious home and a job at Facebook to open a candy store on Leadvilles main street.

Locals who walked into the new Blueflower Candies & Provisions suspected Green was some rich guy who opened the store and then intended to live elsewhere and pay someone minimum wage to run it. Hes had to win them over, one by one, by explaining that his wife is a teacher at the local school and his family is living full-time in Leadville.

Residents are fed up with people with money coming into town and buying buildings and turning them into swanky things that they had where they were from, said Green, who admits he used to wear tailored clothes and tried to keep up with the Joneses and was miserable. They walk in and say, Where do you live? What else do you do? Theyre waiting for me to say that I live in Denver and Im going to have somebody run the store for 12 bucks an hour. Im super sensitive to that. Thats why Im so cautious and welcoming to everybody in the community.

The Greens were lucky, buying three acres south of town about four years ago, before the rush. Theyre living in a rental while building a house on their property, which has a view of the Mosquito Range and access to Mount Sheridan from a backyard that touches a national forest. Its like 360 degrees of awesomeness, said Green, a cyclist. Our backyard is basically infinite.

He quickly got involved in Leadvilles economic development corporation and ended up bailing on his initial plan of opening an ice cream shop when he learned a nearby hotel was putting in an ice cream parlor.

With the candy shop, Green is trying to make sure he fills a need for locals, not just tourists with kids. In the summer, tourists raid the grocery store and leave the shelves bare, so Green added some basic groceries and granola bars to his inventory. He also keeps a running list of nostalgic candy mentioned by locals, including Boston Baked Beans and Black Jack chewing gum.

I didnt want to be the guy that came in from the big city and said, I know what is going to work, he said. I wanted to support the community first and the tourists second.

The reasons Leadville took off so fast stem from how it was doing before coronavirus showed up.

Interest in the town was growing, thanks to the race series that goes all summer, building up to the Leadville 100 in August. But the town was still low-key and affordable, the 10,000-foot location a deterrent to many. Its harder to breathe, obviously, but also harder for some to sleep and a more difficult place to grow old. Vacation homes were under $200,000 only a few years ago.

Also, theres no huge resort, only the family-oriented Ski Cooper about 15 minutes away. The tourism was never centered on a ski resort, but on a combination of smaller attractions hiking trails, ultra running, mountain climbing and cycling, and the museums focused on the history of the mining town that stretches back to the 1850s when miners discovered gold.

All of it meant Leadville was set up to blossom when the pandemic sent tourists outdoors and remote workers in search of mountain homes.

It hadnt bloomed yet, and why? asked Francisco Tharp, who has lived in Leadville for 12 years. The towns surrounding Leadville Vail, Aspen, Salida went through the booms long ago. But Leadville was a depressed mining town into the 1990s. It hadnt blown up in that way.

Leadville was still considered a bedroom community, where many residents traveled to work in nearby resort towns, cleaning hotel rooms and serving food. About 70% of the workforce was going over the hill to work in Summit and Eagle counties, said Tharp, who recently stepped down from the city council after moving out of his ward. Thats beginning to shift as there are more construction and tourism jobs in Lake County, he said.

Its not a bedroom community anymore, Tharp said. And people have nowhere to go. Leadville was the last place that people got pushed out of, and thats going to affect Summit County and Eagle County.

In 2016, Tharps family bought a three-bedroom home in downtown Leadville for $175,000. You couldnt even get a closet in Vail for that, he said. Now, his house, which he uses as a long-term rental, could sell for four times that, Tharp said.

The population in Lake County hasnt actually gone up that much, but the shift has brought in more second-home owners and pushed out lower-income residents, local leaders said. And the divide between the wealthy and the poor is widening, which has caused a kind of geographic segregation. Many of the countys working class are Latino, concentrated in some of the last available affordable housing mobile home parks. About 70% of the school district is Latino.

Tharps partner, Elsa Tharp, owns a hotel in town on the grounds of an old train depot. Freight has a group of cabins for rent, plus an events venue to host weddings and quinceaneras. Finding workers has been a challenge.

