Envy Apartment

Petitions with almost 1,200 signatures were submitted to the Amherst Town Board Monday night , demanding that land for a major low- income apartment complex in the Willow Ridge area be rezoned for one-family homes. The petitions say the less intensive residential land use is needed to avoid undue pressure on roads, schools, sewers, water lines and power sources, and to "protect the sense of community" that Willow Ridge residents share . The Benchmark Group has already filed plans for the first phase of a complex of more than 350 apartments near Niagara Falls Boulevard and Willow Ridge Drive . The property has been zoned for multiple dwellings for more than 20 years. …

The long retail spine of Sydney Road, Brunswick, just north of Melbourne's CBD, was once a prosperous trading outpost on the way to the goldfields. These days it's a bohemian mix of variety stores, op shops, halal butchers and Lebanese bakeries. Take a side street to the west, however, and a different picture emerges. Sandwiched between Sydney Road and the Upfield train line is an area undergoing rapid and widespread transformation. Light industry is fast being replaced by mid- rise apartment buildings , their inhabitants attracted by the short commute into town and cheaper prices than in the city's south-east. The quality of these units is, on the whole, depressingly bad; think poor ventilation and bedrooms that "borrow" natural light (a weasel word for being dark and windowless). The occasional jazzy façade tries feebly to make up for otherwise cheap construction amid a chorus of greys. At ground level, carpark roller doors alternate with mean pocket garden...