New ISD chief wants permits to be predictable

Ensuring city permitting processes are very clear, transparent and predictable is the top priority for Boston's new inspectional services commissioner.

"There are still some mysteries about when things can happen and when things actually get processed out of ISD," said William Christopher, a Dorchester architect who officially starts in his new role Tuesday.

"The problem … is that every permit has its own unique nuances — whether you're applying for a dormer for your house or a 10-story building," he said. "There are so many layers and so many regulations that have to be dealt with. We're trying to define what's needed and not needed."

ISD administers and enforces city and state building, housing, health, sanitation and safety regulations, including building permits and zoning reviews, restaurant permits and inspections, and rental housing inspections.

It's working with the city's Department of Innovation and Technology on a more interactive online system that lets permit seekers know exactly where applications stand in the approval process.

Christopher already has met with restaurateurs concerned about the time it takes to permit their establishments.

"The mayor has directed me to look at that entire process and see if there are ways to expedite (it)," he said. "We have to make sure Boston is business-friendly."

Inspection of rental housing — and making it clear to landlords what is expected — also will top priorities, Christopher said.

00.32 | 0 komentar | Read More

Most frequently Googled phrases across N.E.

Search queries performed in each of the New England states more than any other, according to real estate website Estately:

 Massachusetts: Canadian men, eyebrow waxing, George Costanza, hangover cure, Muppets, PCP, tinder, yoga

 Maine: Cat pics, how to roll a joint, growing marijuana, Michael Flatley's "Lord of the Dance"

 New Hampshire: Cats, Ellen Degeneres, fireworks, free kittens, Live Free or Die, Ron Paul

 Rhode 
Island: Andre the Giant, beer pong, how to roll a blunt, MSNBC

 Vermont: Kale recipe, "The Daily Show", poetry, Phish, LSD, Stephen Colbert

00.32 | 0 komentar | Read More

GM tells Wall Street recalls may last into summer

DETROIT — General Motors is telling Wall Street that a recent spate of recalls may last until mid-summer as the company continues to review unresolved safety issues.

The news comes a day after The Associated Press learned that GM CEO Mary Barra told members of Congress that the company cannot make ignition switches fast enough to keep up with demand in its recall of 2.6 million small cars.

The ignition switch problem has been linked to at least 13 deaths in crashes involving Chevrolet Cobalts and Saturn Ions. Congress and the Justice Department are investigating why GM knew about the switch problem for at least a decade but only started recalling the cars this February.

GM has undertaken a safety review that has resulted in 29 U.S. recalls so far this year covering a total of 13.8 million vehicles, more than five times the number of cars and trucks the company sold in the U.S. last year.

In a note to investors, Barclays analyst Brian Johnson wrote that he met with GM management on Wednesday, and was told by product development chief Mark Reuss that GM continues to review safety data for potential recalls and that recalls could persist into mid-summer. Johnson also wrote that it's possible that cars already subject to one recall could be part of future recalls.

Senior management will be more involved in safety, with Reuss leading a team of five people who will decide on future recalls, Johnson wrote. The company is trying to issue recalls as soon as it learns about an issue rather than waiting for more data, according to Johnson.

"This will increase the frequency of recalls, but will reduce the total number of vehicles recalled," the analyst wrote.

Meanwhile, Barra is preparing for a return trip to Capitol Hill as an investigation by an outside attorney into the ignition switch recall delays nears a close. She told lawmakers Wednesday that GM's plan to compensate victims of small-car crashes could be released at the same time as the results of the investigation, according to a congressional aide who asked not to be identified because the meetings were private.

Barra, who visited lawmakers on Capitol Hill for private meetings Wednesday, told them that GM's supply of replacement ignition switches like won't catch up to demand until July. She said when that happens, GM plans to start a campaign to persuade people to take cars to dealers for repairs, according to a congressional aide who asked not to be identified because the meetings were private.

Among the lawmakers Barra met with were Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Missouri, and Dianna DeGette, D-Colorado. Both were highly critical of the chief executive last month when she testified at Senate and House hearings about GM's handling of the ignition switch problem. With victims' families looking on, Barra said she was unable to answer many questions until an internal investigation into the matter was complete.

Frustrated, lawmakers finally elicited a promise from Barra to return to testify when the company's probe was finished.

In late May or early June, she'll have answers. The automaker hired former U.S. Attorney Anton Valukas to investigate why it took so long for GM to recall the small cars. GM has promised an "unvarnished" report, and Barra told Congress last month she will take decisive action on its findings.

