And another price cut

200 Old Mill.jpg

200 Old Mill Road, which sold new in 2004 for $6.3 million (it had asked $7.250) has been on the market since 2016, when it tried for for $6.730. Reduced today to $5 million and — my guess — it's still falling.

It's a Jordan Saper creation, which means an oversized bulk, with rooms totally disproportionate to humans and cold, hostile living spaces. That's just my opinion, of course, and Saper did very well selling these things back in the 2000-2010 era, but resales aren't looking so good. Part of that can be attributed to Saper's choosing to build in the back country, and that market has collapsed, but I think the design isn't helping.

Typical Jordan Saper master bedroom/airplane hangar — who's want to sleep here? 

Typical Jordan Saper master bedroom/airplane hangar — who's want to sleep here? 

Sale prices reported

5 Stanwich Lane

5 Stanwich Lane

5 Stanwich Lane, listed at $1.850 million, immediately found a buyer an has sold at full price. That's no surprise, because the price is well within what houses have sold for here, and the house, built in 1929, may need some updating, but is a real charmer.

Stanwich Lane is that loop just at the bottom of Stanwich Road, which gives it great convenience to town, while also offering privacy and freedom from traffic. Good spot.

7 Dewart Road

7 Dewart Road

7 Dewart Road took longer, and required quite a price cut before it sold, but sell it did, fo $6.260 million. It started at $7.950 last November, but knocked that price down quickly once the market's indifference was noted.

53 Edgewater

53 Edgewater

53 Edgewater Drive,Old Greenwich, closed at $1.1 million. Great street, but the one mater bedroom top, two small bedrooms below is an awkward arrangement. Then again, not every buyer is a parent of two, and as a singles for couple's house, I can understand the appeal.

Westchester home sales plummet with new limitation on property tax write-offs

Hardly surprising.

As reported by my Bloomberg pal, Oshrat Carmiel
 

The nation’s new tax law is scaring would-be homebuyers from Westchester, a longtime refuge for families escaping New York City’s high costs.

Purchases in the northern suburban county -- which shoulders the biggest property-tax burden in the U.S. -- plunged 18 percent in the second quarter from a year earlier, the most since 2011, according to a report Thursday by appraiser Miller Samuel Inc. and brokerage Douglas Elliman Real Estate. It was the fourth consecutive quarter of sales declines.

“We’re seeing buyers take a second to understand the math,” Scott Elwell, Douglas Elliman’s regional manager in charge of Westchester and Connecticut, said in an interview. “They’re spending more time with their accountants and really understanding how this plays out.”

Anyone else remember when Greenwich Time was a local paper, and not the red-headed stepchild of a national chain?

The closest specialty wine store to Bruce Park Avenue is Putnam & Vine at the corner of East Elm and Mason streets. Petz believes the new shop will carve out its own name in Old Greenwich — when that name is decided.

In fact, the names "Old Greenwich" and "Greenwich" were decided upon long ago, and input from an out-of-town editor is both unnecessary and unwelcome.

Old Greenwich sale, at a loss

Sunken asset

Sunken asset

7 Little Cove Road, which sold for $6.250 million in 2012, has closed at $4,649,400. A previous owner also paid $6.5 for this house in 2004, and put it back up for sale in 2010 at $7.695 before finally accepting that same $6.5 million from this seller. 

The home's failure to appreciate should have, perhaps, served as a warning, but he certainly learned his lesson today.

(Long past) time to defund public universities

Too many whites attending college

Cal Poly San Luis Obispo works on massive diversity and inclusion effort

 

Cal Poly San Luis Obispo works on massive diversity and inclusion effort

In keeping with the diversity and inclusion movement sweeping campuses across the country, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo recently released a 30-page report outlining plans to “improve diversity” via a series of initiatives.

One goal is to increase the number of people of color on campus beyond the increases that have already occurred over the past few years, as “applications from underrepresented minority students doubled between 2008 and 2018.”

“In 2011, the campus was 63 percent Caucasian,” the May 2 report informs readers, “in fall of 2017, it was less than 55 percent … but there is still much work to do.”