Francisco Tharp said that while Leadville and Lake County leaders are doing what they can to manage the growth, he hopes state lawmakers take action, too. He wants a mechanism for counties to charge a vacant-home tax, as well as better documentation so that communities can keep track of second-home ownership.

While some question whether the racing series, which was sold by its founder to Life Time Fitness in 2010, got too big, brought too much notoriety, Tharp disagrees. When the series began in Leadville, the town was impoverished, suffering from the closure of the mines in the 1990s. People were moving away; houses were selling for cheap.

What was the alternative? Just wallowing in poverty, he said. Its a complicated story, and people might have different opinions about whether we are better off now or could we have taken a different tack.

Trail running, including the Leadville 100, is mainly what made Greg Labbe fall in love with the town. He moved to Leadville full time 11 years ago and now hes the mayor.

Labbe, 74, hasnt run a whole 100 and doesnt plan to, but hes joined his sons in the race for as long as 34 miles.

The mayor says the last couple of years have been weird, to say the least. While other towns and counties were suffering during the pandemic, tax collections were up 46% in 2020 in Leadville, he said. Businesses were reporting a 30% increase in sales.

It was stunning. At the same time, our affordable housing was diminishing, Labbe said. A restaurant that had plenty of staff now has 70% of staff so they have to close on Tuesday and Wednesday.

In 2020 and 2021, about 50% of all home sales were to second-home owners, the mayor said. A new housing development on the north end of town is expected to add about 300 homes, though the 10-year project is just beginning.

Its not just the housing crisis thats exhausting, the locals say. The towns vibe has changed as tourism has grown more intense.

We used to have mud season,said Nathalie Eddy, wife of commissioner Fiedler and director of the annual burro race. There was this quiet time in the fall where you just felt the energy go down. You only saw friends and family in town. Weve lost those shoulder seasons. There is almost never a time when youre like, ahhh. Its good for the businesses, but its just a different rhythm that we are adjusting to.

Still, its not entirely fair to judge others who want to escape to the mountains just because they didnt get there first, said Eddy, who moved to town 14 years ago. We were all new here at some point. Most of us arent old Leadville, she said. Everybody is trying to figure out how to embrace this change.

And the whole town is trying to figure out how to deal with its popularity.

There is a difference between what the races bring to town in terms of commerce and in terms of identity, Mayor Labbe said.

This is a small, mountain city. We are known around the world and I take pride in that. I want people to value Leadville the way I value it, but I dont want them to feel like they need to move here to do that.

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Leadville was an old mining town until COVID brought the tourists - The Colorado Sun

When we last spoke in March, Bonny Doon resident Ann McKenzie, whose home burned down in the CZU Lightening Complex fires, was waiting on the county permits so she could start rebuilding her homeand lifeafter the fires.

Not much has changed.

McKenzie is going on her third year of living without a permanent home. She shares an RV with her husband on the property where their home once stood, and she expects it will be nearly another year before they are able to move into their rebuilt home.

One of the most frustrating parts, says McKenzie, is that they havent even been able to break ground. Thats due to the permitting process, which she says has been slow and tedious. McKenzie and her husband originally applied to get pre-clearance permits on April 14, 2021. They finally received them in May of 2022, over a year after they started the process.

McKenzie is now waiting on different permitsand so are the majority of CZU fire survivors.

Two years after the fires, 187 permits are still being processed, and the county has issued 152 pre-clearances.

Out of the 911 homes that were destroyed in the fires, only 11 have been rebuilt.

That leaves a gap of almost 600 homes that are not currently in the process of rebuilding legally. The remaining homeowners could still apply for permits, but in March, Good Times spoke with multiple people who were fed up with the lengthy permitting processafter living for two years in tents or mobile homes, in many casesand admitted they planned to rebuild illegally, without permits.

County officials say the county has tried to pare down the process as much as possible, by cutting permitting costs, setting up the Office of Response Recovery as a resource to help homeowners rebuild, and hosting informational town halls to help with the permitting process.