The company also hired compensation expert Kenneth Feinberg to negotiate settlements with crash victims. Lawyers say they have at least 400 possible cases against GM, and the settlements could cost the company billions.

Last week GM admitted to concealing the ignition switch problems from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and agreed to pay a $35 million fine, the maximum the agency can impose.

On Thursday, three senators introduced a bill that would lift the $35 million cap, saying that the current amount is too low to discourage automakers from hiding problems.

00.32 | 0 komentar | Read More

Hot Beacon Hill homes offer luxury for less

If you're looking to buy a historic single family in toney Beacon Hill, prepare to pay for the privilege, but less than the original asking prices.

While low inventory in some Boston neighborhoods is leading to multiple offers, bidding wars and sales above asking price on some properties, two of the Hill's top-of-the-market single-family homes are seeing their prices chopped.

This week, Beth Dicker­son of Gibson Sotheby's relaunched her recently 
acquired listing at 23 W. Ced­ar St., a five-bedroom townhouse that was handsomely redone last year, by dropping the price by $400,000 May 15, after having already dropped it $150,000 May 2. It is now on the market for $5,350,000.

"I did a re-analysis, something you generally do when a property hasn't sold within 60 days in this market," said Dickerson, consistently ranked as the second-highest-volume real estate broker in Boston who has sold dozens of super-high-end properties. "With the end of the spring market coming, reducing the price gives the property some buzz before the summer comes in and buying slows down."

The 5,341-square-foot property certainly pops, from its stately 1836 Greek Revival brick and wrought-iron exterior to an elegantly restored living/dining area, a chef's kitchen with honed Carrara marble countertops and a private two-tiered garden and roof deck. Original floors and woodwork were redone, but there's also a contemporary feel in its four levels of living space.

"The owner's an interior decorator who's done a great job mixing in the old with the new," Dickerson said.

It was originally listed by another broker at $6,250,000 in July 2013, so the property has actually been reduced $900,000 since its makeover.

Another top-tier single family, a spectacular 8,684-square-foot Beacon Hill townhouse overlooking Boston Common at 56 Beacon St., has had its price cut by $600,000, to $11,900,000.

Jeannemarie Conley of Otis & Ahearn has had the listing — along with colleague John Corcoran — since January 2011.

"Cutting the price brings in new potential buyers, and encourages others who've looked at it to look at it again," said Conley, who sold 15 Commonwealth Ave. for $12.5 million in 2012, the highest sales price in Boston that year. "The price cut is already working because it's increasing activity on the property.

In addition to its beautiful restored woodwork, the townhouse, built in 1819, features a huge dining room with a marble fireplace, a master bedroom suite taking up an entire floor and an elevator to all floors. It also has something unheard of in the city — a private 
attached four-car garage.

"The market for single-family properties like these are families looking to make a long-term commitment to city living," Conley said. "It's a major decision."

Both of these properties have had a number of 
offers, their brokers say, but for various reasons have not sold.

"Selling these kinds of properties is a combination of the right timing and price coming together," Conley said.

00.32 | 0 komentar | Read More

Marty Walsh: Build for the middle class

Boston's middle-income residents are facing a daunting lack of housing, even as the Hub's luxury rental housing market continues to explode, say local officials and housing experts.

"We have to find ways to create workforce housing, middle-class housing," Mayor Martin J. Walsh told the Herald at yesterday's ribbon-cutting ceremony for Radian, a new luxury apartment building in the Financial District. "We don't have the supply."

Radian is the latest luxury complex to open, unveiling its 240 rental units yesterday, which start at nearly $3,000 per month. The $130 million project was co-developed by Forest City Boston and Hudson Group North American and the Kingston Street building includes a lounge, fitness center and 24-hour concierge service.

"Radian's location on the Greenway — adjacent to the Financial District and two blocks from South Station — make this project unique," said Ron Ratner, executive vice president of Forest City.

There are thousands of high-end units in the Hub that are just opening, under construction or in the pipeline, but more affordable options for middle-income residents have not kept up.

"It is a huge problem," said Michael DiMella, president of the Realtors association. "It's very, very difficult to afford Boston right now, especially if you're trying to establish a family."

Walsh announced a Housing Task Force last month to look at options for increasing affordable housing in the city.

"Everything is going to be on the table," Walsh said.