The public research institution states it wishes to get those numbers more in line with the state’s percentage of white people, which recent polls hold at 39.7 percent of the population.

“To further advance its goals of reflecting the demographics of California and creating a more diverse and inclusive campus community, Cal Poly administration has developed the following Diversity Action Initiatives document,” the report states.

In it, administration details a multi-year effort with dozens of intitiatives, including ones to further lower the percentage of white students on campus and increase the number of faculty of color.

For students, the school plans on recruiting applicants more heavily based on race. For instance, the school has recently implemented several new scholarships “aimed at recruiting more African-American and other underrepresented minorities.” It’s also working to recruit low-income and first-generation students by partnering with high schools that enroll a high percentage of these students, according to the report.

Cal Poly SLO has eliminated applicants’ ability to apply to the school in Early Decision since the process, according to the report, “disadvantaged low-income students.” All applicants, regardless of their level of interest in the school, are viewed in one big pool in regular decision admissions.

And the college announced its intention of forcibly increasing diversity in “traditionally male-dominated majors” such as STEM and Architecture and Environmental Design, according to the document.

For faculty, the university states diversity will be a criterion considered in cluster hiring faculty “every other year.” And the university has received $150,000 from the Cal State University system “for a cluster hire of up to 10 faculty positions that focus on diversity and inclusion in a variety of scholarly areas throughout the university’s six colleges.”

This fall campus leaders will “require a diversity statement from candidates for all faculty and staff searches,” the report states. It adds that search committees will now be made up of diverse membership and Academic Affairs has “set [an] expectation that search committees will be based on best practices regarding diversity.”

Harvard, and the top California schools are already being sued for discriminating against Asian students, and now this. Harvard and the rest of the Ivies are private schools, albeit the recipients of massive tax subsidies, and given the power of their liberal alumni, the group is probably immune from retaliation, but taxpayers may, and should, in my opinion, rebel against funding public schools that are so determined to punish the children of the middle-class parents who are paying for this disaster. 

 

 

Florida Man comes up with the (possibly) perfect defense against a D.U.I. charge

He only sipped his Jim Beam while paused at stop signs, and not while actually driving.

My memory of criminal law is that merely having keys in the ignition, even if the engine is off, falls within the definition of driving under the influence, but good try.

JULY 10--An inebriated motorist assured Florida police that he was not drinking while driving, but only swigging from a bottle of Jim Beam bourbon when his vehicle paused at stop signs and traffic signals, according to a police report.

Earle Gustavas Stevens, 69, was arrested two weeks ago for driving his Mercury Grand Marquis while under the influence. The Vero Beach resident, now free on $1500 bond in advance of a July 31 arraignment, was nabbed after a driver called 911 to report that Stevens’s car repeatedly tapped her bumper while they were in a McDonald’s drive-thru lane.

When a sheriff’s deputy contacted Stevens, he reeked of alcohol, was slurring his words, and had ”red and glossy” eyes. On the Mercury’s passenger seat was a bottle of Jim Beam, from which Stevens admitted he had been drinking.

Asked if he was drinking in the auto, Stevens replied, “No.” He then explained he was enjoying the bourbon at “Stop signs.” The deputy further noted Stevens’s distinction when it came to drinking while driving: “He further explained that he was not drinking while the car was moving and only when he stopped for stop signs and traffic signals.”

Stevens was arrested after failing a series of field sobriety tests, as first reportedby Will Greenlee of Treasure Coast Newspapers. A breath test recorded Stevens’s blood alcohol content at nearly twice the legal limit.

In addition to a drunk driving charge, Stevens was cited for driving without a license. Stevens, seen above, reportedly told cops that he had two “prior DUI charges from Missouri.”

"Anti-gentrification" terrorists burning down new construction in Oakland

rebuild it, as a gibbet

rebuild it, as a gibbet

Catch 'em, hang 'em. Except that it's California, the sanctuary state for criminals of all types.