As for why only 11 homes have been reconstructed, a county official speculates that contractor scarcity and supply chain issues could be to blame for the large discrepancy between people with permits in hand and finalized homes. CZU fire survivors are looking at higher residential construction costs, a labor shortage problem in construction and building material shortages.

McKenzies story illustrates another reason: that even after all pre-clearance permits are issued, theres still lag time to receive the other necessary permits.

After pre-clearances, owners like McKenzie submit applications for their dwelling units building permit, which includes construction documents, geotechnical engineering report, along with any other required technical material.

McKenzies designers submitted those additional permits to 4Leaf, the countys permitting agency, on July 29.

But to her dismay and frustration, 4Leaf notified her that the Single Family Dwelling permit must be submitted separately from the Additional Dwelling Unit permit, a detail she says no one mentioned beforehand. Her designers are still separating the documents.

The whole permitting process was riddled with small (and not-so-small) setbacks like this one, according to McKenzie. 4Leaf has a processing timeline of 10 days, but McKenzie says the reality tends to be closer to a few weeks, and even sometimes a month.

McKenzies story is not unique, especially because the areas hit the hardest by the fires were in the more rural parts of Santa Cruz County. Bonny Doon, Ben Lomand and other areas of the Santa Cruz Mountains were home to the majority of the 911 houses that were burned during the fires.

Those communities have struggled the most to get up to code, according to Michael Renner, Executive Director of 4Leaf. Pre-clearances take into consideration fire access, environmental health-sewage disposal and potential geologic hazards. But the requirements to receive those permits have changed in the time that these more rural communities developed, and many people have lived in the areas homes for generations.

McKenzie just hopes that she can get all the permits soonas the rainier months loom, she knows getting the foundation done as soon as possible will be crucial, so that construction can continue throughout winter.

The day she does break ground, McKenzie plans on celebratingeven though it marks the start of another months-long journey,

Im gonna have a ceremony and a ribbon cutting, and Im gonna stand there with a shovel, she says.

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Two Years After CZU: Still Tangled in Red Tape | Good Times - Good Times

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CHICAGO (PRWEB) August 19, 2022

As communities face wildfire smoke, power outages, and extreme heat this summer, US infrastructure is not equipped to protect us. Federal tax credits soon to come from the newly passed Inflation Reduction Bill aim to reduce the cost of environmentally-friendly changes and set the stage for widespread adoption and Phius-certified passive homes are emerging as a model for how to adapt. Phius (Passive House Institute US), a non-profit and locally tailored, globally applicable passive house building standard accounting for the vast majority of all passive projects in North America, has certified more than 7.4 million square feet of passive building projects that are optimized for adaptability and resilience as climate change redefines living standards.

For example, as residents in Houston struggle with rising temperatures and potential for loss of electricity, the Fly Flat infill pocket neighborhood, designed with ever-unpredictable and more extreme weather in mind, integrated Phius passive house standards to be ready. The housing project, led by a student-driven design team, utilized modular home designs and implemented energy-outage prevention tools such as community solar and FEMA 499 strategies to design weather-resilient homes the community can thrive in for years to come. New federal tax credits will reduce the cost of solar panels and other necessary tools for preparing the homes for resilience putting more funding back to the neighborhood.

Theresa Passive House is another Phius-certified project that weathered last years snowstorm and this years summer heat in Houston, Texas with comparable ease, enjoying a key benefit of passive buildings -- the ability for the home to maintain internal temperatures for longer periods of time, even without heating and cooling. Located next to a busy highway and train line, filtered, clean air inside was a priority. Today, the ERV circulates fresh, filtered air and a dehumidifier minimizes excessive moisture.

In California, Sol Lux Alpha, developed by John Sarter, is the first Phius-certified passive house with a multi-unit nanogrid structure introduced in the U.S. housing market. This six-story, four-unit housing development offers carbon-neutral living plus a transportation system! Inhabited units generate twice as much energy as they consume. Excess energy is sent to the grid, where it can be reused for EV charging another increasingly important perk of building to Phius standards as the electric car market heats up and tax credits emerge, especially in a state where the grid is already struggling to keep up with demand during peak summer hours.

