Home Beauty Home

The only mobile home park in Chesterfield seems out of place. Since it was built 50 years ago , glass-and- steel corporate headquarters and upscale subdivisions have slowly surrounded it. In a suburb that means big homes , new shopping centers and shiny office campuses to most St. Louisans, it’s a wonder there still is a place to park a trailer. But developers have turned their sights to the Chesterfield Mobile Home Park , where roughly 140 mobile homes offer some of the most affordable housing along the Highway 40 (Interstate 64) corridor. If the developers can rezone the land, residents could be forced to try and move their mobile homes. “This has been sitting here since 1987,” said resident Charlie Oakes , gesturing to the mobile home he lives in with his wife, Lisa Oakes. “We don’t know if it’s moveable or not.” Despite the political pitfalls of buying land out from under mobile home owners , some of whom may struggle to move their trailers, the developers’ int...

Hoping to tie a surging demand for more apartment units in Spokane with a desire for density, the Spokane City Council approved changes to a city tax law this week aimed at spurring construction of more multifamily housing structures . The changes to the Multiple Family Housing Tax Exemption expand the boundaries where the exemption can be used, and aligns the boundaries with land identified by the city to be prime for denser development. The changes also increase the income levels required under the exemption. “This will help us to continue building the city from the core out,” said Councilwoman Candace Mumm . The exemption applies to the construction or rehabilitation of a building that has four or more living units. Under the exemption, the land is fully taxed, but any new improvements related to housing are exempt from property taxes. After the exemption ends , taxes are paid on the property’s full value. The exemption stays with the property even if it’s sold. There are many ...

On a blue- sky summer day , three 12-year-old kids run into an ancient forest adjoining a housing estate. Two of the children are never seen again. The third is found near the centre of the forest, his back and the palms of his hands pressed against a large oak tree . He has blood inside his shoes and no memory of what happened. Much later, when the boy has grown up and become a detective, he is assigned to investigate the murder of a child close to the spot where his friends disappeared . This is the starting point of In the Woods, the first of six related novels that have won a cultish following for Irish writer Tana French . All six books, together known as the Dublin Murder Squad series , are beautifully written. All are hefty. " Big long bastards ," as French puts it when we meet in a Dublin hotel. And all are addictive. I was given the series for Christmas last year, and spent the next few months – annoyingly interrupted by work and, you know, life – reading one volum...