BANGOR, Maine The city will officially take over a pair of abandoned properties in the city with a history of unpaid taxes after the City Council unanimously voted to move ahead with the seizures.

The city will take possession of 147 Court St., an apartment building next to Coe Park covered in graffiti and plywood to board up the entrances, as well as a vacant lot at 91 Larkin St. Both properties have matured tax liens against them and city officials have been unable to contact or identify the owners.

In past years, the city has avoided going after properties with back taxes, but recently councilors have urged city staff to acquire abandoned properties where possible in order to reduce the number of dangerous eyesores in the city.

The blighted apartment building will be torn down, allowing the city to sell off the buildable lot underneath. The city will enter talks with neighbors of 91 Larkin St. to see if they would like to add that plot of land to their property.

Also during Monday nights meeting, the council approved a one-year lease for the Bangor Farmers Markets continued use of the parking lot across the street from Bangor Public Library, at no cost to the market.

The council voted to use this lease proposal to replace one that came out of committee last week, which would have assessed a $25 annual rental fee on the seasonal market. However, that one was a three-year lease. The question of whether to assess a fee on the market sparked a contentious debate among councilors during a meeting last week.

Several councilors said they want to take time to discuss the citys policy on charging fees for use of city space. Right now, there is no written policy, and the city assesses fees on some groups for use of public space, but not others.

The farmers market organizers said they arent opposed to a small fee and want to continue operating near Bangors downtown for the long term. Bangor councilors also said they want to ensure the market continues operating in Bangor, but some want to ensure that the city is fair and equitable in whether and how much it charges groups for use of city space.

They will take up that question during a Government Operations Committee meeting in March.

In other business, the council:

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Bangor Council votes to take possession of abandoned properties, OKs one-year free lease with farmers market

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DALLAS (CBS 11 News) - Hundreds of people gathered in Preston Hollow Park this Saturday, for a rally in opposition to a new apartment development plan.

Developer Transwestern is proposing to build a multi-story luxury apartment building at the northeast corner of Northwest Highway and Preston Road.

Condos and apartments are currently located at the busy intersection.

The 12 people who own the Town House Row community that faces Preston have decided to sell, and picked Transwestern as the potential buyer and developer.

We went through many, many developers and think we picked the best one for the property, said Pamela Smith.

Transwestern has drawn up plans for a complex that would include more than 200 apartment units and stand six stories at the tallest level.

When neighbors in the Preston Hollow East neighborhood got word of the project, Homeowners Association President Ashley Parks says,they became concerned with the scope of the development.

Its the traffic. When Preston and Northwest Highway are clogged, people will cut through the streets where we live, where we walk our dogs, take our strollers, Parks Said. Were really concerned about that because there are times when it is already backed up that someone will go 50 mph through our neighborhood.

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Residents Rally Against Construction Of Luxury Apartments

(Updated Friday 3:30 p.m.) The day after a roof collapsed on a vacant apartment building on Winthrop Avenue, the owner said the structure will be demolished.

Cops and firefighters rushed to the building at 217 Winthrop Thursday afternoon and determined the building was empty and no one had been hurt.

Jim Eggert (pictured inspecting the building), a city building official, said the property owner would have to either repair or demolish the structure, which was built in 1965.

The owner, the not-for-profit Mutual Housing, decided to demolish. Seila Mosquera, head of Mutual Housing, shared that news Friday afternoon.

Mosquera said Mutual Housing had planned to tear down the building, but had been waiting for warmer weather to do so. The roof collapse has accelerated those plans; Mosquera said the tear-down will happen as soon as possible.

Mutual Housing has owned the property for a few years, and had been waiting for the housing market to improve before beginning new construction on the site, Mosquera said.

After the building is demolished, the organization plans to build several owner-occupied homes, she said. We want to build two or three townhouses.

She said construction could begin by the end of the year. Were still trying to make sure we have potential buyers.

Police and firefighters responded the partial collapse around 4:30 p.m. Thursday. The vacant, three-story apartment building sits behind a fence locked with a rusty chain.

The roof appeared to be collapsed and the wall on one side of the top floor was leaning outward as of 5:10 p.m. Thursday. Wires, boards, insulation, and other debris hung from the building.

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Caved-In Building Will Come Down

Fire crews respond Sunday, Feb. 9, 2014 to a four-alarm fire at 550 East 500 South in Salt Lake City.