He said the biggest problem is figuring out how to pay for development of middle-market housing, which does not qualify for government subsidies the way low-income housing does, and does not offer the high investment return that luxury units do.

"Everybody seems to have plenty of incentives to create (luxury units)," said Timothy Warren, CEO of real estate publisher The Warren Group. "To create something in the middle is much more difficult."

As part of a city requirement to provide 15 percent affordable housing, the developers of Radian are building the Oxford Ping On project in Chinatown, which will have 66 affordable units.

But that's just a drop in the bucket.

"We need 110,000 units over the next 10 years in this region to sustain the growth in population," Walsh said. "We have to create more housing."

00.32 | 0 komentar | Read More

Website logs state of search topics

What do Canadian men, eyebrow waxing, George Costanza, hangover cure, Muppets, PCP, Tinder and yoga have in common? When they're the subjects of online searches, Massachusetts residents are behind the greatest number of queries about them.

Real estate search site Estately opted for a silly approach to highlighting the differences between states. It ran random search terms through Google Trends — from glam rock to conjugal visits to infected piercing — to see which states performed the most searches on the topics.

"We try to find interesting differences between places for people trying to buy homes," said Ryan Nickum, the Seattle site's lead blogger. "It's superfluous information, but it's kind of a fun way to think about where you want to live."

After starting with basic topics such as religious and political names and terms, Nickum expanded to pop culture, and music and food preferences, before deciding that the stranger the search, the more interesting the results.

"I'm sure people in Massachusetts are searching for the best places to eat, the best places to travel — all the sort of normal searches — but that wouldn't have been as interesting," he said.

But now, Nickum finds himself policing a rather uncomfortable discussion on the blog's comment section. "One of the top results for Washington state was circumcision, and that's led to a little bit too detailed debate … on the merits," he said.

00.32 | 0 komentar | Read More

‘Dual’ talk from Health Connector bigs

Health Connector officials 
appear to be speaking out of both sides of their mouths, according to an internal document obtained by the Herald — publicly telling state taxpayers their top priority is to fix their glitch-ridden website, while privately assuring federal officials their main goal is to hook up Bay Staters to the 
national Obamacare portal.

Health Connector officials are seeking $120 million in federal funds to pay two IT firms, 
Optum and hCentive, to fix the state website while also looking for a way to transition to the Obamacare portal, HealthCare
.gov.

Connector officials have said publicly that repairing the state website is job one. But an internal document presented to the fed­eral Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services this week seems to tell a different story.

The document states that even "if (the federal) track" — the transition to HealthCare.gov — "is determined to be behind schedule and cannot be rectified," the Connector will "suspend hCentive track" and "focus on (the federal track) only."

That private strategy is likely to play well with the feds, who are pressuring failing states to scrap their botched websites and join HealthCare.gov. Meanwhile, publicly pushing the hCentive plan as top priority appears to be designed to assure taxpayers the state site will be fixed, while also appeasing health care advocates who want to keep the customized complexities of the Bay State system.

But that apparent 
doubletalk is raising eyebrows among professionals in the health care industry.

"You can't succeed if you have two number-one priorities, no matter how much money you're going to spend," said a source with know-ledge of the document. "The Connector is telling the feds what they want to hear, which is going federal is the top priority, and telling people in Massachusetts that doing a state-based exchange in the next few months is the top priority. Which one is it?"

Health care expert Joshua 
Archambault of the Pioneer Institute said the internal document indicates to him that the odds are slim the state will ever fix the Connector site.

"It is a big deal from the perspective that they realize how unlikely it is that hCentive will be able to accomplish the goal of setting up a bare-bones website by the end of this year," Archambault said. "In other words, they are signing up taxpayers to spend over $100 million this year with little chance of having a workable state-based website."

A Health Connector official, who confirmed the document's authenticity, said it's part of "an ongoing conversation" with the feds and that no decisions have been made yet.

"We know they are going to want to see equal amounts of progress on both tracks, if not more progress on the (federal) side of things, because they have a higher confidence in the (federal system), and rightfully so, because it's working," the official said.

The official — who denied the Connector is engaging in doubletalk — added that if all else fails, hCentive will still rebuild the state system for the 2016 open enrollment, even if it's pulled off-line next year.

In a statement, Connector spokesman Jason Lefferts said: "The dual-track plan best positions Massachusetts to maintain the policies and programs that have expanded access to quality, 
affordable health insurance to 97 percent of our residents. It also ensures that no matter what, we will have a functioning website in time for Fall open enrollment that helps people gain coverage."

