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    New project aims to invest in the community, provide more affordable housing – Wooster Daily Record - December 25, 2020 by Mr HomeBuilder

    Samantha Ickes|The Daily Record

    WOOSTER A group of community-minded people are looking to make a difference in the city by bringing affordable housing tothe area.

    Chad Boreman, Justin Starlin and Tom White, along withseveral silent partners, would achieve the goal by investing in dilapidated houses and vacant lots. Investors are testing the model by constructing a single home in the 500 block of Larwill Street to see how the housing market responds.

    The development group is not expecting the plan, in the early stages,to be a profitable venture, Boreman said.

    "It's more of an experiment to see what can we do and how will this impact the community," he explained.

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    The site was formerly the Larwill Mobile Home Park, which was sold to the development group in March 2019 after it closed and residents were relocated due todeterioration of the parks internal water system.

    A single-family, 1,700-square-foot residence is under construction on the property and will serve as a model to future investors if the endeavor proves successful.

    The idea behind the project is to invest in a home, which essentially will be sold at cost to reimburse investors for their financial support, or the money can stay within the investment group to be used in additional projects, Starlin said.

    Making a profit is the last goal in mind for the development group, Boreman said.

    "We thought this would be an opportunity to do something for the community and the neighborhood," he said. "There is severe need for moderate income housing in this community to support the businesses that want to grow and expand here."

    Construction began on the ranch-style home in November. It will havethree bedrooms, two full bathrooms and a two-car garage.

    Crews began constructionnot long after lumber prices hit historic highs. According to the National Association of Home Builders,lumber prices increased by nearly 120% since April, but have fallen roughly 20% since mid-September. The unprecedented lumber price spike added nearly $16,000 to the price of a typical new single-family home.

    The project has been in the works for more than a year, Starlin said. Despite the challenges brought on by COVID, the developers were tired of waiting and had an eagerness to get started, he said.

    The hope is for the home to be priced in the $170,000 range.It is expected to be completed by mid-February.

    The Larwill property has the potential for up to eight houses to be added to the allotment.

    Starlin said the idea would be to fill gaps in other Wooster neighborhoodswhere homes once stood but were torn down or are in need of some fixing up. Developers would be conscious of the design of the neighborhoods when determining the style of the new house, Starlin said.

    The Larwill home is located within the city's Community Reinvestment Area, known as CRA, which will provide a tax break for the future homeowner, Starlin said. The site was approved for a 12-year, 100% tax abatement. The homebuyer essentially willsave an estimated $35,000 over the years by only needing to pay property taxes on the land as if it were a vacant lot. With the CRA, the homeowner will pay an estimated $100 in taxes annually.

    "We think theres an opportunity to market it not only as a well-built home, but then also to take advantage of the savings through that tax incentive," Starlin explained. "We just went for it, and were going to see how the market responds."

    Your support helps keep the lights on at the Daily Record. Stay connected with our daily stories, in-depth reporting and more by clicking Subscribe at the top of the page.

    A number of businesses have rallied to support the effort, including MW Robinson Co., McClintockElectric, Heartland Title Agency, Apple Creek Banking Co. and Marinello Realty.

    "This couldnt have came off the ground without the help of local folks," Boreman said. "... Were just trying to do something to help and get some good housing here."

    Real estate agentAmy Marinello said she has worked with the developersand the partners on past projects, which made this project a good fit for the real estate agency.

    There is a lack of inventory both inside city limits and across the county, Marinello said. There is a strong market for any affordable house, she said.

    The average days on the market for a house in Wooster is 46.

    According to numbers provided by Marinello Realty, the average price of a home between Jan. 1 and Dec. 16 of this year was $191,789. The newly built Larwill home is expected to be at the average cost or below.

    Wooster is a strong community with jobs in manufacturing, atthe College of Wooster and at Wooster Community Hospital. Having housing for potential employees will support these industries as they expand their businesses, Marinello said.

    Boreman has been involved with the Wayne County Community Improvement Corporation and the Wooster Area Chamber of Commerce. He has heard concerns from several businesses about the need for more affordable housing.

    Starlin, who led the chamber from 2013 until he stepped down from his role aspresident earlier this year, also is well aware of the challenges businesses face with retaining workers.

    In June, several business leaders representing GOJO Industries, ArtiFlex Manufacturing, Schaeffler Group and TekFor Inc. expressed support for an affordable housing endeavor by local developer Jerry Baker during a Wooster City Council meeting. That project has since dissolved.

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    Shelly Flint, human resources director at Schaeffler, said the unemployment rate in Wayne County is very low, and many businesses Schaeffler included are hiring. As businesses continue to hire associations, affordable housing will be an important part of a potential employee's decision to relocate to the Wooster area.

    "Affordable housing must be a focus for our community," Flint said in an email statement."... When new employees move to our community, it is very positive for our local economy. Additionally, revitalizing areas and improving vacant lots make our Wooster community even more attractive."

    Those businesses said having available and affordable housing will allow them to retain quality workers.

    "Housing has been and continues to be a significant issue in the community," Starlin said.

    The city and the county havedone a great job of taking care of blights that were beyond repair, Boreman said.Those homes have been taken out of the stock of available homes. There hasn't yet been the opportunity to replenish some of those homes, which is what this group of developers is looking to do, he explained.

    "This is just one of probably hundreds of homes that we need in this community," Boreman said.

