Las Urbanistas

Illustration by Andrew Rodriguez/The New York Times

By VIVIAN S. TOY

Published: March 25, 2007

IN New York’s construction boom of the last few years, many people have been buying apartments in buildings before they actually rise out of the ground. The buyers can’t see them, smell them or touch them. When they finally do, they are sometimes in for very big surprises, some of them infuriating.

Rooms are often smaller than advertised. The Viking stove isn’t there, but a stove described as being of “similar quality” is. The view is not at all what the buyers imagined.

Were they deceived?

Not necessarily. In many cases, neither they nor their lawyers read the offering plan carefully. Buyers often must hand over a $200 deposit for the thrill of getting three days to review the plan, sometimes 500 pages or more. It includes floor plans; tables that provide square footage, estimated taxes and common charges; and detailed descriptions of construction materials and apartment finishes. But it is also filled with technical and legal language that would be indecipherable to anyone other than a real estate lawyer.

Consider this piece of boilerplate: “The gross square footage of a unit is greater than the approximate square footage of a unit measured by using the legal definition of the unit. … As is customary in New York City , these gross square footages exceed the usable floor area of each unit.”

That’s a long and strange way of saying that the apartments will probably be smaller than the buyers have been told. Brokers and lawyers say that virtually every new development’s offering plan includes this type of disclaimer, but finding it can often be a challenge.

Margery Germain said neither she nor her husband, Mark, noticed the fine print in the offering plan explaining that although their Chelsea apartment had been marketed at 1,500 square feet, it really wouldn’t be that big because the figure measured the space to the unit’s exterior walls and included space that they could neither see nor use.

Mrs. Germain walked through the building for the first time last September, she said, and was devastated when she stepped into the space that would be her two-bedroom apartment: “I was horrified. I ran out and called my husband and said: ‘It’s tiny. What are we going to do?’ Compared with the floor plan we had been given, every room had lost some square footage. It wasn’t what we expected.”

Their lawyer explained that there was nothing to be done because the offering plan had a disclaimer: total square footage was only approximate.

But in the end, the Germains were able to make the fine print work for them.

As soon as they could, they took advantage of an escape clause that allowed them to walk away from the deal and get their deposit back because the building was not ready for occupancy when it was supposed to be, by the end of 2006.

The Germains, who are empty nesters looking forward to downsizing from their home in Scarsdale, N.Y., and moving into the city, decided that buying from a floor plan wasn’t for them. They have since signed a contract for a loft at the Tribeca Summit, a converted warehouse that is not yet completed. “But we’ve seen the space,” Mrs. Germain said, “and we know what we’re getting this time.”

Their experience illustrates the potential pitfalls and frustrations that home buyers face when they buy a condo in the preconstruction phase. Since all they have to go on is a floor plan, some artist’s renderings and a model kitchen and bathroom, they cannot know for sure how much light the living room gets at noon, nor can they envision how a king-size bed will fit in the bedroom. So much must be left to the imagination that expectations can easily wind up not meeting reality when the building is finished.

“It’s easy to get excited about a new development and get swept up in the sense of urgency and wanting to be the first one in,” said Andrew Phillips, a senior vice president at Halstead Property. “I like to tell people to hurry up and wait. Get there fast, but then take your time thinking it through.”

Buyers need to have a clear sense of what’s important to them, he said, “and it doesn’t hurt to have somewhat of a suspicious nature.”

So, for example, if high ceilings are a priority, buyers should find out if the advertised 10-foot ceilings run throughout the apartment or if they will be interrupted by mechanical equipment in certain rooms. “You have to say to yourself: ‘What are the factors as I walk into a room that will make me happy?’ and then make sure that the property will meet your requirements,” Mr. Phillips said.

He and other brokers said buyers should also research the reputation of a building’s developer before buying. But above all, they recommended having a lawyer experienced in reading real estate offering plans, which are often two inches thick and many times denser in legalese.

“A broker works for the property owners,” said Jon Phillips, a vice president at Halstead. “But attorneys are under no such constraints. Their total loyalty is to the consumer, and their job is to wade through the impenetrable jargon, tell them the rational realities and really to protect them.”

Buying from a floor plan, of course, need not be a disappointing experience. Very likely, it was not for most of the 3,000 people who bought in new developments in Manhattan last year.

Jonathan Miller, an appraiser and the president of Miller Samuel, estimated that about 30 percent of the 10,000 apartments sold in Manhattan last year were in new developments. He added that thousands more are either planned or under construction.

