Residential Building

WASHINGTON - -The economy took two steps forward and one step back in May as housing starts picked up but industrial production fell more than expected. Housing starts jumped higher than expected, as did building permits, offering a glimpse of future building activity. Together both pieces of data suggested the housing slump might be closer to bottoming out and will stop being a drag on the economy. However, the increase in residential building was not much help to the manufacturing sector, which continues to shrink.

There's reason for a bit more cautious optimism about the economic outlook these days after there was a bit of an uptick in applications for new residential building permits. Certainly, the news comes as a mixed bag. Permit numbers were up in 2011 compared to the previous two years, which were terrible. And the numbers of four years ago at the peak of the most recent housing boom were not up to the highs of the 1980s, either in terms of raw numbers or percentage of growth in county residences.

A dramatic drop in residential building permits this year is no surprise to Carroll homebuilders -- who are taking their business elsewhere, industry representatives say.Through Aug. 31, 528 permits have been issued. If the rate remains constant through December, only 792 would be issued for the year -- a 33 percent drop from last year.Planning Director Philip J. Rovang told the county planning commission yesterday that he expects the total to be about 775 permits. The county budget office has based its revenue projections for this year on 950 permits.

WASHINGTON - -The economy took two steps forward and one step back in May as housing starts picked up but industrial production fell more than expected. Housing starts jumped higher than expected, as did building permits, offering a glimpse of future building activity. Together both pieces of data suggested the housing slump might be closer to bottoming out and will stop being a drag on the economy. However, the increase in residential building was not much help to the manufacturing sector, which continues to shrink.

OCEAN CITY -- County Commissioner W. Benjamin Brown compared Carroll's new growth-control law Friday to an airplane flight on which the luggage arrives with the passengers.But that wasn't the case three years ago, when he and Commissioners Donald I. Dell and Richard T. Yates took office, Brown told delegates attending the Maryland Association of Counties convention, which ended yesterday."What was needed didn't get to where it was needed when it was needed," Brown said. "We discovered there really was a place between a rock and a hard place -- and that no sane person wants to be there."

BEIJING - A series of mysterious blasts ripped through buildings in the North China city of Shijiazhuang early yesterday, killing at least 18 people, according to China's official Xinhua news agency. Xinhua said one of the blasts occurred near a workers' dormitory attached to the state-owned Number Three Cotton Factory. The Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy, an independent watchdog/news agency in Hong Kong, said there were four separate explosions. It said that 170 people lived in the dormitory next to the Number Three Factory and that - 12 hours after the blast - only 28 people had been rescued.

Cautious lenders, stagnant personal income and high office vacancy rates are the causes of the continuing slowdown in both residential and non-residential building activity in the Baltimore area, according to regional economists.In July, only 850 residential building permits were issued in the Baltimore area, a 9 percent decrease from the level of July 1990, the Baltimore Regional Council of Governments reported yesterday. It was the lowest number for a July since 1982 and 50 percent below the average July from 1983 to 1990.

Residential building activity in Carroll increased in the first quarter of this year compared with last year, General Services Director J. Michael Evans told the county commissioners yesterday."

The City Council voted Monday to put an end to the 19-month-old moratorium on sewer hookup permits for residential building.The council passed the resolution rescinding the ban unanimously Monday, but quickly added that if the treatment plant work were to stall again, the council would not hesitate to re-enact the moratorium.City planners became concerned two years ago when expansion and upgrade of the city's wastewater treatment plant bogged down, and new residential building pushed the facility's workload near capacity.

Developers are welcoming a recommendation by city planners that the city resume issuing sewer-hookup permits for residential building.The City Council received a memo Friday suggesting that the 18-month-old "sewer-allocation program" -- which, in essence, served as a moratorium on residential building in the city -- be lifted by April 1."It's definitely good news," said Hampstead builder Martin K. P. Hill, who operates Masonry Contractors Inc.The recommendation comes from the city's Ad Hoc Growth Management Task Force, a five-memberpanel composed of city department heads charged with studying Westminster growth issues.