    Reach Samantha at 330-287-1626

    Email: Samantha.Ickes@the-daily-record.com

    On Twitter: @SamanthaKIckes

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    New project aims to invest in the community, provide more affordable housing - Wooster Daily Record

    Is Winnebago Industries (WGO) Outperforming Other Construction Stocks This Year? – Zacks.com - December 25, 2020 by Mr HomeBuilder

    Investors focused on the Construction space have likely heard of Winnebago Industries (WGO Quick QuoteWGO - Free Report) , but is the stock performing well in comparison to the rest of its sector peers? A quick glance at the company's year-to-date performance in comparison to the rest of the Construction sector should help us answer this question.

    Winnebago Industries is one of 104 individual stocks in the Construction sector. Collectively, these companies sit at #2 in the Zacks Sector Rank. The Zacks Sector Rank includes 16 different groups and is listed in order from best to worst in terms of the average Zacks Rank of the individual companies within each of these sectors.

    The Zacks Rank is a proven model that highlights a variety of stocks with the right characteristics to outperform the market over the next one to three months. The system emphasizes earnings estimate revisions and favors companies with improving earnings outlooks. WGO is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #1 (Strong Buy).

    Within the past quarter, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for WGO's full-year earnings has moved 43.22% higher. This means that analyst sentiment is stronger and the stock's earnings outlook is improving.

    According to our latest data, WGO has moved about 23.33% on a year-to-date basis. At the same time, Construction stocks have gained an average of 21.47%. As we can see, Winnebago Industries is performing better than its sector in the calendar year.

    To break things down more, WGO belongs to the Building Products - Mobile Homes and RV Builders industry, a group that includes 4 individual companies and currently sits at #4 in the Zacks Industry Rank. On average, stocks in this group have gained 22.02% this year, meaning that WGO is performing better in terms of year-to-date returns.

    WGO will likely be looking to continue its solid performance, so investors interested in Construction stocks should continue to pay close attention to the company.

    More here:
    Is Winnebago Industries (WGO) Outperforming Other Construction Stocks This Year? - Zacks.com

    The tornado that hit Pinellas was the most powerful in 28 years – Tampa Bay Times - December 18, 2020 by Mr HomeBuilder

    PINELLAS PARK The tornado that tore through mid-Pinellas County on Wednesday was the most powerful to hit the area in nearly three decades.

    That twister was officially classified as an F2 on the Fujita scale by the National Weather Service. Also known as the FujitaPearson scale, thats how meteorologists rate the intensity of tornadoes according to how much damage they inflict.

    That means its the most powerful tornado to strike the county since the deadly 1992 tornadoes that touched down in Pinellas Park.

    Two tornadoes, rated an F2 and an F3, hit the area on Oct. 3, 1992. They killed four people, injured 130 and destroyed or severely damaged hundreds of homes and mobile homes, according to a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration report. The Fujita scale changed in 2007, but those were still powerful tornadoes by any measure.

    But there were no fatalities or injuries reported after Wednesdays tornado strike, which damaged businesses, tore up roofs, knocked down trees and cut off the power to up to 14,000 customers.

    Spectrum Bay News 9 chief meteorologist Mike Clay said Thursday that the region is fortunate no one was killed or seriously injured. He noted that after damaging Seminole and Pinellas Park, the tornado then moved into the waters of Tampa Bay and passed near the Howard Frankland Bridge during rush hour.

    Were very lucky that it didnt hit any cars on the Howard Frankland Bridge, he said. There were probably 80 cars on the bridge when it came by and just missed it.

    Wednesdays tornado touched down at 3:49 p.m., generated peak winds of 125 mph and traveled 13 miles before it entered the bay.

    By comparison, the strongest tornado that hit in 1992 had maximum winds of up to 206 mph and traveled a length of three miles.

    The 1992 tornadoes were also notable for this: President George H. W. Bush made a campaign stop in Pinellas County just an hour before the tornadoes hit. Air Force One was able to take off just before things got bad.

    Read the rest here:
    The tornado that hit Pinellas was the most powerful in 28 years - Tampa Bay Times

    A rural tribe tried to keep Covid at bay, but a last hurrah seeded an outbreak – KUOW News and Information - December 18, 2020 by Mr HomeBuilder

    The town of Nespelem, on the Colville Reservation, is about a dozen city blocks surrounded by hills speckled with snow in mid-November.

    Gary Carden has owned and managed the towns only tavern for about 25 years.

    When I drove up, Carden, 63, is waiting on a La-Z-Boy recliner on the taverns concrete front porch, with his dogs Sissy and Harold.

    "Shes the older dog, and thats probably the best thing that happened to her is finding her a small buddy, 'cause hes so active and keeps her active," he told me.

    Last June, Carden was sitting inside the tavern, by the wood stove that heats the place through the cold winters.

    Hes normally active, not just running the tavern but riding horses and motorcycles but on this particular June day, he felt out of breath and exhausted.

    "My sister came walking in," Carden told me, "and she says, 'God, brother, you don't look good. Do you want me to call the ambulance?'" He replied, "Yeah, I think you better. There's something wrong."

    Carden said he thought he had heat exhaustion he had spent the day splitting wood with his nephew.

    But it was Covid.

    Since early March, the Colville tribal council has been doing their best to insulate their community in north-central Washington.

    They arranged for meals to be dropped off at the homes of tribal elders. They closed the reservation to non-essential travel. And, when members tested positive for Covid, the council helped them isolate themselves from their families by providing portable toilets, mobile homes, and even hotel rooms as needed.

    But borders are fluid, so even the tribes extensive precautions havent been enough to fully protect Colville members.

    Despite all the steps the tribe took to keep Covid at bay, the reservation has had two big outbreaks: one in the summer, and one thats happening right now.

    "We got hit so hard," said Larry Smith, a doctor on the reservation who runs two of its four clinics.

    Smith said the tribe set up large tents at the very beginning of the pandemic, so health providers would have a place to treat Covid patients and to don protective gear before administering Covid tests.