The New York attorney general’s office, which handles complaints about new construction, states plainly on its Web site, though, that there are certain risks when buying in a new development. “There are frequent misunderstandings and discrepancies between what is stated in the offering plan, what is promised by salespeople and what is actually delivered,” the site warns.

In some ways, disillusionment is inevitable, because buying before the building is up demands lots of imagination.

Pamela Liebman, the president of the Corcoran Group, said that years ago, brokers would market new developments from a trailer with “a couple pieces of board with a faucet, a swatch and a piece of tile.”

But as buyers have become more sophisticated, she said, so has the selling environment. “You can’t even call it a sales office anymore,” she said. “Now it’s a sales gallery, because you’re setting the tone for the development. It’s very much about creating a feeling.”

In addition to a scale model of the building, showrooms now typically include models of a kitchen, a master bathroom and either a second full bath or a half bath. A selling broker will often make a 35- to 45-minute presentation, showing floor plans and photos or renderings that depict the kind of views any given apartment will have.

“We have to paint the picture for buyers and make them imagine what they are buying,” said Felicia De Chabris, a vice president at Halstead who is the sales manager for a new development at 110 Third Avenue, between 13th and 14th Streets.

Buyers should examine the model rooms with the same scrutiny they would use in an actual apartment and ask whether they will get the specific finishes or appliances shown.

Being able to imagine herself cooking comfortably in the kitchen was important to Brannon McDonald, one of the first to buy at 110 Third. Since the finishes in many new developments are similar stainless-steel appliances, stone countertops and hardwood floors, she said she was “more picky about functionability than about colors” and has “gone as far as to get in the tub to see how it feels.” She said she had ruled out a different development because the oven was so low to the floor, “I almost had to sit down to open it.”

Michael Souter, who recently bought a condo in a converted building on Madison Square Park, said that because he is an artist, he has an eye for “forecasting what an environment is going to look like.”

He says he uses a “pencil test,” in which he thinks through his daily routine while running a pencil — a stand-in for himself — through the floor plan. “I’m going to bed, or I want to go to the laundry room,” he said. “So I walk the pencil through, and I figure out what I’m going to pass and how I’m going to get there.”

The biggest surprise for him after moving in, he said, was the quality of the apartment’s finishes. “I know I sound very pretentious saying this, but the fixtures are kind of like nice Home Depot, and they don’t live up to the potential of the building,” he said. Mr. Souter said he planned to redo the apartment anyway.

Besides choosing a specific apartment, brokers said, buyers should always ask about other projects a developer has built. Patricia Warburg Cliff, a senior vice president of the Corcoran Group, said that in 2001 she bought a SoHo condo from a small developer who was converting his first lofts, and she saw firsthand what can result from inexperience.

Each apartment had keyed elevator access, but she said that because the developer had not built an airtight box around the elevator equipment on the building’s roof, there was a problem. “When it snowed, there’d be an inch of snow in our entranceway because it permeated the elevator shaft,” she said. “And on windy days, a draft that came down the shaft would blow out the candles in our apartment.”

She said the apartment turned out to be a good deal because she made a fair amount of money when she sold it two years later. “I really didn’t mind doing a little homesteading while I was there,” she added. “But my point is you should know who you’re dealing with, and buying from a developer who’s inexperienced is fine if the price reflects the risk factor.”

Once prospective buyers have done their homework on the developer, a logical next step is to review the offering plan. A lawyer can help scour the fine print of the hefty document for potential surprises.

To help demystify the process, Steven Matz, a real estate lawyer who estimates that about 70 percent of his office’s cases now involve new development, said he boiled a 500-page offering plan down to a five-page digest of the plan’s highlights. “Giving an average person an offering plan to read is like handing somebody a travel guide for another country in a different language,” he said. “It needs to be broken down in lay terms.”

One of the first things Mr. Matz makes clear to clients buying in a new development is how much higher their closing costs will be because they will have to pay city and state transfer taxes, costs that sellers are required to pay by law, but that developers of new construction routinely foist onto buyers in the fine print of an offering plan. In a softer market, developers may be willing to negotiate who pays the taxes. For a $1 million apartment, they total about $19,000.

Mr. Matz also warns that closing dates are subject to construction delays, and he pores over the offering plan for construction details: whether windows can be opened and if they are double-glazed; what type of heating system will be used; whether the washer and dryer are vented; and whether the sponsor can substitute advertised materials or appliances.

“You want to help buyers avoid any surprises,” he said. “But people have to keep in mind that in New York City, it’s very rare for somebody to get everything they want in one great package.”