And, when wildfire smoke fills the air, one family in Seattle, Washington will breathe easy in their Phius-certified passive home, named Park Passive. The home uses an advanced HVAC system to provide the home with continuous filtered fresh air even when the air outside is thick with smoke from nearby fires. At the first sign of smoke, the family closes all windows and doors and lets the house take over from there.

These homes all share mitigation of climate change and adaptability as a result of climate change designing and building for resilience, habitability and passive survivability during power outages, fires, and other climate-driven events, said Katrin Klingenberg, executive director of Phius. In certain regions, this provides a way forward for building and home design that offers an even more important outcome: reducing electricity load for heating and cooling - critical during heat waves.

Images of the projects are available HERE. Visit http://www.Phius.org for more information.

About PhiusPhius is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization committed to decarbonizing the built environment by making high-performance passive building the mainstream market standard. We train and certify professionals, maintain and update the Phius climate-specific passive building standard, certify and quality assure passive buildings, certify high-performance building products and conduct research to advance high-performance building. ###

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New Climate Bill to Accelerate Phius-Certified Passive Home Adoption Driven by Need for Extreme Weather Resilience - PR Web

Architecture is no longer a discipline that deems only the physical as 'sacred'. The digital is fast taking over the discourse and opening avenues to new ways of thinking and experimentation, and with much acceleration by the COVID-19 pandemic, a new world has already propped above the horizon. London-headquartered Zaha Hadid Architects needs no introduction when it comes to their pioneering engagement with the built and the speculative realms. The brainchild of late British-Iraqi architect Zaha Mohammad Hadid, the practice, since the 80s, has stood out for delivering timeless architecture that fuses technology with design, and for perennially pushing the envelope to create new tools to enhance our spatial experiences.

The firm is presenting its adventures in the cyberphysical space and metaverse through an exhibition hosted at the Dongdaemun Design Museum in Seoul, Korea. Meta-Horizons: The Future Now marks the opening of the new museum which is located within the Dongdaemun Design Plaza, a cultural hub and meeting place in Seouls Dongdaemun district completed by ZHA in 2014. The exhibition offers a peek into ZHAs illustrious repertoire spanning across multiple fields, from digital technology to artificial intelligence and virtual reality. One gets to experience the sheer breadth of work through three main zones of the showcase - Innovation, Imagination, and Interaction - where these categories reveal the firms recent designs, process, and research that incorporates immersive technologies, participatory design, and new fabrication techniques.

Within the first section titled Innovation: Process & Research, the exhibition focuses on collaborations across disciplines which rely on a research-based approach towards the design process and physical prototyping. The presented projects include a platform used to create customised modular homes, and a recent 3D-printed concrete bridge named Striatus, which was assembled without mortar in Venice as a result of a collaboration between ZHA and ETH Zurich. The various projects that fall under this zone represent the three ongoing research strands of the architectural practice, namely robotic technologies, folded geometries, and digital timber construction.

Within Imagination: Design & Virtual, the exhibition delves into the digital realm of things and how it continues to become more established as an activated destination integrating with the physical world. Presented within this section is ZHAs increased presence in the designing of the metaverse, with projects such as the cyber urban incubator 'Liberland', and 'NFTism' a virtual gallery space experimenting with architecture and social interaction.

The third section titled Interaction: Technologies & Collaboration puts a spotlight on technologies that enhance the seamless user experience across the world of cyber-physics, mixed reality, augmented and virtual reality. Projects presented within this section include Project Correl 1.0 a collaborative experiment in multi-presence virtual reality that illustrates the development of complex assemblies inside virtual space; and New Worlds a LOOP mixed-reality experience created by ZHVR. It is revealed as an immersive soundscape by artist Halina Rice which visitors could experience using HTC headsets.

