HOUSING: REGULATIONS TO DEFEAT REGULATIONS

Local know-alls restrict the building of new houses so that drives up the price. So new regulations are introduced in an attempt to reverse some of the same price-rise. It will lead to corruption, of course, as people use any non-monetary way they can to get into the artificially low priced homes

Hoping to get a leg up on rising home prices, Davis is climbing the economic ladder to reach the next rung of families who need help finding affordable housing: those earning nearly $100,000. The City Council has approved a plan requiring builders to make 25 percent of homes in new developments affordable for middle-income buyers, defined as families of four who earn $72,240 to $96,320 annually. The rule is on top of an existing 25 percent requirement for low-and moderate-income buyers, who earn $30,100 to $72,240 for a four-member household.

In addition, officials want folks who work in Davis to get first dibs on the affordable homes. Some who don't work, however - including retirees and those with disabilities - also would get preferences. Meanwhile, the city is studying a cap that would limit residential growth to 250 units annually.

While other California cities and counties have similar "inclusionary housing" ordinances targeting families with very low to moderate incomes, Davis is believed to be the only one in the state to extend help to core middle-class households. "Middle income" is defined as 80 percent to 120 percent of the annual Yolo County median income of $60,200 for a family of four. (The median is the point at which half the households earn more, half less.) "We're very excited about it," Mayor Ruth Asmundson said. "This council has been saying we want the people who work in Davis to be able to live in Davis to maintain the quality of life we have. They have to have a vested interest in the community."

After two years of study and public discussion, the City Council approved the new affordable housing rules in concept last month. Staff members are working out key details - including how to give preferences for affordable units - for formal ordinances to be heard early next year, Community Development Director Bill Emlen said.

Basic economic principles of supply and demand are squeezing solid middle-class home buyers in Davis. Relatively low crime and top schools draw many newcomers to the city of about 62,000. Meanwhile, a strong community desire for slow growth has resulted in steep housing prices for even well-educated professionals. "We're talking about folks like nurses, police officers, firefighters, teachers and administrative personnel at UC Davis," Emlen said. "Some professors even fall into that category, depending on where they're at in their tenure." A consultant hired by the city to study the needs of middle-income families found a growing gap between earnings and housing costs. The study said median income in Yolo County since 1995 increased 37 percent, from $44,000 to $60,200. Meanwhile, the average home price in Davis increased 140 percent, from $191,600 to $461,163. The consultant also found that middle-income families in Davis could afford homes costing $282,000 to $387,000. However, in March, the median sales price for all homes in the city was $425,000.

The result is that many who work in Davis - and earn too much to qualify for low-or moderate-income housing - commute from homes in Dixon, Sacramento and Woodland, Asmundson said. To increase housing opportunities in Davis, the council agreed that 25 percent was a reasonable target for middle-income buyers, she said. "Since this hasn't been done before, we need to be cautious ... but my hope is that the percentage can keep going up," Asmundson said. "We want to keep looking for ways so people who work here can live here."

Meanwhile, city officials see the proposed annual limit of 250 new units - which is slightly lower than the current rate - as both a target and a cap for residential growth. Emlen said the goal is to "set a parameter for metered growth" that will help the city avoid boom-and-bust development cycles.

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THE GEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE ON GLOBAL WARMING

Compared to the massive heat pouring from earth's core, any effect of carbon dioxide is the merest fleabite. Article reproduced from here. See the original for links

As far as the earth is concerned, and from a geological perspective, 99% of the earth's mass is hotter than 1000 degrees Celsius, and 1% of the earth's mass cooler than 100 degrees celsius - statistics here.

The temperature of space is about 2.7 degrees Kelvin, or expressed in the Celsius scale, approximately -269 degrees Celsius. Therefore the net heat loss from the earth to space is enormous, from which space could be thought as an almost infinite heat sink. And fluctuations of this heat source will overwhelm anything that humanity thinks it could contribute.

And why are we not being cooked to a frazzle on the earth's surface by this enormous mass of matter at a temperature greater than 1000 Degrees Celsius underneath us? Since the temperature gradient between the earth and space is somewhat steep, one wonders about the scientific basis of climate science and the hypothetical construct of anthropogenic CO2 induced global warming, given the overwhelming contribution that the earth's interior makes to the surface temperature of the earth and to space's ability to absorb all this thermal energy.

Given the mass of the solid earth is somewhat greater than that of the atmosphere, of which 0.033 percent is CO2, a simple physics 101 calculation of the heat balance might suggest that the contribution by CO2 to the earth's surface temperature is, for practical purposes, irrelevant. Are these scientific facts incorporated into the climate models? No, for which self respecting climatologist would study geology - the necessary background for miners of coal, oil, metals and industrial minerals.

C02 contributes nothing to the "Greenhouse effect" in practical terms, see here . Climate scientists and the Greens are not repositioning the deck chairs on the Titanic, they are actually screaming about the position of specks of dust on the armrests of those deck chairs.

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

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