Housing

Want to live closer to work but can't afford to? Have your boss pay. A local business group plans to lay out that proposal in a report today. The Los Angeles Business Council, which counts real estate executives as members, contends that an affordable place to live near major job centers in Southern California remains out of reach for many despite a drop in home prices. "L.A. is not affordable, even with the economic decline," council President Mary Leslie said. The lack of affordable housing near employment centers and the region's inadequate public transportation system contribute to Southern California's congested streets and highways, Leslie said.

The Los Angeles City Council unanimously approved $2 million Tuesday for a home ownership program that targets a Lincoln Heights development. Officials said the loan program was created to increase the buying power for low-income families and improve the economic development of the area. The city program will subsidize up to $50,000 to provide deferred second mortgage loans at City View Terrace, a townhome-style development at the 3700 block of Baldwin Street.

A Hungarian track athlete sits in a salon chair, an Olympic torch half shaved into his hair. A Russian distance runner needs seven pins to pick up a 10th-frame spare to break 60 in a game of bowling. Nyet! Gutter ball. A Canadian rower signs on to the Internet to correspond with his friends back in Nova Scotia--and check on what the local sportswriters are saying about his performance. A judoist from the Czech Republic frets over the selection of Olympic pins in a makeshift department store.

At one Orange County construction site, the traditional sounds of home building--hammers thumping on wood--have given way to a more grating noise. The air there rings with what some say are the sounds of the future: screws twisting into metal, saws slicing through steel. Instead of wood frames, the 14 houses on this street will have skeletons of steel. Taylor Woodrow Homes California Ltd. is introducing steel-frame tract housing in Orange County after launching a similar venture in Temecula.

The groundbreaking for a housing facility and service center for homeless women and children was celebrated Monday morning at its future site just west of downtown. The Women's Village, at 1650 Rockwood Blvd., is a $10.5-million project of the Good Shepherd Center for Homeless Women, a Catholic nonprofit group.

The city's Neighborhood Improvement Committee has been commended by the National Assn. of Housing and Redevelopment Officials for the revitalization of Stuart Drive. The neighborhood, plagued by crime and overcrowding, has been transformed since 1994, when the city formed a special committee to revive the blighted street, said Susan Evans, the city's housing development director.

The city has opened the door a little wider for low-income residents who want to improve their homes, but not as much as housing officials would have liked. City Council members tentatively agreed this week to lower the eligibility ceiling for the city's housing rehabilitation program after the housing coordinator argued that they could be helping more residents.

The Las Virgenes Unified School District has drawn up tentative plans for a new elementary school in Westlake Village to accommodate an influx of students from proposed housing developments north of the Ventura Freeway. Irvine-based Western Pacific Housing has proposed building 180 condominiums on a 23-acre site that is part of the city's Westlake North Specific Plan. Another developer, Westwood-based Kaufman & Broad Home Corp.

A group of developers is hoping to build as many as 1,100 homes in the hills above San Clemente, making it one of the largest residential projects in years targeted for this seaside community. The Irvine-based partnership, which includes Laing Homes, Institutional Housing Partners (IHP) and New West Properties, has signed a letter of intent to purchase about 875 acres. The property is being sold by Westinghouse Credit Corp. in the Forster Ranch area.