Ms. McDonald said she skimmed the offering plan for the two-bedroom apartment at 110 Third that she and her fiancé, Brad Demuth, are buying. Mr. Demuth, a lawyer, read the plan more carefully, but they both relied on their real estate lawyer, Arthur Arschin, to find things they might have missed. And he did.

First, he explained that their apartment had lot-line windows, which means that if the neighboring lot is developed in the future, they will not only lose their view, but they will also be responsible for bricking up their windows. But further digging revealed that their views are protected because the air rights for the next-door lot have already been purchased.

He also discovered that their deposit would not be held in an interest-bearing escrow account. “That’s not the norm because in most deals, buyers are happy to get a $800 or $900 check for the interest at their closing,” Mr. Arschin said. “It helps take the sting out of all the other checks they’re writing.”

Mr. Demuth said he wasn’t happy at that news, “but it wasn’t a deal-breaker.”

Shaun Osher, the chief executive of Core Group Marketing, said he once had a client who bought a penthouse with an enormous terrace only to discover at his walk-through that a mechanical vent for the building was on one side of the terrace.

“The thing made a noise, and he lost half of his terrace, but he had to suck it up because if he had walked away, he would have had to spend much more to get a similar space,” he said.

On the plus side, the buyer had agreed to pay $2 million for the apartment, and it was already worth $2.5 million by the time of his closing.

“A lot of buyers are willing to accept certain flaws,” Mr. Osher said. “If your investment has already appreciated by 20 or 25 percent more, you can be a lot more forgiving.”

As downtown’s new residential conversion marches deeper into old Los Angeles, architects and developers are tapping into history, paying homage to pioneers and perhaps to a tree.

Art Astor isn’t in that demographic. He’s 82, and he may be one of the few who bought a piece of downtown for reasons of nostalgia. He owns a sixth-floor corner loft in the newly refurbished Chapman Building at 8th Street and Broadway.

“My father had his law office here from 1930 to 1960,” Astor said in a recent interview. He owns four radio stations and a private Anaheim museum of vintage cars and antique radios and telephones.

Astor recalled going downtown every Saturday with his father. From the office window, he could see every theater along Broadway.

“He’d give me a dime and send me off to the movies while he worked,” Astor said.

“All of his mail was addressed to A.M. Astor at the Chapman building,” Astor said. “Street addresses weren’t necessary. Everyone knew the Chapman Building.”

His father, who changed his name from Astor Arakelian to A.M. Astor, was an Armenian who immigrated to America in 1910, at 21, to escape slaughter in Turkey, Astor said.

“His parents were killed by soldiers right in front of him, when he was about 4 years old,” he said. “He ran to a neighbor’s house and hid under her skirt. She turned him over to an orphanage, where he was educated by Methodist missionaries.”

Once in the U.S., Astor said, his father “worked as a soda jerk while putting himself through USC law school.”

The Chapman, a 13-story beaux arts building, was constructed in 1912, more than a decade before Broadway became downtown’s jazziest entertainment district, lined with motion picture palaces. The Los Angeles Investment Co. built it at a cost of $1 million. Designed by architect Ernest McConnell, the building was said to be fireproof. It has mahogany doorways, sweeping marble stairways and wrought-iron letters “LA” marking each stair railing.

“It’s built like a battleship,” Astor said, referring to the strength of the materials.

In 1920, Charles Clarke Chapman — Fullerton’s first mayor and the chief benefactor of Chapman University — bought the building for $1.6 million. The so-called Orange King of California — who built his fortune on citrus and real estate — made it his headquarters. He added bronze elevator doors ornately embossed with the letter C.

At the Chapman, “everyone advertised with gold lettering on the windows,” Astor said. But in the 1930s, business was so slow that his father “was almost swatting flies.” That is, until the day a poorly dressed elderly woman walked into his office with a brown paper bag.

The woman, whose name Astor has forgotten, told the senior Astor that every day she’d meet a man in Pershing Square. They shared coffee and muffins and became friends. One day the man didn’t show up, but someone else did: a stranger who handed her the bag. Her friend had died the night before, he explained, leaving her everything he owned. As the stranger walked away, the woman opened the bag and saw “stocks and bonds worth nearly $400,000, even in the late Depression.”

As she walked out of the park, the woman looked up and saw Astor’s name and sign on his office window — “A.M. Astor, Attorney at Law.”

“She had no idea that her friend had been wealthy, and my father became her executor.”

Greg Fischer, an aide to Councilwoman Jan Perry, wields such knowledge of downtown’s historic past that you’d think he’d lived there since the early 1900s. He can rattle off details about old buildings as if they were family.