    He said part of the reason it was important to him to prevent outbreaks was that so many of his patients are at risk of bad outcomes if they contract Covid-19.

    "Probably 80 percent of the people that I see have some risk factors whether its hypertension, diabetes, or autoimmune disease," Smith said.

    Between the two big outbreaks and a steady trickle of cases, about 300 people on the Colville Reservation have had Covid. Three have died of it. Thats a big hit for a small community the Covid rate there is more than double the rate in King County.

    Carden, the tavern owner, caught the virus during the first wave. When he tested positive, his doctor sent him to a hospital in Wenatchee about 100 miles away. He spent a week on a ventilator and more time in the ICU.

    He said the hardest part was the isolation.

    "I was even ready to give up," Carden said. "I even told them doctors, you know, 'Hey, I quit. Pull these tubes out.'"

    Both big outbreaks on the Colville Reservation happened when case numbers were way up in surrounding communities.

    Joel Boyd, the vice-chair of the Colville Tribal Council, said, when the virus is so prevalent all around the reservation, its just hard to keep it out.

    "One of the biggest things that bothers people here on the reservation," he said, is that, "when you do go off-reservation, ... theres communities that almost pride themselves on not wearing masks, and its a serious danger.

    Boyd said both outbreaks came from tribal members going places or visiting family or friends or receiving outside visitors.

    The current outbreak was seeded when a group of 10 or so people from the Colville Reservation visited a bar or restaurant in a nearby town. That was in mid-November, right before Governor Jay Inslee re-closed all indoor dining in the state.

    "It was the last weekend for these restaurants and bars to be open before the governor had closed them," Boyd remembered. "And so it was a packed location at the time, just because everyone was getting in their last little hurrah I guess you would call it. And unfortunately, that was all it took for us to get a nice little outbreak."

    Boyd said, once one person on the reservation gets Covid, its hard to stem the spread, because so many tribal members live in multi-generational households.

    "Once one family member gets it, there could be six other family members that end up being infected as well," he said. "It's hard to say where those other five people have gone or it spreads so rapidly."

    Take the current outbreak, in a part of the reservation called Inchelium.

    "In Inchelium, we had under 10 cases, and, in a matter of two days, we had over 40 cases," Boyd said.

    Now, nearly a quarter of the five hundred people in that small community have either tested positive or are quarantined, awaiting results.

    Boyd said, during this outbreak, the tribal council took a new step it hadnt tried last time to try to keep the virus from spreading too quickly across the reservation.

    The council imposed a curfew, from nine every night to six the next morning.

    The reason for that is that there had always been a lot of rules in place during the workday: Wear masks; check temperatures; stay six feet apart.

    But the council had less control over what happened after work.

    Boyd said hes hopeful the current outbreak might be the last.

    "A lot of people that have got it recently theyre being pretty vocal about, you know, how they got it and that theyre sorry for spreading it and sorry for, you know, what theyve done," Boyd said. "You know, thats one of the heartbreaking things is that theres no way to go back. Im thankful that theyre sharing that to prevent it from happening again."

    Back in the town of Nespelem, Gary Carden, who had Covid, shows off his tavern: a few pool tables, an easy chair next to the black woodstove.

    "Its a small little ma and pa place," he said. "I sit there till somebody walks in," he added, gesturing at the easy chair. "A lot of the people now they come and get their deal and they leave."

    No socializing these days, he said not with Covid.

    Carden said, back when he was still in the hospital and he told his doctors he was ready to quit and wanted them to pull the tubes out, a young intern sat down by his bedside and gave him a pep talk.

    "He says, 'Gary, dont give up,'" Carden remembered. "'Youve made it through the hard part. Youve got 20+ years still to go. Hang in there. Youve almost got it licked!'"

    And lick it Carden did.

    He had to go to physical therapy and re-learn how to walk. And, when he first got back home and re-opened his tavern, he used a walker to get around.

    But, now, hes back on his feet, and can even ride his horse and motorcycle.

    See more here:
    A rural tribe tried to keep Covid at bay, but a last hurrah seeded an outbreak - KUOW News and Information

    ‘Just Something That Wasnt Right About Him: Student’s Killer First Masqueraded As A Witness – Oxygen - December 18, 2020 by Mr HomeBuilder

    On a fall night in November 1990, college senior Amy Blount went out to havefun with her group of friends but it would tragically be her final night with them.

    The group of college students went to St. Georges Tavern, a local hotspot near Flagler College in St. Augustine, Florida. Theywere having a good time when Kelly Brockman, Blount's roommate, decided to leave early because she wasnt feeling well. When she left, Blountwas spending time with her crush, Shawn Nolan.

    However, when Brockman woke up the following morning,Blount had still not returned home andfailed to show up at her morning classes.Her friends initially assumedshe was still with Nolan, butwhen they asked himabout Blount, they were shocked by what they heard: Nolantold themhe andBlount had walked out to the coastline the night before at around 2 a.m. butgot into a fight while waiting for a taxi to take her home. When Blountbegan walking off by herself, Nolantook a cab home alone.

    Upon hearing Blounthad been left to walk home alone in the middle of the night, Blounts roommates were immediately concerned andsuspicious of Nolan.

    As much as Amy liked Shawn, I thought Shawn didnt seem like he was really too concerned, to be honest, Brockman told Oxygens Buried in the Backyard, airing Thursdays at 8/7c on Oxygen.

    Brockmann reported Blountmissing to police, and investigatorslaunched a search for Blount, checking local hospitals for reports of any Jane Does who may have matched Blounts description and reaching out to local cab drivers. These first stepswent nowhere.

