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Weeks of July 21 and July 28, 2008
For information on the passage of HR 3221 please visit the Government Affairs section of the HBA website (here)
The Senate stepped up to the plate on July 11
by voting to approve by a wide margin crucial housing stimulus legislation that includes the all-important temporary first-time home buyer tax credit. All eyes are now on the House of Representatives as it takes up the measure for an expected vote on July 23. [more]
A new rule from the Fed on home mortgage loans, [more]
Builder confidence hit a record low this month [more]
Single-family housing starts and permits were down in June [more]
FHLBank Director applications are due August 15! [more]
Policies that encourage rather than mandate energy savings [more]
NAHB is helping builders avoid silica hazards [more]
Find out how to "Get Hesitant Boomers to Buy Now" [more]
A free brochure on lead-safe work practices for remodelers [more]
On the House: A green sensibility on the road
By Al Heavens, Philadelphia Inquirer
We recently spent two weeks driving one-way from here to California.
We did it two years ago, too, but this time we didn't tent camp. Whenever we camp, it rains, and the Midwest didn't need more precipitation.
As we expected, it rained only once - a thunderstorm the first evening of the trip in the area around Connellsville and Uniontown, Pa., where we stayed the night so we could visit Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater the following day.
The rest of the trip was bone dry.
Not camping meant we didn't have to rush past the scenery from one site to the next. In addition, we drove smaller - 35 miles per gallon in the Kia Rio we rented from Philadelphia to Denver, and an average 53 miles per gallon in the Toyota Prius we used from Denver to Los Angeles.
Gas didn't start costing more than $4 a gallon for regular until we reached Utah. In many Midwestern states, premium was cheaper than regular because they had more of it to sell - and quickly, before it lost its punch.
As people who drive an eight-year-old Volkswagen Jetta less than 100 miles a week (we take trains or walk) and never pay more than $20 for gas during the every-10-days visit to the station, it was a bit of a shock, Prius or not.
State legislators from Bucks get high marks
By BRIAN SCHEID, Bucks County Courier Times
All but one state lawmaker from Bucks County scored above the statewide average in an annual environmental voting scorecard released Monday by PennEnvironment, a statewide environmental advocacy group.
According to the scorecard, three state representatives from Bucks scored 89 percent, six scored 78 percent and one scored 33 percent.
Of the five state representatives in adjacent Montgomery County, one, state Rep. Rick Taylor, D-151, scored a 100 percent, two scored 89 percent, one scored 78 percent and one scored 56 percent.
The scorecard looked at nine House votes, including votes on public transportation, open space legislation and energy. Statewide, the average score in the House was 62 percent.
Housing near train stations on a fast track
By DOM COSENTINO, The Intelligencer
It is being touted as the hot new trend in development, as a way to build with high density housing while also reducing traffic, increasing use of mass transit and enhancing overall quality of life.
It is called transit-oriented development (TOD), and it is meant not only to be done near a mass transit facility, but to “fully capitalize on (the transit facility's) proximity and promote ridership, and economic and community development,” according to a 2007 report done by the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC).
That same DVRPC study said more than 100 of the 300-plus rail stations in the Delaware Valley are engaged in some sort of TOD-related activity, although some projects may be “merely transit-adjacent.”
Warminster, however, is considering the formation of a full-fledged TOD district. The board of supervisors on July 10 authorized advertising an ordinance that, if approved, would pave the way for a proposal by J.G. Petrucci Co. of Asbury, N.J., to convert a 16-acre industrial site near the Jacksonville Plaza shopping center into a 200-home mixed-use development within walking distance to the nearby SEPTA regional rail station.
Campaign will market older towns
By Nick Pipitone and Diane Mastrull , Inquirer Staff Writers
An ordinarily low-profile agency known for dispensing planning advice is unleashing a marketing campaign to promote older towns as a viable alternative to living in the far-flung suburbs.
Today, the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission will launch a push to get people to move into inner-ring suburbs such as Collingswood and Lansdowne, or to Philadelphia's lesser-known neighborhoods.
It will do so with the help of nine boroughs in Pennsylvania and New Jersey and two city neighborhoods that the DVRPC has designated the inaugural "Classic Towns of Greater Philadelphia."
"We think the time is right that people rediscover these kinds of communities," said Barry Seymour, executive director of the DVRPC - and someone who walks the talk as a resident of the Main Line inner-ring town of Narberth.
By Andrea Fuller: TheHill.com
“Johnson’s EPA has shown an extraordinary disregard for the law,” Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said. “And by extension, they’ve shown a disregard for the people that we represent and for all the American people.”
Boxer, joined by Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), also called on Attorney General Michael Mukasey to investigate whether Johnson has made false or misleading statements to Congress.
“Administrator Johnson has repeatedly been warned by Congress and the courts that he is on a dangerous course,” said Boxer in a news conference. “Time after time, the courts, all the way up to the Supreme Court of the United States, have overturned EPA's actions and accused EPA of employing, and I’m quoting from some of these decisions, ‘the logic of the Queen of Hearts and living in a Humpty-Dumpty world, where everything is upside-down.’”