Here are a few of downtown’s residential projects that have pioneer names:

• Brockman Building, 530 W. 7th St. In 1912, mining magnate John Brockman staked half a million dollars that 7th Street would become the heart of downtown’s shopping district. He was right. The 13-story renaissance revival building at 7th Street and Grand Avenue was designed by architect Harrison Albright. Brockman leased several floors to J.J. Haggarty clothing store.

By the mid-1920s, the sidewalks and electric streetcars were bustling with shoppers. Brooks Brothers traditional men’s clothing store anchored the building for decades.

• Douglas Building, 257 S. Spring St. Thomas Douglas Stimson, a Chicago and Seattle lumber baron, industrialist and financier, made a fortune before retiring to Los Angeles in 1890. He turned to banking, built the most expensive mansion in the city and erected a 42-room boarding house at 3rd and Spring streets, called the Stimson Block.

He dreamed of another grand office complex across the street, handing the task to San Francisco architects James and Merritt Reid, whose credits include the Hotel del Coronado in San Diego. Stimson died in 1898.

His family continued the project and etched “Douglas” deeply into terra cotta over the entrance, probably in honor of his middle name.

But it could also have been a nod to the type of tree — Douglas fir — whose wood was shipped from Stimson’s timberlands in Oregon and Washington and used to decorate the interior.

• Blackstone’s Department Store Building, 901-909 Broadway. Nathaniel Blackstone, former business partner and brother-in-law of department store founder J.W. Robinson, began building the flagship of his own emporiums in 1917.

The six-story beaux arts building at 9th Street and Broadway was designed by architect John Parkinson. In the 1920s, Blackstone hired beauty specialists to give tips on hairstyles and makeup, provided customers with mah-jongg lessons and offered classes in interior decorating and landscape gardening, according to Times stories of the era. Blackstone died in 1930.

• Roosevelt Building, 727 W. 7th St. Named for President Theodore Roosevelt, the renaissance revival office building opened in 1927. The Roosevelt was once a popular address for doctors and dentists.

Before Christmas in 1943, an aggrieved patient shot and killed his surgeon, then killed himself. In 1946, the state Supreme Court ruled in Hunt vs. Authier that the slain surgeon’s heirs had the right to collect damages from the killer’s estate. Victims’ families have filed wrongful-death suits ever since.

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Jason Schmidt
On the Santa Ifigênia bridge.

Rio may have samba and Speedos, but these days it’s São Paulo that is swinging like the hips of the girl from Ipanema. Brazil’s largest city — 11 million and counting — has transformed itself from a dull and featureless capital of finance into the epicenter of Brazilian culture, where art, architecture, design and fashion are flourishing.

“This is kind of an ugly-duckling story,” says Waldick Jatobá, an art collector and executive at the Banco Privado Português. “Even though São Paulo has always been rich, people thought this was an ugly place.” You did business here, then headed for the beach. So Paulistanos found other ways to create beauty; in Brazil, if you don’t have the beach, you need something. So for São Paulo, food was the first wave; leading the way in the 1980s and ’90s was Rogério Fasano, the owner of seven Italian restaurants in town and its finest hotel, Fasano. Other pioneers — furniture designers like the Campana brothers, fashion innovators such as Tufi Duek and Alexandre Herchcovitch, and gallerists like Luisa Strina — naturally began winning the city even more attention. As Jatobá puts it, “São Paulo started thinking of itself as First World.”

Today the city itself isn’t any more beautiful — there’s just too much cinder-block sprawl — but it’s buzzing with new talent and bold ideas. In Jardins, the city’s answer to SoHo, every block offers an experimental clothing boutique or gleaming flagship store for one of Brazil’s new design powerhouses. In the Higienópolis neighborhood, innovative chefs and night-life impresarios are opening doors. And even in the half-gentrified Vila Madalena district, sprouting up between the auto-repair shops are artists’ collectives and open-air boîtes where hipsters cluster around bottles of beer on dry ice. São Paulo feels a bit like an urban artists’ colony, a city that fosters pure creative expression without too much commercialism sullying the dream. How else do you explain the city’s recent ban on outdoor advertising?