Issue: -- The Harford County Council approved a rezoning package that reversed dozens of recommendations made by the county planning and zoning department and nearly quadrupled the number of business zoning requests that had been approved. County Executive David R. Craig has said that the council erred in approving more than 50 amendments - some of which would add nearly 175 acres for business use - and added that he has not ruled out vetoing the package. Should the county executive veto the council's comprehensive rezoning package?

The race is on again for homebuilding permits in Harford County. Homebuilders are beating a path to the Department of Planning and Zoning to obtain permits before a newly approved impact fee kicks in, county officials say. The rush started Wednesday morning, hours after the County Council approved a $6,000 fee on new single-family homes to help pay for school construction and renovation. For a townhouse or duplex, the fee is $4,200. For all other residential units, including mobile homes, the cost is $1,200.

Locust Point old-timers came by the hundreds yesterday to a traditional spring dinner to feast on fried chicken, reminisce about the past and wonder whether their tight-knit peninsula can survive the tidal wave of upscale residential development. "They are just smothering us," Joan Bolton, 70, said of developers who are transforming the old neighborhood of longshoremen and blue-collar workers near Fort McHenry into a pocket of gentrification, with houses selling for more than $400,000.

A transitional zone of professional offices is one suggestion for an Ellicott City neighborhood that serves as a contentious boundary between commercial and residential zoning. Howard County Councilman Christopher J. Merdon, an Ellicott City-Elkridge Republican, has asked area residents, developers and property owners for feedback on the possibility of residential-style professional offices across from the Long Gate Shopping Center on Montgomery Road. Since 1998, residents in neighboring subdivisions have been fighting to keep land across from Long Gate residentially zoned, fearing the spread of commercial development and the possibility that commercial zoning will hinder negotiations to build a much-needed elementary school.

All the planning in the world can't change this reality: The success of Howard County's ambitious strategy to transform U.S. 1 into an inviting urban center with office buildings and high-rise apartments hinges on the people who own the land. The task would be tricky even if all the owners were gung-ho for change because the boulevard is surrounded by a jigsaw puzzle of property - many owners, many small parcels - that would have to be pulled together into bigger pieces before anything substantial could happen.

In a city of established neighborhoods with distinct personalities, the nascent downtown apartment market has an image problem. Few potential residents have an idea of what living in the business district would be like. But developers who have invested time and millions of dollars on uncharted residential territory are crafting messages they hope will be persuasive: The buildings are "luxurious" and "urban" with "high ceilings" and "24-hour" fitness and business centers "within walking distance" of everything.

County builders hope the twofold increase in residential building permit applications in the fourth quarter of 1991 over the same period in 1990 is a sign the economy is starting to recover.But other 1991 indicators show a less optimistic outlook, with residential applications down 49 percent from 1990 overall."Housing usually leads the economy out of a recession," said Jeffrey B. Powers, president of the Carroll chapter of the Home Builders Association of Maryland."We will have a better '92, but how much better is the question," said Powers of Powers Construction Co. in Westminster.

After meeting with local bankers for several hours Monday afternoon,County Council member Shane Pendergrass, D-1st, unveiled a bill thatwould continue the residential building cap until Sept. 15.The bill would take effect upon passage. It would allow 1,251 building permits to be issued from then until the September cutoff date or until the council enacts an adequate facilities ordinance, whichever comes first.Pendergrass' proposal would end the current two-tier system underwhich developers apply for and receive permit allocation certificates before obtaining building permits.

Maryland's economic and labor departments have released figures showing the state's construction industry may be enjoying a rebound - good news for the state's lagging economy. Construction companies surveyed reported that they expect a fourth-quarter turnaround and anticipate hiring more than 1,000 workers overall. Because the construction industry is usually a leading indicator, Maryland economic experts are optimistic about the state's business prospects. Separately, McGraw-Hill Construction Information Group reported that the value of residential building contracts in the state in August was $435.

PORTLAND, Ore. - Just blocks from this city's center, a brand-new urban neighborhood is rising from bare ground once covered by Burlington Northern rail yards. The 34-acre Hoyt Street Yards development, still just a promise of what's to come, has sold out all five of its existing residential buildings, which have more than 500 units. Although much of the new River District, bordered to the north by the Willamette River, is still dirt, those who have bought there see a neighborhood in which the potential is obvious.