A highlight of the overall exhibition is an immersive art project conceived by ZHA in collaboration with Refik Anadol Studio (RAS). The result of a six month-long collaboration, the artwork titled Architecting the Metaverse "extends RAS Media Labs ongoing research project and visualises their entire database of architectural documentation in the oeuvre of ZHA". Expressed as an immersive room, visitors are exposed to an infinitely reflecting mirrored tunnel that creates a perception shift by merging the boundlessness of space with the endless permutations of machine learning. Speculating on the future of architecture in the digital realm, the installation was specially conceived for the exhibition and it marks the first collaboration of media artist Refik Anadol with a pioneering architectural studio. Architecting the Metaverse is also stated to be the first of its kind in realising the machine dream of ZHAs architectural works around the world.

Meta-Horizons: The Future Now is on view at the DDP Design Museum in Seoul till September 18, 2022.

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ZHA's showcase in Seoul presents new directions of the metaverse - STIRworld

MALMESBURY: Permission is wanted in principle for the development of a self-built home on undeveloped land adjacent to the property known as Marden House, onThompsons Hill, Sherston, Malmesbury.

The proposed development will seek to provide a new access off Thompsons Hill and will provide onsite parking to meet the needs of the future residents.

The planning documents say theplanning statement demonstrates that the development is "broadly in accordance with the Development Plan as a whole".

It adds: "The Council cannot currently demonstrate a five-year housing land supply, andthe application site can be developed without harming the character andappearance of the area.

"Only limited weight should be attributed to the conflict with the housing policies of the development plan, taking account of the housing shortfall, and if any harm is identified by the technical conflict with the settlement policies this would not significantly and demonstrably outweigh the benefits when assessed against the policies in the Framework taken as a whole. The tilted balance clearly therefore indicates that the application should be approved."

MELKSHAM: An application has been submitted for the proposed conversion of an existing barn near Melksham to form a holiday let.

Little Thornham Farm is a private dwelling on Trowbridge Road, Seend.

The barns that form this application are made up of three linked structures, two of which are two storey and a third smaller single storey lean-to on the northern end.

The application says: "The property is no longer suitable for modern farming methods and has suffered some deterioration due to lack of use. There are signs of cracking, and the original chimney has been lost. The applicants and their family occupy the main farmhouse adjacent to the barns, and work on the surrounding farm. A family member occupies an adjacent annexe in an unlisted, converted barn."

It adds: "Simeon and Amy Plumb, the applicants, have lived in the property for many years, alongside extended family and are now raising the next generation at Little Thornham Farm. Evidently it has been, and is intended to be, a long-term home for the Plumb family. There is inevitably maintenance and repair matters to attend to, particularly with the older buildings which are no longer in regular use. Therefore this presents an opportunity to diversify this element of the farm to find a new use for these buildings to ensure that they remain viable and in use for future generations to enjoy."

NETTLETON: There are plans to convertNettleton Baptist Church into holiday accommodation.

The applicants saythe conversion or re-use of a heritage asset, in this case the church, would lead to its "viable long-term safeguarding".

The site is located in the open countryside where residential development is strictly controlled.

WARMINSTER:Plans have been submittedfor a new neighbourhood of "innovative modular homes" at Bore Hill Farm near Warminster.

The revised plans have been tabled byLegal & General Modular Homes, part of the UK financial services group.

It follows the withdrawal of a previous 2021 planning application for 95 new homes on thesite, to enable further work to be carried on the layout of the development.

The revised plan features 84 homes and the provision of more green open space including a play area, and measures to promote biodiversity, such as wildflower meadow and fruit trees.

EXTENSIONS: Applications have been lodged to build extensions to houses, or to build or convert outbuildings and lofts atFlorida House, Hardenhuish Lane, Chippenham;45 Stockwood Road, Chippenham; Silverdale, Cleverton, Chippenham;6 South Street, Corsham;48 Park Lane, Chippenham;33 Bremhill, Calne;31 Golden Road, Devizes;Bourne House, The Old Severalls, Milton Lilbourne, Pewsey;67 Hawkstreet, Bromham, Chippenham;Beech Cottage, Golding Avenue, Marlborough.

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Wiltshire planning applications: Plans to convert an old church | The Wiltshire Gazette and Herald - Gazette & Herald