Of course, much of Brazil’s global impact has been in the fashion world — just picture Gisele Bündchen in not much more than a pair of Havaianas flip-flops. Now 11 years old, São Paulo Fashion Week has gone from a novelty to a viable showcase of talent and trends. ‘‘The city is really just discovering fashion. It’s becoming mainstream,” says Cacá Ribeiro, who co-owns the high-end swimwear label Neon and runs a production company that stages fashion shows. (He also recently opened the nightclub Royal downtown. Many Paulistanos seem to have multi-hyphenate careers.) Still, some of Brazilian fashion’s most important names — Glória Coelho and Reinaldo Lourenço, both current darlings of Vogue Brasil — are largely unfamiliar outside their country. But international success isn’t necessarily the goal for emerging talent; there are plenty of stylish folks right at home. Ribeiro, for his part, says that the success of Neon, now sold in about 60 stores around Brazil, is due solely to the Brazilian market: ‘‘Everyone’s talking about fashion. You can feel the vibrations of new stuff happening.”

The cosmos of style has many orbits, and few are as interconnected as those in São Paulo. In a country where 2.4 percent of the population is wealthy, according to a study from the State University of Campinas, it’s no surprise the people with money all seem to know each other. (Paulistanos keep their circles tight for security reasons too; kidnappings and carjackings are a fact of life.) Yet there is a collaborative spirit here that transcends the ordinary social whirl. For example, at a new cultural center called Escola São Paulo, the director Isabella Prata hosts lectures and offers courses to the public ranging from toy design to film directing. In the lounge and garden, students loll about in low-slung chairs; at Escola events, São Paulo’s most influential tastemakers — such as the designer Cris Barros, the photographer Bob Wolfenson and the architect Isay Weinfeld — mingle as if they were at a cookout on someone’s roof.

Eduardo Brandão, the co-director of Galeria Vermelho, which serves as a similar kind of idea lab for artists of every stripe, suggests that such a collegiate environment might disintegrate in a city with more resources, like New York . Not that São Paulo isn’t a place of accomplishment — Vermelho sold almost everything it brought this year to Art Basel Miami, mostly to American collectors. All this bonhomie among the creative class is simply a product of its freshness and enthusiasm.

‘‘In New York,” says Jatobá, who lived in Manhattan from 1996 to 2000 , ‘‘people sniff each other first. Here, we don’t sniff. We just circulate. Maybe it’s our tropical nature.” Or it might be that the circle of tastemakers is small enough that everyone is a friend. (When you spot a Campana brothers’ chair in someone’s apartment, chances are the owner will tell you the designers are ‘‘supernice guys.”) In any case, that circle seems to be ever-expanding. ‘‘This city demands people to be cultural,” Jatobá says, ‘‘to be interested in design, film, art, architecture.” And in São Paulo, it’s not all been done before.

ESSENTIALS

HOTELS

Emiliano The décor is looking dated now, but for really high rollers, this is the place: the hotel has its own helicopter pad. Rua Oscar Freire, 384; 011-55-11-3068-4399; www .emiliano.com.br; doubles from about $360. Fasano Sixty rooms done in decadent, 1930sgangster style. Jardins location and well-connected owner make it the meeting spot for local swells. Rua Vittorio Fasano, 88. 011-55-11-3896-4000; doubles from $440. Hotel Unique What it lacks in location (between Jardins and Ibirapuera park) it makes up for with Ruy Ohtake’s soaring design and a sceney rooftop pool. Avenida Brigadeiro Luis Antonio, 4700; 011-55-11-3055-4710; www .hotelunique.com.br; doubles from about $470.

RESTAURANTS AND CAFES

Carlota Carla Pernambuco’s beloved fusion place in a lovely old house in Higienópolis. Rua Sergipe, 753; 011-55-11- 3661-8670; entrees about $21 to $31. D.O.M. Alex Atala’s menu includes dishes like fried oysters with tapioca. Rua Barão de Capanema, 549; 011-55-11- 3088-0761; entrees $27 to $53. Due Cuochi Cucina The latest hard-to-book Italian, in Itaim Bibi. Rua Manoel Guedes, 93; 011-55-11-3078-8092; entrees $13 to $24. Gero The younger, more cawsual sister of the restaurant in the Fasano hotel. Rua Haddock Lobo, 1629; 011-55-11-3064-0005; entrees about $20 to $35. Ritz This casual Itaim Bibi grill draws businessmen by day and a gay crowd by night. Alameda Franca, 1088; 011-55-11-3088-6808; entrees $13 to $17. Salve Jorge Retractable roof plus sexy crowd plus beer on dry ice equals party waiting to happen. In Vila Madalena. Rua Aspicuelta, 544; 011-55-11-3815-0705; entrees $12 to $21. Santo Grão Café e Bistrot Coffee served to a shopping-bag-laden crowd in Jardins. Rua Oscar Freire, 413; 011-55-11-3082-9969. Shimo Where high design meets Japanese fusion (Paulistanos are obsessed with sushi). Rua Jerônimo da Veiga, 74; 011-55-11-3167-2222; entrees $11 to $36. Sophia Bistrot Chic new spot right by Isabela Capeto’s boutique in Jardins. Rua da Consolação, 3368; 011- 55-11-3081-7698; entrees $20 to $26. Spot After 13 years, still the hottest table for brunch. Rua Ministro Rocha Azevedo, 72; 011-55-11-3283-0946; entrees $15 to $25.