Scott G Winterton, Deseret News

SALT LAKE CITY When asked why he did it, the man accused of causing a four-alarm fire in downtown Salt Lake City told investigators, "Maybe I wanted to see the fire department."

A federal arson charge was filed Wednesday against Dustin Jay Bowman, 33, of Bountiful. Bowman is accused of intentionally setting a fire on Feb. 9 that destroyed a 64,000-square-foot apartment building under construction at 540 E. 500 South, causing an estimated $6 million in damage.

When interviewed by investigators, Bowman said he was at the construction site smoking Spice when he lit a crumpled piece of cardboard on fire and tossed it under a bathtub that was enclosed in a cardboard box and leaning against a wooden wall, according to the federal complaint.

"Bowman claimed if he intended to start a fire, then it was only to start a small fire, perhaps involving one or two apartments," the complaint stated.

Arson investigators confirmed that the fire started in a first floor apartment on the south end of the building.

Burning embers from the fire also damaged the roof of the nearby Smith's grocery store. The business suffered additional damage when it rained and water went through the damaged roof into the store, according to the federal charge.

The dental offices next to the construction site also suffered "substantial water and smoke damage," the report states.

Based on surveillance video gathered from nearby businesses, investigators believe Bowman first arrived at the construction site about 5:22 p.m on Feb. 9. By 5:45 p.m., a surveillance video camera recorded Bowman walking along 500 South away from the building, according to charging documents. At 5:46 p.m., smoke began rising from the building, according to the complaint.

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Bountiful man faces federal arson charge in Salt Lake apartment fire

Posted on: 1:11 pm, February 18, 2014, by David Wells, updated on: 01:13pm, February 18, 2014

SALT LAKE CITY A 4-alarm fire at a Salt Lake City apartment building was intentionally set, according to a press release from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).

After five days of extensive scene examination and multipe interviews, investigators have ruled the cause of the fire to be incendiary. The factors resulting in the finding of incendiary are not being released due to the ongoing investigation, the ATF press release said.

A joint investigation was conducted at the scene of the fire by the ATFs National Response Team and the Salt Lake City Fire Department.

A probable cause statement from the Salt Lake County Sheriffs Office indicates Dustin J. Bowman admitted to starting the structure fire at 540 E 500 S on February 9.

Since the apartment building was still under construction, the fire was exacerbated by the large amount of exposed wood in the building.

The damage is currently estimated at $6 million.

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ATF: Fire at SLC apartment building intentionally set

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U.S. housing construction down 16% in January

Real estate analysts say Charlottes apartment building boom could oversaturate the rental market this year, possibly prompting free-rent offers and other concessions as leasing competition intensifies.

Developers, however, say the long-term outlook for the Charlotte apartment market remains bright.

Much of the new apartment growth is coming in and near uptown Charlotte, in areas such as the South End, SouthPark, NoDa and Elizabeth neighborhoods, according to research firm Real Data, which tracks the multifamily rental market.

In its most recent twice-yearly report on the Charlotte market, Real Data in September characterized the citys apartment development pipeline as very active, with more than 8,100 units under construction and nearly 12,000 more proposed.

Supply is expected to exceed demand within a year, the report states.

You can expect to see communities of all ages offering one to three months rent-free in the months to come, in reaction to increased competition, Real Data analyst Engle Addington wrote in an email to the Observer last week.

Frank Warren, a real estate analyst with engineering and land-planning firm Kimley-Horn, said Charlotte is building more apartments than can typically be absorbed in a year. But he added: I am fairly convinced demand is going to remain strong and any oversupply will be of a limited duration.

Developers believe favorable demographic trends and pent-up post-recession demand will cushion them against a possible multifamily market bubble or the need for steep rent concessions.

Lennar, a major single-family homebuilder, is developing Astoria at Metropolitan, a 261-unit complex in midtown, and has two other projects under contract, said John Gray, director of investments with Lennar Multifamily Communities.

Charlottes healthy job and population growth make such projects good bets, he said. Vacancy rates are at about 5 percent, according to Real Data, well below the 7 to 8percent that Warren calls an equilibrium point.

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Is Charlotte building too many apartments?

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By Mike Dunn

PHILADELPHIA (CBS)The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, better known as the Mormon Church, is already building a new temple in Center City and now we get word of two new projects, including a massive new apartment building.