    Sincethere was not yet any evidence of foul play, policecould not officially declareBlount a missing person, despite her friends beliefsomething bad may have happened to her.With no answers, Brockmanrealized it was time to call Blounts parents.

    That was probably one of the toughest calls Ill ever make in my life, she recalled to producers.

    The search for AmyBlount leads to numerous dead ends.

    The following day, Blounts loved onesbegan searching for her around town, putting up missing persons flyers and forming search parties to scour the woods, but no one found anything. When days passed andBlount still had not materialized, authorities finally launched an official investigation into her disappearance, and the first thing they did was bring in Nolan, Blount's crush, for questioning.

    When speaking to police, Nolangave a different story than the onehed given Blounts roommates: At the end of the night, when he was ready to go home, hed used a nearby payphone to call a taxi to take Blounthome, he said, but when he turned around after making the call, she was gone. Although he waited for awhile, he said she never reappeared, so when the cab arrived, hewent home.

    Police reached out to the cab driver to verify Nolans alibi, and he confirmed hed picked Nolanup that night. He also said when he arrived, Nolan had been slumped over, asleep on a public bench.Most importantly, however? Nolanwas alone.

    We knew that Shawn was the last person [Blount] was actually seen with, Steve Fricke, aninvestigator with the St. Augustine Police Department, told producers.

    After Blounthad been missing for nearly 10days with no activity on her bank accounts authorities offered a $10,000 reward for information about Blounts disappearance, leading to an influx of tips. One such call came from a man named Timothy Gatchell, who told policeas soon as he saw Blounts face on the missing person poster, he recognized her as a young woman hed seen in the downtown area on the same night Blounthad disappeared.

    Gatchell met with police in person and told themhed seenBlount approached by someone in an older-model car a Camaro or a Firebird and Blounthad spoken to what looked to be two people who were in the car before getting inside and leaving with them.

    While police now had a promising lead, they were also suspicious of the person whod hand-delivered it to them, though they could not initially explain why.

    You could call it police intuition, but there was just something that wasnt right about him, Fricke said.

    Police convinced Gatchell to take a polygraph testand he passed. Their doubts assuaged, police followed up on the tip, searching for cars that matched the description, but after interviewing everyone they could find with a car of that type, they wereback to square one. They were no closer, it seemed, to finding Blount.

    Weeks had passed, andBlounts family was struggling with having to celebrate Christmas without her.

    There was no news, Blount's sister, Kim Blount Potter, told producers. I really felt numb.

    A gruesome discovery leads to answers.

    Weeks after Blounts disappearance, a man walking his dog on New Years Day 1991 on the outskirts of St. Augustine made a horrifying discovery. After the mans dog was attracted to a pile of logs and rocks in a deserted area, the man went to investigate, only to find what looked to be human bones.

    He immediately called the authorities, who, upon their arrival, found a body that had been wrapped in a floral bedsheet and buried in a shallow grave.

    I really started thinking that this truly could be Amy Blount, Mary Fagan, a detective with the St. Johns County Sheriff,told producers.

    An official autopsy confirmed Fagan's hunch. Italso revealedBlount had been stabbed five times in the front of her body. Additionally, there were bruises on the left side of her head and on her left shoulder, suggestinga struggle had taken place prior to her death.

    After authorities delivered the devastating news to Blounts loved ones, they were heartbroken to find their search had reached the worst possible conclusion.

    It made me sick to my stomach, but there was a little bit of relief that I could start the grieving process, Brockman recalled. I could start mourning, really mourning, the loss that Im never gonna see my friend again.

    As Blounts family and friends began to grieve, police continued the investigationby identifying the owner of the property on which Blountwas found. However, because that man was very cooperative with police, they soon ruled him out as a suspect and instead zeroed in on other possibilities: The property owner had rented out two mobile homes on that plot of landand he told police hed been having problems with one of the tenants a man named Timothy Gatchell.

    The truth of what happened to Amy Blount finally emerges.

    Investigators rushed to search Gatchells home, where they found a sheet that matched the kind that Blountwas found wrapped in as well as a long hair that was the color of Blount'scaught in a screw on a weight-lifting bench. Crime scene technicians also discoveredthere were traces of blood throughout the home.

    Police also found a scrap of paper with the name "Toby" written on it and a phone number, leading them to a man who could help them finally fill in the missing pieces of the puzzle. When contacted by police, this Tobyagreed to come in for questioning.

    He told investigatorshe was with Gatchellon the night of Blounts disappearance and that the two of them had been out bar-hopping when they spottedBlount walking alone.Gatchell told Tobyto stop the car sohe couldtalk to her, and Tobywatched as Gatchell went to talk toBlount andled her back to the car. She got inside willingly, Tobysaid, and he drove them all to Gatchell'shouse. Once there, Gatchellbegan coming on to Blount, but Blountwasnt interested. At that point, Toby said, he went to the bathroom andleft the home without seeing either of them again.

    Weeks later, after Toby realized the missing girl everyone was talking about was the same onetheyhad picked up that night, he confronted Gatchell, who claimed hed given Blounta ridedowntown and thensaw her talking to a couple of guys in a Camaro before he drove away. Toby pressed him to report what hed seen to the police, which prompted Gatchellto reach out to investigators and give them the tip regarding the old car.

    At that point, authorities had heard enough: They rushed toGatchells home to take him into custody. He didnt resistand instead told officershed been expecting them.

    Once at the station, Gatchell told the same story as Tobyand claimed hed given Blounta ride back into town using the property owners truck. Investigators immediately knew thenGatchell was lying: The truck in question had three flat tires.

