Housing

The housing plan unveiled by President Obama on Wednesday goes further than any previous effort to break the vicious cycle of declining home values, rising mortgage defaults and frozen credit that triggered the country's worst recession since the 1930s. And it embraces strategies that attack the complex problems on several fronts but without requiring a long struggle in Congress.

Los Angeles County supervisors unanimously approved a plan Tuesday to relocate the few remaining residents of the blighted Ujima Village subsidized housing complex in Willowbrook within 90 days, but they turned down housing officials' appeal for eviction powers. Citing contamination concerns, county housing officials had urged supervisors to give them the authority to evict those reluctant to leave.

A coalition of Los Angeles business groups put forward an affordable-housing plan Thursday that its leaders said would lead to more apartments and condos for working people without imposing restrictions that could cast a pall over entrepreneurial efforts. Its centerpiece is a network of "housing incentive zones" where developers building housing with at least some workforce units would be allowed to relax height and parking requirements and receive expedited approvals.

While an Orange County facility that cares for abused and neglected children provides spacious cottage-like facilities and roughly four staffers per child, conditions at county juvenile hall are far more bleak, with a shortage of beds and waiting lists for basic programs, according to a grand jury report released Tuesday. "It's almost like you are comparing an area of barracks to Beverly Hills," said grand jury foreman Jim Perez.

In a move that immediately angered business and development interests, Los Angeles officials declared Thursday that only a fraction of industrial land in downtown would be opened to residential and commercial uses. The joint directive by the city's planning department and redevelopment agency -- supported by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa -- would preserve about 2,633 acres of land zoned for industry while opening 261 acres to residential development.

Days before his hotel-condominium plan was to be reviewed by Anaheim city planners, a developer said he may scrap his project over concerns about the crumbling housing and hotel markets and the pressure of a looming Disney-backed ballot initiative. Derek Baak's proposal is one of at least two residential projects in Anaheim's Resort District that would face a citywide vote if an anti-housing initiative passes in June.

In the Depression-era Wyvernwood Garden Apartments in the heart of East Los Angeles, the electricity often goes off if you try to run a toaster and a coffeepot at the same time. No cable TV, no high-speed Internet, no air conditioning. The orange stucco buildings in Boyle Heights, home to about 6,000 residents, are showing their age. The neighborhood has been troubled by crime and gang activity for more than a decade.

Conquest Student Housing, a firm accused of using intimidation and fraud against rival developers of off-campus student housing near USC, has agreed to stop challenging any competitors' projects within two miles of the school. USC and allied developers described the settlement, which was announced Friday, as a victory over a potential monopoly in the off-campus apartment business and as a step to provide more much-needed housing.

More people are applying for home loans, but that doesn't mean they are getting them. In a rare piece of good news for the mortgage industry, applications for home loans rose last week to a nearly four-year high after a sharp drop in interest rates on 30-year fixed-rate loans. Much of the surge in applications since the start of the year has been from homeowners looking to refinance at lower rates.

Contract negotiations are seldom easy, but this could be a new low. Talks between Disney and one of the resort's biggest unions are stalled for an unlikely reason: The parties have spent two months trying to agree on a meeting place. Union leaders believe that rancor over a dispute about housing for workers in the Anaheim Resort District has spilled into talks between Walt Disney Co. and employees at three Disney hotels.