After a series of unsolved arsons at housing projects under construction in the East Bay, Oakland developers said Monday they hope hundreds of thousands of dollars in reward money will attract a useful tipster and end the destruction.
Members of the Jobs and Housing Coalition, a lobbying group of Oakland developers and businesses, announced a $300,000 reward for information leading to the conviction of a responsible party.
“Clearly this is a disturbed individual who really has no regard for life or property or concern for the current state of housing in our Bay Area,” said Fire Chief Darin White, who joined the group for the announcement at City Hall.
Motives are uncertain behind four suspicious fires in Oakland and Emeryville since 2016, and it isn’t clear if one or more arsonists are setting them. But Oakland leaders suspect those responsible oppose gentrification.
At a news conference to announce the reward money, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf said the perpetrators “endangered human life” and “were specifically targeting residential construction.”
“We are in a housing crisis. Every new unit of housing is going to help this Bay Area region start to stabilize what is now an unsustainable housing market,” Schaaf said. “You will not get away with destroying a residential construction project in Oakland.”
Schaaf spoke days after the anniversary of a fire on July 7, 2017 in the Auto Row neighborhood north of downtown Oakland, which burned down the Alta Waverly construction project that was to build nearly 200 apartment units and 32,000 square feet of retail space. The blaze also damaged a crane, temporarily displacing 700 residents in neighboring buildings as it swiveled out of control.
That fire, its cause could not be determined, came just a few months after the second of two fires at a $35 million project in Emeryville near the Oakland border. On May 13, 2017, surveillance footage captured photos of a suspected arsonist riding a bike to the scene. Investigators said the fire was deliberately set. It delayed construction about nine months on the 105-unit building with 21,000 square feet of retail space. The same project was damaged the previous July in similar circumstances.
Arson was also ruled the cause of an October 2016 fire at an unfinished 41-unit site on Lester Avenue in Oakland.
Another arson, in Concord, is not included in the reward offer. Investigators said an arsonist also burned down a 180-unit project in Concord on April 24, forcing 250 people in a neighboring apartment complex to flee their homes. Two people were treated for smoke inhalation.
Greg McConnell, president and CEO of the coalition offering the reward, said his members have reported tripling or quadrupling their spending on security since the arsons. They have outfitted construction sites with video cameras, fencing, alarms, bright lights and round-the-clock security guards. Some builders have even started using products designed to be fire retardant, McConnell said.
If the arsonist or arsonists are indeed motivated by hostility toward a development boom and displacement, their actions are self-defeating, McConnell said.
“There’s this theory that if you stop building, gentrification will go away,” he said. “It’s exactly the opposite. If you decrease building, people are still coming to town and they are competing with the Oakland resident, and they have greater resources. So if you don’t build new housing stock for them to occupy, they are going to out-compete the existing Oakland resident.”

90% of the plastics in our oceans spews from by just 10 rivers, all in Asia and Africa

Off to the pacific

Off to the pacific

Banning plastic bags in Greenwich or straws at Starbucks is fine for virtue-signaling, but absolutely useless in addresing the problem. Just like the religion of residential recycling, *

Here's the report:

A shocking study has revealed 90 per cent of the world's plastic waste comes from just 10 rivers in Asia and Africa.
As governments around the world rush to address the global problem of plastic pollution in the oceans, researchers have now pinpointed the river systems that carry the majority of it out to sea. 
About five trillion pounds is floating in the sea, and targeting the major sources - such as the Yangtze and the Ganges - could almost halve it, scientists claim. 
Carried out by Germany's Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, it suggests that the most effective way of reducing the amount of plastic in the world's oceans is by addressing the sources of pollution along such waterways as these.
[snip]
China's Yangtze River was the worst polluter, and ferries some 1.5 million tonnes of plastic into the Yellow Sea every year, the study found. 
e 1.5 million tonnes of plastic into the Yellow Sea every year, the study found. 

* Single stream recycling,mingling plastic, glass, cardboard, etc., is so contaminated by non-recyclable materials that it's mostly consigned to the same landfills that receive the rest of our garbage.