    With a little more coaxing from authorities, Gatchell slowly started to confess: He claimedhe andBlount had gotten into a fight andat some pointa knife had gotten got involved, but he wasnt sure because he may have blacked out. He said the next thing he knew, Blountwas lying on the floor with blood coming out of her mouth and the knife was in his hand.

    He claimed hethen went outside, got a shovel, and dug a hole before going back inside, wrappingBlount up in a sheet, and carrying her outside, where he buried her body and said a prayer for her.

    Gatchell was arrested for first-degree murder andstood trial in July 1991. In order to avoid the death penalty, he pled guilty and is currently serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.

    For more information on this case and others like it, watch Buried in the Backyard on Oxygen on Thursdays at 8/7c or stream online any time at Oxygen.com.

    Here is the original post:
    'Just Something That Wasnt Right About Him: Student's Killer First Masqueraded As A Witness - Oxygen

    190,000 UK properties can’t access broadband speeds to meet modern needs – The Guardian - December 18, 2020 by Mr HomeBuilder

    Almost 200,000 forgotten homes across the UK are being left behind in the governments digital revolution, unable to get broadband speeds deemed the minimum to meet a modern familys needs.

    The telecoms regulator Ofcom has said that 190,000 mostly rural homes and offices, about 0.6% of all properties, still cannot access decent broadband speeds of at least 10Mbps.

    This is the minimum speed deemed necessary to cope with modern needs, from downloading a film on Sky to streaming music or TV services from Netflix to Disney+.

    Ofcoms annual Connected Nations report estimates that there are 119,000 premises in England that cannot get access to decent broadband. The figure is 34,000 in Scotland, 18,000 in Wales and 19,000 in Northern Ireland.

    Last year the Commons environment, food and rural affairs select committee said rural inhabitants risked becoming second class citizens in the digital revolution, as people in urban areas benefit from next-generation broadband and 5G mobile.

    Ofcoms latest report estimates that across England, Scotland and Wales more than 39,000 homes cannot get access to either a decent broadband service or good 4G mobile phone coverage indoors.

    Addressing the UKs status as a global laggard in rolling out next-generation full-fibre broadband, making it available across the country by 2025 was a key promise of Boris Johnsons election manifesto. Since then, the government has watered down its ambitions to 85% coverage, including homes that can access similar gigabit speed technology via 5G network signals and copper wires as well as full fibre.

    In the governments spending review last month, the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, said only 1.2bn of a 5bn fund to subsidise the rollout of gigabit broadband to the hardest to reach premises would now be made available over the next five years.

    Ofcom revealed that 18% of UK homes, about 5m, now have the ability to get full fibre broadband, an 80% year-on-year increase. Nearly 8 m UK homes, 27% of the total, can now access gigabit speed broadband.

    For millions of families this year, life during lockdown would have been even more difficult without reliable broadband to work, learn, play and see loved ones, said Lindsey Fussell, Ofcoms network and communications director. So its encouraging that future proof, gigabit broadband is now available in a quarter of homes.

    Read more:
    190,000 UK properties can't access broadband speeds to meet modern needs - The Guardian

    Tiny home setups that prove why micro-living will be the next big trend: Part 5 – Yanko Design - December 18, 2020 by Mr HomeBuilder

    Tiny homes are all the craze now, but theyre not simply a trend, it seems like they are here to stay. Sustainability and minimal and cleaner ways of living have never been more imperative. With the COVID-19 pandemic shaking the world up, everyone is now focused on making more conscious and smarter decisions. Could tiny homes be the space-saving and sustainable living solution that we all need? I do think so!

    W2 Architectures revolutionary trailer design, Romotow, the name an amalgamation of room to move contains all the usual RV features but with an innovative 90-degree twist. With the press of a simple electric button, it swivels open, rotating at 90 degrees, to reveal an open synthetic teak deck, and 70% more living space.

    Smaller Architects built this tiny home in Seoul, Korea. This four-story tall vertical tiny home is called Seroro which literally means vertically. The rooms have been stacked one on top of the other, with the first floor comprising of the living room and the common washroom. The ground floor functions as a parking lot, whereas the second floor houses the kitchen and the dining area, and the third floor includes the bedroom and a private washroom. Lastly, a dressing room with a bathtub is situated on the fourth floor. Quaint, compact, and spacious at the same time, dont you think?

    Design Studio Andrs and Jos designed a mobile tiny house that aims to provide shelter to homeless people. Deemed as an urban domestic object by the designers themselves, Rodar could be a major source of relief to homeless people, providing them with a simple, minimal yet comfortable living space. Its structure and build are very similar to the ambulances found in many Latin American countries. The geometric, box-like compact home does look quite intriguing to me!

    Room+ Design & Build renovated an old tiny house in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Featuring translucent glass blocks, the two-story home consists of a shop on the ground floor, and a minimal living space with two bedrooms on the upper floors. The glass facade allows natural light to continuously stream into the home, creating an open and relaxed space.

    Fernando Mastrangelo designed a tiny house from salt, sand, and powdered glass in Times Square. Quite literally named Tiny House, the home is built from discarded and then recycled materials such as plastic and glass. The cave-like structure showcases an ombre effect on its outer facade, owing to the use of recycled plastic. Whereas glass was used to build the walls.

    Dunkin Donuts and New Frontier Tiny Homes build a mobile tiny home that literally runs on discarded Dunkin Donuts coffee grounds! The transportable home is powered by a biofuel made up of 80 percent coffee oil extracted from 65,000 pounds of discarded coffee grounds. The home includes a cedar porch, a living room, multifunctional furniture, a fully functional kitchen, a comfy bunk bed, and beautiful wooden floors.