SHOPS

The best shopping is concentrated in a few square blocks of Jardins. You’ll find the designers who show at São Paulo Fashion Week, including Isabela Capeto (Rua da Consolação, 3358; 011-55-11- 3898-1878), Reinaldo Lourenço (Rua Bela Cintra, 2167; 011-55-11-3085-8150), Glória Coelho (Rua Bela Cintra, 2173; 011-55-11-3085-6671), Cris Barros (Rua Oscar Freire, 295; 011-55-11-3082-3621), Adriana Barra (Rua Peixoto Gomide, 1801; 011-55-11-3062- 0387), Alexandre Herchcovitch (Rua Haddock Lobo, 1151; 011-55-11-3063- 2888), Osklen (Rua Oscar Freire, 645; 011-55-11-3083- 7977) and Tufi Duek at Forum (Rua Oscar Freire, 916; 011-55- 11-3085-6269). Clube Chocolate (Rua Oscar Freire, 913; 011-55-11-3084-1500) sells a number of Brazilian designers mixed in with American jeans from True Religion. Sprinkled around Jardins are design shops such as Passado Composto (Rua da Consolação, 3198; 011-55-11-3064-0805), with its collection of vintage chandeliers, and the pitchperfect modernist emporium Mi Casa (Rua Estados Unidos, 2109; 011-55-11-3088-1238). Two other can’t-miss shops are Esencial in Itaim Bibi (Rua Araçari, 246; 011-55-11-3168- 5601), for jewelry and home items from across the country, and Ovo in Vila Olímpia (Rua Gomes de Carvalho, 830; 011- 55-11-3045-0309), which sells the sleek furniture and lighting of Gerson de Oliveira and Luciana Martins. Vila Madalena is also full of little boutiques and galleries: Cas (Rua Fidalga, 317; 011-55-11-3032-8455) is an avant-garde clothing shop; Espaço Ophicina (Rua Aspicuelta, 329; 011-55-11- 3813-8466) sells the work of emerging local photographers.

GALLERIES

Galeria Fortes Vilaça Represents stars of Brazilian art like Beatriz Milhazes and Vik Muniz. Rua Fradique Coutinho, 1500; 011-55-11- 3032-7066; www.fortesvilaca .com.br. Galeria Leme Shows contemporary work from mostly-under-35 artists in a dramatic space designed by Paulo Mendes de Rocha. Rua Agostinho Cantu, 88; 011-55-11-3814-8184; www .galerialeme.com. Galeria Luisa Strina A pioneer in São Paulo and the first Latin American gallery to show at Art Basel. Rua Oscar Freire, 502; 011-55-11- 3088-2471; www.galeria luisastrina.com.br. Galeria Nara Roesler Shows work by artists including Tomie Ohtake and Dino Bruzzone. Avenida Europa, 655; 011-55-11-3063-2344; www.nararoesler.com.br Galeria Vermelho Vibrant center of artistic crosspollination on the edge of Higienópolis. Rua Minas Gerais, 350; 011-55-11-3257-2033; www.galeriavermelho.com.br.

Agitated by a Disney-backed ballot proposal that would require voter approval for housing projects in Anaheim’s tourist zone, opponents have begun mulling ballot proposals of their own.

Both measures are targeted for Feb. 5.

Meanwhile, SunCal Cos., a developer that wants to build a 1,500-unit condo-apartment complex in the resort district, said it also might sponsor a ballot measure.

Depending on how many groups join the fray, “there could be three, four, even five initiatives,” said Frank Elfend, a SunCal consultant.

At stake is the future of Anaheim’s tourist zone, a 2.2-square-mile area anchored by Disneyland and California Adventure. Disney has long planned to build a third amusement park in the district. In 1994, the City Council banned residential development in the neighborhood.

Disney maintains that allowing housing in the resort district would undercut its long-term plans and could stunt the tourist-related revenue the city earns from the area.

