Real Estate Developers

When the Concerto high-rise condominium project opens this year in downtown Los Angeles, developer Hassan "Sonny" Astani will be lucky not to lose his shirt. With the market for condos in woeful decline, he already knows he won't make much money -- if any. Progress, at this point, would be to complete the $300-million project while staying out of bankruptcy.

Was it the real estate downturn, or were people misled into a risky investment scheme? That's the question at the center of a lawsuit filed Tuesday that accuses Orange County real estate lender Dan J. Harkey of bilking dozens of investors out of more than $15 million. In an added twist, the investors claim that their money helped fund the election of Harkey's wife, state Assemblywoman Diane L. Harkey (R-Dana Point).

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.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's top appointee on the city Planning Commission sent an e-mail to neighborhood activists asserting that a new city ordinance that allows housing developers to roll back zoning rules may violate state law.

Hundreds of thousands of drivers daily thread their way through the spaghetti-like interchange of Interstate 5 and the Antelope Valley Freeway, and some may well recall its spectacular collapse in the 1994 Northridge earthquake. Few, however, probably are aware of the six-year development battle raging over the jagged ridgelines cradled between the intersecting freeways at the Newhall Pass.

Eight years ago, Brian A. Sweeney, a Manhattan Beach real estate investor and developer, began buying land in the Santa Monica Mountains. As environmentalists watched, he persuaded owners to sell him 26 parcels of prime coastal real estate. Piece by piece, he got L.A. County permission to alter boundaries that added road access and filed plans to develop homes. When he was done, Sweeney had quadrupled the market value of the land, without hammering a single stick into the ground.

The desert backcountry of San Diego County has always been a great place for long shadows -- the wiry ocotillo stalks at dawn, the oasis in Palm Canyon, the outline of a bighorn sheep on a rocky ridge at sunset. But in Borrego Springs right now, nobody throws more shade than a slim, 6-foot newcomer from Sherman Oaks named Gregory Perlman.

Developer Wayne Ratkovich had little idea 30 years ago when he and his partners bought an unwanted office building in downtown Los Angeles that a forgotten gem lay waiting. The office market at the time was hot for glass and steel towers, and to hell with the old piles such as the Art Deco-style James Oviatt Building. The former UCLA football player in his 30s wasn't sure exactly what "Art Deco" encompassed. What he uncovered was an architectural treasure that he proceeded to bring back to life.

The first sign of trouble came almost immediately after Kurt and Michelle Dahlin moved into Lancaster's new Westview Estates in March 2007. The water slowed to a trickle midway through showering. The toilet tank took two hours to refill. The family often was forced to bathe at 4 a.m. -- before the neighbors awoke and the water flow became a dribble. Some days, there was no water at all. Things only got worse as more homeowners moved into the gated community on the outskirts of Lancaster.

It felt to some residents of Briny Breezes like the whole town won the lottery. Most of the 488 shareholders in the oceanfront trailer park will become millionaires as a result of Wednesday's vote to sell the community of aging aluminum single-wides to a Palm Beach developer for $510 million. But the owners' decision -- seen as capitulation to the condominium encroachment that has consumed most of the rest of the sun-splashed South Florida coast -- was met with as many tears and jeers as cheers.