    While Vancouver has quickly become one of the most expensive cities to live in, it is not densely populated and there are a lot of vacant spaces that can be put to better use Shifting Nests sustainable tiny homes is that use! This project wants to transform empty parking lots into a community with gardens and low-cost homes. The nests are a prefabricated housing solution consisting of plywood, metal cladding, and corrugated polycarbonate on a series of simple frames.

    Cube Two is a 263-square-foot home that is designed for the future and smart living. This modern compact home is a prefabricated structure that already comes fitted with the latest home appliances that can all be controlled by an AI assistant named Canny. The exterior has smooth curved corners that give it a friendly vibe and the interior offers enough space for a family of four to live comfortably with two bedrooms and an open living area. To make it feel roomier, there is a skylight that runs across the ceiling and floods the space with natural light, and also provides a wonderful frame of the night sky.

    One of my favorite things about tiny homes is the loft-style beds because they give you a little private cozy corner and that is exactly how the bedroom in Natura is set up. It has a multifunctional king-sized bed with plenty of storage under the frame. The bedroom also has a single large window that makes it more spacious and allows for a lot of natural light to flood your top floor. The space optimization goes beyond the bedroom, there are many built-in spaces for you to put the things you own like under the stairs as well as in the walls!

    The Pacific Harbor is a tiny house built on a 30x8.5 triple axel Iron Eagle trailer compact, convenient, and classy. The interiors are kept light and breezy to manifest the feeling of spaciousness. The tiny home includes a downstairs flex area that can be turned into a bedroom or home office, a sleeping loft in the back, and stainless steel appliances in the kitchen.

    Read the rest here:
    Tiny home setups that prove why micro-living will be the next big trend: Part 5 - Yanko Design

    Pikewood Manor in Elyria clears hurdle in proposed expansion – The Morning Journal - December 10, 2020 by Mr HomeBuilder

    Elyria City Council voted Dec. 7 to rezone land for an expansion of a mobile home park.

    During a Planning Commission meeting in October, Pikewood Manor representatives brought forward its tentative plans to expand and bring in new mobile homes.

    The Pikewood Manor is located off of state Route 57 and has been in the city for several decades.

    The property came under new ownership in 2018.

    John Monroe, who represented the owners, said there will be about 160 houses and a convenient access to Griswold Road.

    The company he represents, UMH, is a 50 years old and has never sold a park, Monroe said.

    It owns 122 parks, mainly in the northeast United States, and have 23,000 developed home sites under its management.

    A bulk of the expansion will take place behind Lowes, 646 Midway Blvd., Monroe said.

    Individuals can lease the houses, he said.

    However, the designs could change in the future as the company goes further into the planning and rezoning process, Monroe said.

    The property owner does own the strip that goes up to Griswold," he said.

    Monroe said he cautions people that these are preliminary plans because they are not final in terms of engineering or construction.

    "Right now, the plan is to Griswold," he said. "We think a majority of the existing park will still go out the existing entrance.

    "The expansion could go out onto Midway Boulevard and onto Griswold.

    Monroe said it's common to lose pads due to stormwater, potential wetlands and other issues.

    The process to expand is just continuing as Council approved the rezoning to a residential-mobile home park designation.

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    Pikewood Manor in Elyria clears hurdle in proposed expansion - The Morning Journal

    The GoSun Dream Tiny Home Solves the Problem of Cramped Space, Will Go Off-Grid – autoevolution - December 10, 2020 by Mr HomeBuilder

    GoSun Inc. is a solar and renewable energy company based in Ohio, U.S., offering cooking, cooling, charging, and water purification devices working solely on solar power. This is their first tiny home and, as of last month, its available for pre-order (hat tip to New Atlas).

    Solar power and tiny homes go hand in hand, especially since most people who buy these types of mobile homes do so first and foremost out of the desire to go off the grid or at least be able to in theory. The appeal of a tiny home is that, once you get past the prohibitive price, you get a home you can tow wherever you want, plop down wherever you want, and live all by yourself (with or without family/friends) for as long as you can.

    The GoSun Dream aims to check all these boxes: its small enough so you can tow it, it has solar panels and batteries, separate water tanks, and its built with quality materials. It might not allow you to live fully off solar power and go completely off the grid, as GoSun claims in the video below, but you will get a certain degree of autonomy.

    Meet the GoSun Dream, a solar powered, off-grid, tiny house, GoSun says. Designed to be affordable, versatile, mobile and solar powered to help you live a more independent, healthy and resilient life, anywhere. Perfect for RV resorts, off-grid, studio, rental (i.e. AirBnB, VRBO) or vacation property.Most tiny homes use height as a means to compensate for the lack of space, building a bedroom, and optionally some storage space on the second floor. The Dream doesnt do that, because GoSun wanted to keep the height down to avoid reducing the houses movability. Instead, it uses a floating bed to solve the issue of cramped space.

    This makes the Dream able to sleep four adults, despite its compact size (22 feet/6.7 m in total length, with an interior floor space of 195 square feet/18 square meters). Two people can sleep on the extendable couch in the living room, which is deployed once the table is tucked out of sight, and two on the queen-size bed operated by a lift on rails up and down. This saves space and maximizes double functionality for the space available a must with all tiny or otherwise mobile homes.

    On the side is a spacious kitchen with everything you need to make dinner for all four occupants: a sink, cooktop, two-burner stove, oven, fridge, and freezer. To get to the bathroom, you go through the kitchen: here, you get a small shower, the tiniest sink, and a toilet, which can be either flushing or of the composting type, depending on where you plan to be using it most.

    Further amplifying the impression of more available space is the offer of a complete GoSun bundle: the Dream comes with a variety of GoSun products made for outdoor use, such as the GoSun solar kitchen and water filtration system. The automatically retractable electric awning serves to create shelter from the sun and mild rain, so you can take the kitchen outdoor with you and thus not stink up the place with all manners of cooking odors.