SunCal hopes to overturn the 1994 housing ban to make way for 1,500 apartments and condominiums directly across from Disney’s envisioned third park. SunCal said 225 of its units would be geared toward low-income residents. The project would replace a 300-unit mobile-home park on the property.

An earlier City Council vote on the project ended in a 2-2 deadlock, with Councilwoman Lucille Kring abstaining because of a possible conflict of interest. But the California Fair Political Practices Commission has since ruled she does not have a conflict and can vote on the project. Kring had joined with Galloway and Councilman Bob Hernandez to revisit the SunCal project.

With a City Council vote on the project scheduled April 24, Disney has launched a two-pronged bid to derail it.

In February, the company sued to block SunCal’s proposal. More recently, joined by tourism officials and business leaders, Disney announced plans for a ballot measure that would require voter approval of residential projects in the tourist zone.

About 20,000 voter signatures would be needed to qualify the initiative for the ballot. In contrast, Galloway would need just two more council votes to get her rival measure on the ballot.

The campaign promises to be hard-fought. Mayor Curt Pringle, who opposes residential development inside the tourist district, said, “I cannot envision the people of Anaheim wanting to punish the economic engine that benefits the city.”

But Galloway said Disney’s desire to block affordable housing in the tourist zone makes no sense. “If affordable housing is not in the resort area, where else would it be?” she asked. Existing upscale neighborhoods like Anaheim Hills aren’t going to want such projects either, she said.

The question of who should be responsible for alleviating the city’s housing crunch is fueling both initiative drives.

“Voters need to have a clear choice,” Galloway said. If Disney’s initiative qualifies for the ballot, she added, “I’m certain the City Council will be interested in looking at a counter-initiative.”

Disney spokesman Rob Doughty said he couldn’t comment on Galloway’s initiative idea without knowing more details.

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It may not be considered much elsewhere, but in densely packed Santa Ana, a new half-acre park is considered a major feat. The site, on public land, will be developed by Latino Health Access, a nonprofit organization that promotes health issues in the city.

Council members were initially uncertain how effective the park would be given its location: in the middle of a redevelopment project just blocks from downtown.

Now the park is scheduled to open in the fall.

The new park “was a great idea. It will really help the children,” said Jaqueline Torres, 27, who added that her 3-year-old niece will use the park. “There are so many kids in Santa Ana. Unfortunately most of our Hispanic families have parents who work a lot and the kids end up in gangs because they don’t have a place to play.”

Leah Fraser, policy director for Latino Health Access, said the park near East 4th and North Minter streets “is much needed in Santa Ana. We are going to create an asset for the community.

“But in terms of dealing with obesity and fitness on a wide scale, this park will not deal with it,” she said. “For us to make an impact, there needs to be a shift in what is the role of a school.”

She said her organization would pursue a plan to create a special assessment district to keep school grounds open in the afternoons and on weekends.

Fraser outlined the case for a park tax last week to members of the city’s neighborhood associations. A similar measure that would have paid for graffiti removal and park maintenance and cost $33 annually per homeowner, failed to get two-thirds voter approval in 2003.

In Santa Ana, some city officials and residents say the solution to the park shortage is to open the school grounds in the late afternoons and on the weekends.

“The school district [fields] should not be closed,” said Councilwoman Michele Martinez. “That’s an injustice to the kids when we know how few parks there are here. Our kids are so enclosed in apartment complexes.”

District officials have limited access to school grounds because the fields “have been run down to dirt,” said James Miyashiro, chief of the Santa Ana Unified School District’s police department.

A handful of organizations have been allowed to use the fields. In April, the school district is expected to approve a policy that could include fees for usage.

Miyashiro said the fields could not handle more use without more money for maintenance and repairs. Latino Health Access officials say the assessment district would provide those funds.

Both New York and Chicago have four times the amount of park acreage per resident as Santa Ana. Anaheim has nearly double the parkland, with 1.9 acres for every 1,000 residents.

Santa Ana is also coping with the highest percentage of obese children among California’s largest cities, nearly 35%.

Peggy Chiu, of the national park advocacy group Trust for Public Land said special assessment districts for parks have been hard to sell to voters. Ballot measures for assessment districts to acquire or maintain parks in Claremont, Amador County and El Cerrito failed in 2006.

In the meantime, Latino Health Access is packing as much as it can into the half-acre park with a 2,000-square-foot community center for fitness and cooking classes, a basketball half-court, a “tot lot” and a walking path.

Under an agreement approved March 19 by the City Council, the city will lease the parcel for $2 a year for 20 years. The lease can be renewed twice, for a total of 20 additional years.

“In Irvine, a half-acre park wouldn’t make a difference,” Fraser said.