HCentive officials have not 
returned repeated calls and 
emails from the Herald over the past two weeks, including yesterday.

00.32 | 0 komentar | Read More

The Ticker

State Senate votes to expand bottle bill law

Advocates for an expanded bottle bill in Massachusetts are praising a Senate vote to expand the nickel deposit law to include bottled water and other non-carbonated beverages.

The measure was approved as an amendment to the state budget for the fiscal year starting July 1. Supporters of the effort to update the three-decade-old law are gathering signatures to put it before voters in November if the Legislature doesn't act first.

The Senate has voted in the past to expand the law to cover bottled water and sports drinks, but the measure has not advanced in the House.

HP to cut more

Hewlett Packard is bracing to slash an additional 11,000 to 16,000 jobs after it announced a dip in revenue for its second quarter.

The computing giant, which is in the midst of a long restructuring program by CEO Meg Whitman, said revenue was down 1 percent, to $27.3 billion, from the same quarter a year ago.

HP had previously announced plans to cut 34,000 jobs.

TODAY

 Commerce Department releases new home sales for April.

THE SHUFFLE

Disruptor Beam, the company that developed the popular "Game of Thrones Ascent," announced the appointment of Boston PR veteran Elicia Basoli as the company's new director of communications.

00.32 | 0 komentar | Read More

B.R.A. receptive to call for rezoning in Southie

City councilors' calls to rezone South Boston to deal with scant parking and overdevelopment are getting a receptive ear from the Boston Redevelopment Authority, who agree a new code will cut down on a high number of zoning rule exceptions in the neighborhood.

"What we saw and heard from BRA representatives is that there is a clear willingness and desire to rezone South Boston," City Councilor-At-Large Michael Flaherty said following a hearing called by Council President Bill Linehan, who represents South Boston, yesterday with BRA execs. "I'm confident that they're hearing my concerns that the neighborhood is being overdeveloped."

Flaherty has called for one parking space for every new unit in Southie, instead of the current standard that has allowed as little as 0.6 spaces per unit for developments close to train and bus stops.

Linehan noted there were fewer zoning variance requests from developers last year in sections of South Boston that have special, up-to-date zoning — such as East and West 1st Street, which was rezoned in 2011— with the rest of Southie. He said only six variances were requested last year in the special district, compared with 137 last year in the rest of Southie. Linehan said new rules would make the zoning board "less apt to entertain zoning variances when the zoning is new, it's been deliberated through community process, and it's valid.

BRA Deputy Director Richard McGuinness said updating the zoning metrics would make development more predictable.

"If you looked at every numeric standard, and they're realistic, you don't see as much (variance) activity," McGuinness said.

Gary Murad, a B Street resident, said zoning exceptions have spurred development less conducive to neighborhood quality-of-life concerns. "It's these large, dense apartment buildings, they're not even condos," Murad said. "You don't get the same interest, long-term interest in the neighborhood, because a lot of people are transient."

00.32 | 0 komentar | Read More

Gov. Deval Patrick reveals jobs pact with Japan

Gov. Deval Patrick yesterday let slip that his administration is working on a pact with a Japanese agency that promotes foreign investment in the country as he defended his globetrotting to entrepreneurs, saying the frequent travels are part of "a strategy" to grow education, innovation and infrastructure in the Bay State.

At a briefing on his Innovation Economy Mission last December to Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore emceed by Jim Paul, director of the Boston office of the U.S. Department of Commerce, Patrick said his administration is working on a memorandum of understanding with the Japan External Trade Organization, a government-related agency, but was stopped short of elaborating by someone in the audience.

"I guess I'm not supposed to announce that today," Patrick said. "Stay tuned."

There are currently 130 Japanese companies in Massachusetts supporting 10,000 jobs as part of the state's $3 billion trade relationship with the country.

Patrick said his trade missions aren't about "how many fistfuls of purchase orders" he can bring home, but rather, "How many relationships can we deepen, can we create, can we extend."

But with little more than seven months left to serve on Beacon Hill, Patrick, said it will be up to others to build on his team's groundwork by forging future partnerships with senior government leaders.

"You realize of course it's up to you, not me. It's about whether you're willing to walk through the door we open," Patrick said.

Yesterday's event was held at District Hall on Northern Avenue, the world's first dedicated open workspace for the innovation community.

00.32 | 0 komentar | Read More