    The Dream is move-in ready, with GoSun saying they will be offering more details and exact specs as the production date nears. A certain level of customization will also be available, at a cost, of course. Right now, GoSun is taking pre-orders on the Dream with $500 refundable reservations, with a delivery date set tentatively for 2021. Pricing will range between $69,500 and $99,500, depending on the final configuration you opt for.

    View post:
    The GoSun Dream Tiny Home Solves the Problem of Cramped Space, Will Go Off-Grid - autoevolution

    A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear: Author Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling on the Free State Project – Vox.com - December 10, 2020 by Mr HomeBuilder

    Every ideology produces its own brand of fanatics, but theres something special about libertarianism.

    I dont mean that as an insult, either. I love libertarians! For the most part, theyre fun and interesting people. But they also tend to be cocksure about core principles in a way most people arent. If youve ever encountered a freshly minted Ayn Rand enthusiast, you know what I mean.

    And yet one of the things that makes political philosophy so amusing is that its mostly abstract. You cant really prove anything its just a never-ending argument about values. Every now and again, though, reality intervenes in a way that illustrates the absurdity of particular ideas.

    Something like this happened in the mid-2000s in a small New Hampshire town called Grafton. Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling, author of a new book titled A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear, says its the boldest social experiment in modern American history. I dont know if its the boldest, but its definitely one of the strangest.

    The experiment was called the Free Town Project (it later became the Free State Project), and the goal was simple: take over Graftons local government and turn it into a libertarian utopia. The movement was cooked up by a small group of ragtag libertarian activists who saw in Grafton a unique opportunity to realize their dreams of a perfectly logical and perfectly market-based community. Needless to say, utopia never arrived, but the bears did! (I promise Ill explain below.)

    I reached out to Hongoltz-Hetling to talk about his book. I wanted to know what happened in New Hampshire, why the experiment failed, and what the whole saga can teach us not just about libertarianism but about the dangers of loving theory more than reality.

    A lightly edited transcript of our conversation follows.

    How would you describe the Free Town Project to someone who doesnt know anything about it?

    Id put it like this: Theres a national community of libertarians that has developed over the last 40 or 50 years, and theyve never really had a place to call their own. Theyve never been in charge of a nation, or a state, or even a city. And theyve always really wanted to create a community that would showcase what would happen if they implemented their principles on a broad scale.

    So in 2004, a group of them decided that they wanted to take some action on this deficiency, and they decided to launch what they called the Free Town Project. They sent out a call to a bunch of loosely affiliated national libertarians and told everyone to move to this one spot and found this utopian community that would then serve as a shining jewel for the world to see that libertarian philosophies worked not only in theory but in practice. And they chose a town in rural New Hampshire called Grafton that already had fewer than 1,000 people in it. And they just showed up and started working to take over the town government and get rid of every rule and regulation and tax expense that they could.

    Of all the towns in all the world, why Grafton?

    They didnt choose it in a vacuum. They actually conducted a very careful and thorough search. They zeroed in on the state of New Hampshire fairly quickly because thats the Live Free or Die state. They knew that it would align well with their philosophy of individualism and personal responsibility. But once they decided on New Hampshire, they actually visited dozens of small towns, looking for that perfect mix of factors that would enable them to take over.

    What they needed was a town that was small enough that they could come up and elbow the existing citizenry, someplace where land was cheap, where they could come in and buy up a bunch of land and kind of host their incoming colonists. And they wanted a place that had no zoning, because they wanted to be able to live in nontraditional housing situations and not have to go through the rigamarole of building or buying expensive homes or preexisting homes.

    Wait, what do you mean by nontraditional housing?

    As the people of Grafton soon found out, a nontraditional housing situation meant a camp in the woods or a bunch of shipping containers or whatever. They brought in yurts and mobile homes and formed little clusters of cabins and tents. There was one location called Tent City, where a bunch of people just lived in tents from day to day. They all united under this broad umbrella principle of personal freedom, but as youd expect, there was a lot of variation in how they exercised it.

    What did the demographics of the group look like? Are we talking mostly about white guys or Ayn Rand bros who found each other on the internet?

    Well, were talking about hundreds of people, though the numbers arent all that clear. They definitely skewed male. They definitely skewed white. Some of them had a lot of money, which gave them the freedom to be able to pick up roots and move to a small town in New Hampshire. A lot of them had very little money and nothing keeping them in their places. So they were able to pick up and come in. But most of them just didnt have those family situations or those 9-to-5 jobs, and that was really what characterized them more than anything else.

    And how did they take over the local government? Did they meet much resistance?

    When they first showed up, they hadnt told anyone that they were doing this, with the exception of a couple of sympathetic libertarians within the community. And so all of a sudden the people in Grafton woke up to the fact that their town was in the process of being invaded by a bunch of idealistic libertarians. And they were pissed. They had a big town meeting. It was a very shouty, very angry town meeting, during which they told the Free Towners who dared to come that they didnt want them there and they didnt appreciate being treated as if their community was an experimental playpen for libertarians to come in and try to prove something.

    But the libertarians, even though they never outnumbered the existing Grafton residents, what they found was that they could come in, and they could find like-minded people, traditional conservatives or just very liberty-oriented individuals, who agreed with them on enough issues that, despite that angry opposition, they were able to start to work their will on the levers of government.

    They couldnt pass some of the initiatives they wanted. They tried unsuccessfully to withdraw from the school district and to completely discontinue paying for road repairs, or to declare Grafton a United Nations free zone, some of the outlandish things like that. But they did find that a lot of existing Grafton residents would be happy to cut town services to the bone. And so they successfully put a stranglehold on things like police services, things like road services and fire services and even the public library. All of these things were cut to the bone.