“But in a place with little, a half-acre park is huge.”

Pumps near Tracy that are sending water to Southern California destroy endangered species

Glen Martin, Chronicle Environment Writer
Saturday, March 24, 2007

The pumps that send water to 24 million Californians illegally kill endangered and threatened fish species and must be shut down, an Alameda County judge has decided.

The judge’s draft decision, released Friday, is far-reaching in scope, but nobody expects immediate rationing in East Bay or Southern California cities that receive the water. Judge Frank Roesch gave the state 60 days to figure out a way to comply with the law.

Ultimately, the state Department of Water Resources could be forced to radically change the way it allocates water via a complicated set of canals and reservoirs known as the State Water Project. Changes could mean more water for the beleaguered Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta and less for municipalities and Central Valley farms.

The decision further undercuts the faltering consensus approach that has guided state water politics during the past decade, and it harks back to the 1970s and 1980s, when acrimony and litigation prevailed.

Consequences of changing State Water Project operations are huge: The system is a major source of water for cities like Los Angeles and irrigates 775,000 acres of cropland. State officials say it is also directly responsible for a $300 billion portion of the California economy.

At a minimum, complying with the judge’s decision will force the state water agency to obtain a permit from the California Department of Fish and Game allowing the “incidental” killing of delta smelt and chinook salmon at the Harvey O. Banks Pumping Plant near Tracy as well as to develop a plan to aid in the recovery of the protected fish.

Roesch’s ruling was in response to a 2006 lawsuit over the killing of the fish. The suit was filed by the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance against the California Resources Agency, which oversees the Department of Water Resources and the State Water Project.

Officials have two weeks to provide more information, after which Roesch can either modify or maintain his order.

“This was a bell ringer,” said Bill Jennings, the executive director of the Alliance, a confederation of anglers based in Stockton. “We have a real likelihood now that the delta will receive more water,” he said.

Jennings said that the Water Resources Department ignored the California Endangered Species Act and state Fish and Game codes in operating its pumps, which have ground up large numbers of fish.

The state’s pumping station can transport 10,300 cubic feet of water a second, equivalent to a large river. The nearby pumps that sustain the federal Central Valley Project are much smaller, with a capacity of about 4,600 cfs. The Central Valley Project is not affected by Roesch’s decision.

The Water Resources Department maintained it was given a pass on state laws by virtue of five agreements concluded in the 1990s, including two negotiated by CalFed, the joint state and federal agency created to solve California’s water disputes.

Roesch ruled that the agreements did not constitute a permit to kill the salmon and smelt, as the state contended.

The best that can be said of the five agreements, Roesch wrote, “is that (they) accept fish will be killed in the Henry O. Banks Pumping Plant operations and that the parties agree that mitigation measures will be undertaken.”

State officials expressed dismay at the decision.

“We obviously strongly disagree with the court’s proposed decision and will present additional information to challenge (it),” state Resources Secretary Mike Chrisman said.

Ryan Broddrick, the director of the California Department of Fish and Game, said conservation strategies of the kind Roesch requires are complicated and time-consuming.

“We want to find solutions for the delta that have long-term sustainability,” Broddrick said. “The (60-day) time frame offered is not sufficient.”

Lester Snow, the director of the Water Resources Department and the former director of CalFed, agreed with Broddrick and noted that the state recently authorized a $1 billion delta habitat conservation plan. Such a comprehensive and well-funded effort, Snow said, is preferable to fighting the matter out in court.

“(Roesch’s) response is devoid of any recognition of this conservation plan,” he said.

Snow also said that the consequences of curtailing Southern California water deliveries would be unacceptable.

“The California gross product is $1.6 trillion,” he said. “Of that, the State Water Project directly supports $300 billion. That’s a lot of farm and industrial jobs.”

Water contractors also are concerned.

“We get 80 percent of our water from the state project, so we find this very worrisome,” said Jill Duerig, the general manager of the Zone 7 Water Agency, which serves the East Bay cities of Pleasanton, Dublin and Livermore.

“It highlights the uncertainty and risks we face in securing our drinking water supplies,” she said.

But Jennings said Roesch’s decision “blew away the smoke screen” that obscured many delta problems and underscored the general failure of CalFed.

“Under CalFed, water exports from the delta have increased, and we’ve seen the general collapse of the region’s ecosystem,” he said. “It became clear to anglers that if we were going to have any fish left in the delta, we were going to have to step away from the backroom deals and hold the agencies accountable to the law.”

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/03/24/NOWATER.TMP

This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle