Affordable Housing

A Denny's coffee shop in Santa Monica has been sold for $11.25 million to a prominent developer known for building apartments in dense urban neighborhoods. The property at the northwest corner of Colorado Avenue and Lincoln Boulevard had an assessed value of less than $1.5 million, but it lies near the planned terminus of a Metro Rail train line expected to connect Santa Monica and downtown Los Angeles by 2016 and is in a new mixed-use pedestrian district identified by the city.

Last week, one of the country's oldest and largest public economic development programs came to an inglorious end when the governor and Legislature pulled the plug on California's 400 redevelopment agencies. So why did the governor and lawmakers end the state's only real community revitalization program, especially at a time when there is such great need for jobs and affordable housing? The biggest reason was the desire of local governments and the state to use the programs' resources - about $6 billion a year statewide - to fill budget holes.

What does it take to make people more physically active? Maybe just a sign. Signs posted in buildings prompting people to take the stairs instead of the elevators proved successful in getting them to hoof it, a study finds. Signs were placed in three multi-story buildings in New York: a three-story health clinic, an eight-story academic site and a 10-story affordable housing building. The signs featured a pictogram of a man walking up stairs with text that read, "Burn calories, not electricity.

It almost seemed as though oil drilling rigs were ready to tap into Los Angeles' first petroleum field again. But the workers setting up a pair of derricks south of Echo Park last week were plugging some of the city's oldest wells — not drilling new ones. The sealing of the long-abandoned wells by Allenco Energy to make way for a 45-unit affordable housing project marks the end of an era for the Los Angeles City Oil Field, which sparked Southern California's oil boom 120 years ago. The city's first commercially successful oil well was drilled about 350 feet away, at the corner of Glendale Boulevard and Rockwood Street.

Days after the California Supreme Court moved to shut down about 400 municipal redevelopment agencies, local officials are scrambling to convince the same Legislature that abolished the agencies to resurrect some of their spending powers. Some local officials predict that if the Legislature doesn't act within the next month, there will be a flurry of lawsuits, as well as layoffs and further economic stagnation. The court's decision could affect everything from police services in Oakland to a planned walkway to the ocean in Santa Monica.

What financially strapped homeowner wouldn't want to join other troubled owners in a last-ditch effort to save their homes from foreclosure? But beware of unsolicited mailings inviting your participation in a "mass joinder" lawsuit as a way to do so. Mass joinders can be just another way to separate desperate borrowers from their money — as much as $5,000 or more in upfront fees, according to the St. Louis Better Business Bureau. The bureau warned earlier this year that the mailings are the latest twist in scams that promise to force lenders to modify the loans of borrowers who no longer can afford their house payments or who owe more than their homes are worth.

As a professional event planner, Allegra Allison has done studio openings, elaborate backyard parties and plush dinner soirees. But it took her eight years to pull off her biggest challenge: the preservation of a last-of-its-kind West Hollywood estate nicknamed "Tara" because of its resemblance to the mansion in "Gone With the Wind. " City Council members this week voted to scrap plans to turn the two-story, Colonial-style home and its wooded grounds into a federally funded, 28-unit apartment complex for low-income senior citizens.

If walls could speak. That's what came to mind when I noticed a short newspaper item announcing that the former home of Ben Margolis, an attorney who advocated on behalf of downtrodden workers, besieged Reds and persecuted labor activists, was for sale. The hillside Los Feliz house, designed by Gregory Ain in the early 1950s, with a 21st century addition by Pierre Koenig, is being offered for just under $2 million. The house Ain built Margolis is likely to sell even in the current slow market: Midcentury modern architecture is in demand at the moment.

Housing and Urban Development officials have accused struggling Montebello of numerous violations, including giving affordable housing grants directly to individuals rather than through approved entities and failing to determine whether those who got the grants were truly needy. One homeowner who applied for funds meant to allow low-income households to fix up their homes admitted owning four pieces of property in Hawaii. But the city did not take those assets into account when determining the applicant's eligibility.

Money intended for the construction of a Los Angeles affordable-housing project instead was diverted to pay for a high-end renovation of a Glendale city councilman's condominium, according to a subcontractor who worked on both jobs. Ronald Chamberlain, owner of D & A Coating & Restoration of Fullerton, told The Times the FBI took records involving his work at the home of John Drayman, who lost his reelection bid for the Glendale City Council in April. He said agents also questioned him about Drayman.