    Then what happened over the next few years or so?

    By pretty much any measure you can look at to gauge a towns success, Grafton got worse. Recycling rates went down. Neighbor complaints went up. The towns legal costs went up because they were constantly defending themselves from lawsuits from Free Towners. The number of sex offenders living in the town went up. The number of recorded crimes went up. The town had never had a murder in living memory, and it had its first two, a double homicide, over a roommate dispute.

    So there were all sorts of negative consequences that started to crop up. And meanwhile, the town that would ordinarily want to address these things, say with a robust police force, instead found that it was hamstrung. So the town only had one full-time police officer, a single police chief, and he had to stand up at town meeting and tell people that he couldnt put his cruiser on the road for a period of weeks because he didnt have money to repair it and make it a safe vehicle.

    Basically, Grafton became a Wild West, frontier-type town.

    When did the bears show up?

    It turns out that if you have a bunch of people living in the woods in nontraditional living situations, each of which is managing food in their own way and their waste streams in their own way, then youre essentially teaching the bears in the region that every human habitation is like a puzzle that has to be solved in order to unlock its caloric payload. And so the bears in the area started to take notice of the fact that there were calories available in houses.

    One thing that the Free Towners did that encouraged the bears was unintentional, in that they just threw their waste out how they wanted. They didnt want the government to tell them how to manage their potential bear attractants. The other way was intentional, in that some people just started feeding the bears just for the joy and pleasure of watching them eat.

    As you can imagine, things got messy and there was no way for the town to deal with it. Some people were shooting the bears. Some people were feeding the bears. Some people were setting booby traps on their properties in an effort to deter the bears through pain. Others were throwing firecrackers at them. Others were putting cayenne pepper on their garbage so that when the bears sniffed their garbage, they would get a snout full of pepper.

    It was an absolute mess.

    Were talking about black bears specifically. For the non-bear experts out there, black bears are not known to be aggressive toward humans. But the bears in Grafton were ... different.

    Bears are very smart problem-solving animals. They can really think their way through problems. And that was what made them aggressive in Grafton. In this case, a reasonable bear would understand that there was food to be had, that it was going to be rewarded for being bolder. So they started aggressively raiding food and became less likely to run away when a human showed up.

    There are lots of great examples in the book of bears acting in bold, unusually aggressive manners, but it culminated in 2012, when there was a black bear attack in the town of Grafton. That might not seem that unusual, but, in fact, New Hampshire had not had a black bear attack for at least 100 years leading up to that. So the whole state had never seen a single bear attack, and now here in Grafton, a woman was attacked in her home by a black bear.

    And then, a few years after that, a second woman was attacked, not in Grafton but in a neighboring town. And since the book was written and published, theres actually been a third bear attack, also in the same little cluster and the same little region of New Hampshire. And I think its very clear that, unless something changes, more bear attacks will come.

    Luckily, no ones been killed, but people have been pretty badly injured.

    Youre fair, even sympathetic, to the libertarians you profile in this book, but I do wonder if you came to see them increasingly as fanatics.

    You know, libertarian is such a weird umbrella term for a very diverse group of people. Some libertarians are built around the idea of white supremacy and racism. That was not the case with these libertarians. Most of the libertarians that I met were kind, decent people who would be generous with a neighbor in any given moment. But in the abstract, when theyre at a town meeting, they will vote to hurt that neighbor by cutting off, say, support for road plowing.

    So I guess what I noticed is a strange disconnect between their personalities or their day-to-day interactions and the broader implications of their philosophies and their political movement. Not sure Id use the word fanatic, but definitely a weird disconnect.

    Theres a lesson in this for anyone interested in seeing it, which is that if you try to make the world fit neatly into an ideological box, youll have to distort or ignore reality to do it usually with terrible consequences.

    Yeah, I think thats true for libertarianism and really all philosophies of life. Its very easy to fall into this trap of believing that if only everybody followed this or that principle, then society would become this perfect system.

    Did any of the characters in this story come to doubt their libertarianism as a result of what happened in Grafton? Or was it mostly a belief that libertarianism cant fail, it can only be failed?

    One of the central characters in the book is a firefighter named John Babiarz. And John had the distinction of running for the governor of New Hampshire on the libertarian platform, and did better than any other gubernatorial libertarian candidate has ever done in America. And he invited the libertarians to come in and begin the Free Town Project. He was their local connection.

    But by the end of the project [sometime in 2016], he had really drawn some distinctions between himself and many of the extremist libertarians who came to town. He still considers himself to be a libertarian, and a very devout one at that, but by the end of the project he was at odds with most of the other libertarians. And it shows that until you actually have a libertarian-run community, its very hard to say what it is or what it will look like.

    In the end, do you think these people bumped up against the limits of libertarianism, or is this more about the particular follies of a particular group of people in a particular place?

    I think they bumped up against the follies of libertarianism. I really do think that there is a hard wall of reality that exists thats going to foil any effort to implement libertarianism on a broad scale. And I think if you gave a libertarian the magic wand and allowed them to transform society the way that they wanted to, it wouldnt work the way they imagined, and I think it would break down just as Grafton did.

    Maybe thats the lesson.

    Will you help keep Vox free for all?

    There is tremendous power in understanding. Vox answers your most important questions and gives you clear information to help make sense of an increasingly chaotic world. A financial contribution to Vox will help us continue providing free explanatory journalism to the millions who are relying on us. Please consider making a contribution to Vox today, from as little as $3.

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    A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear: Author Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling on the Free State Project - Vox.com

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