The Mormon Church has hired the noted New York architectural firm of Robert A. M. Stern to design both a new meetinghouse and a high rise apartment building. The projects will be built on vacant lots on the 16-hundred block of Vine Street, just one block from where the new Mormon Temple is currently going up.

Stern architect Paul Whalen says the two new buildings will fit in well.The buildings will work together to extend the north wall of Logan Square, currently defined by the Free Library, the Family Court building, and the LDS Temple, which is currently under construction.

Most notable is the apartment building, which is being built by the church for business purposes, so rental units are not limited to church members. Whalen says it will have more than 250 units.

The residential tower will rise 32 floors with vertical bounds of windows and setbacks to articulate the facades, and a variety of rental apartments some with corner balconies providing views out to the city.

Whalen says the tower will also include town homes and retail at the street level.The tower meets the street at a pedestrian scale, with a low row of townhouses on Vine Street and another on Wood Street. The townhouse entrances will bring activity and a sense of safety to these streets.

The meetinghouse will differ from the Temple in that it will be open to the public, while the Temple is limited to church members.

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The Mormon Church Bringing 2 New Buildings To Center City

SEATTLE A backhoe, an apprentice plumber and a 20,000-year-old piece of ivory (give or take a few millenniums) have brought out Puget Sound's inner paleontologist.

Last week a Columbian mammoth tusk was discovered in the foundation of an apartment building under construction in the South Lake Union neighborhood. On Friday, three days after the discovery, scientists carefully crated the 81/2 -foot-long fossil and sent it to a museum for study.

In between, a steady stream of curious onlookers made their way to the giant hole across the street from an Amazon.com office building in hopes of getting a peek at the largest and most intact piece of prehistoric dentition ever discovered in Jet City.

That, of course, is the allure: ice age meets computer age.

Ryan Eyre, an unemployed English teacher, peeked through the chain-link fence baring "No trespassing" signs, hoping that the ancient ivory wasn't entirely covered up by a tarp.

It was, for its own protection.

"I came out entirely to see it," Eyre said. "I'm fascinated with this kind of stuff, and they found it within a mile of where I live."

Where tech workers troll and apartment buildings rise, herds of giant prehistoric proboscideans once roamed, grazing on verdant grasslands studded with the occasional pine, pounding down hundreds of pounds of roughage daily to nourish their vast bulk.

Mammoths migrated to North America from Asia about 2 million years ago and became extinct about 10,000 years ago. There is little agreement about what killed off the ancient relatives of today's elephants, but scientists point to a combination of climate change and hunting by humans.

Until last week, only 25 mammoth fossils had been found in the Seattle area, mostly skeleton fragments. So the discovery of a long, curving, intact tusk set paleontologists around the country abuzz.

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Ancient mammoth tusk offers gateway to Seattle's history

Crews work on the scene Monday morning after a four-alarm fire broke out Sunday night at the site of a future apartment complex at 500 South and 500 East.

Matt Gade, Deseret News

SALT LAKE CITY Federal officials announced Saturday that an arrest was made in the four-alarm inferno that burned a Salt Lake apartment building under construction.

Dustin Jay Bowman, 33, of Bountiful, was booked into the Salt Lake County Jail late Friday night for investigation of arson.

Bowman "stated that he did intentionally start a fire in the structure at 540 E. 500 South" on Feb. 9, a jail report written by a Salt Lake fire investigator states. Investigators said the blaze caused $2.5 million in damage.

Bowman apparently worked at the construction site. On what appears to be his Facebook page, he lists his occupation as an electrician and posted three photos labeled "downtown fire aftermath" the day after the blaze and included a link to a news story about it.

"Guess I'm not working Monday," one post states. "New House apartment complex construction burnt down. Anybody want to hire an electrician for a day or two? Maybe the boss has some temp power to hook up somewhere or something. Can't really afford a day off."

No official charges have been filed against Bowman.

Brad Beyersdorf, spokesman for the Denver office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, confirmed that an arrest was made, but refused to release any other information about the arrest, including Bowman's name or the nature of his alleged offense.

"We're not finished with the on-scene investigation," he said Saturday. "Due to the ongoing investigation and continuing judicial process, no further information can be released at this time."

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Bountiful man arrested in Salt Lake inferno that caused $2.5M in damage