Homes

Wildfire safety blackouts in California by PG&E could leave homes without power till Friday

Rep. John Garamendi, D-Calif., discusses federal funding for coronavirus relief and financial support to fight wildfires.

A return of bone-dry humidity and gusty winds Wednesday in Northern Calfornia during the peak of wildfire season is expected to result in power outages for tens of thousands of customers that could last until Friday.

The nation’s largest utility, Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), warned it may begin power shutoffs by Wednesday evening to as many as 54,000 customers in 24 counties.

“We really view it as a last resort option,” Mark Quinlan, the company’s incident commander, said at a briefing on Tuesday.

POWER OUTAGES IN NORTHERN CALIFORNIA MAY IMPACT 50,000 PG&E CUSTOMERS IN SAFETY SHUTOFFS

Wind gusts possibly hitting 55 mph have spurred the National Weather Service (NWS) to issue a red-flag warning from 5 a.m. Wednesday through Friday morning.

While PG&E said it will make a final decision sometime on Wednesday morning whether to implement the pre-emptive electricity cuts, it advised that it began its one-day advance notifications to customers.

Customers in portions of the following counties are being notified of potential shutoffs: Alameda, Amador, Butte, Calaveras, Contra Costa, El Dorado, Humboldt, Lake, Monterey, Napa, Nevada, Placer, Plumas, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, Shasta, Sierra, Solano, Sonoma, Tehama, Trinity, Yolo and Yuba.

The Public Safety Power Shutoff is an effort by the utility to prevent fires from being started by damaged power lines fouled or knocked down in high winds. The utility also has deployed generators and other measures to keep electricity flowing in some areas that might otherwise have lost power during the outages, according to Quinlan.

If the forecast unfolds as planned, there will be two main waves of when customers lose electricity.

CALIFORNIA UTILITY USING ‘SMARTER, SHORTER’ TACTIC FOR BLACKOUTS TO PREVENT WILDFIRES

About 33,000 homes and

Developer Mehrdad Moayedi buys land for homes at Rowlett’s Bayside project

A North Texas developer known for some of the region’s biggest projects has bought sections of the Bayside development on Lake Ray Hubbard.

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Mehrdad Moayedi’s Centurion American Development Group purchased land in the Rowlett project on Interstate-30 for two residential projects.

In the works for more than five years, the 262-acre mixed-use development on the lake was originally planned to include everything from high-rise hotels to apartments and single-family homes.

The centerpiece of the $1 billion project was an 8-acore Crystal Lagoon waterpark to be built on the shore of Lake Ray Hubbard.

But after changes in ownership, Bayside has so far not met those ambitious plans. Parts of the project have been rechristened Sapphire Bay by the City of Rowlett.

Centurion American Development has purchased four acres in two tracts across the freeway from where the Crystal Lagoon is being built.

“This is on the north side of I-30 where all the apartment building has been,” Moayedi said. “There were two tracts left with the old partnership.

“They had quite a few offers and chose to go with us.”

Centurion American will use the property to build communities for more than 300 homes, townhouses and villas.

“It’s a great market for single-family residential and townhomes,” Moayedi said. “It came with three lots sitting on the lake.”

The more than 100 planned houses in the project will average around $400,000. And Moaeydi said the almost townhouses would cost between $275,000 and $400,000.

The land for the townhomes and villas must be rezoned from multifamily construction, he said.

Developer Western Rim Properties has already built apartments at Bayside in the same area where Centurion American purchased the land.

And Beazer Homes has a neighborhood in that section of the Bayside project.

“On the tract that’s already zoned, we are

$1,325,000 Homes for Sale in Connecticut, California and South Carolina

Old Lyme, Conn. | $1.325 Million

A late-19th-century Gothic Revival mansion with five bedrooms and five and a half bathrooms, on a 1.7-acre lot

One might have thought the most interesting thing about this house in southeastern Connecticut was that it belongs to Chris Elliott, the actor, comedian and writer, and his wife, Paula Niedert. But just as compelling is the identity of a previous owner: a local celebrity named Elizabeth Tashjian, better known as the Nut Lady. In 1972, Ms. Tashjian, an artist who inherited the property from her father, turned it into a cult attraction called the Nut Museum, ultimately charging three dollars and one nut as an entrance fee.

The Elliotts bought the house from a subsequent owner in 2008. Although it had been fixed up and endowed with central air-conditioning, they polished it, bringing in vintage and period-style fixtures, moldings and glass, and recreating a Victorian ambience with 21st-century comforts.

Old Lyme is a town about 100 miles northeast of New York and 120 miles southwest of Boston, with a seafaring past and a historically protected Main Street. This property is yards from the Lieutenant River boat launch and half a mile northeast of Ferry Landing State Park on the Connecticut River. According to Flood Factor, an online evaluation tool, its flood risk is minimal.

Size: 5,289 square feet

Price per square foot: $251

Indoors: Turning right from the central foyer and descending a few steps, you find a living room with hardwood floors, huge leaded casement windows and a ceiling ornamented with plaster moldings and hung with crystal chandeliers. The room extends more than 43 feet to the back of the house, ending with a red-marble fireplace topped by an elaborate mantel and mirror. A wide doorway hung with curtains on the left side of

Israel Approves First New Settler Homes Since Suspending Annexation, NGO Says | World News

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel approved more than 1,300 new settler homes in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday, the Peace Now settlement-monitoring group said, in the first such go-ahead since it suspended annexation plans in the territory.

The decision drew an angry response from Palestinians, who seek to establish a state in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.

“We urge the international community to intervene immediately to stop this settlement madness, which destroys any chance for a genuine peace process,” said Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

The construction could help mute criticism of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from settler leaders, who are traditional allies.

They had bristled at the annexation suspension that helped pave the way for last month’s deals to forge diplomatic ties between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain.

Peace Now said a planning committee in Israel’s Civil Administration in the West Bank gave final approval for building 1,357 housing units in several settlements.

A spokesman for the administration could not immediately confirm the numbers.

A statement from Beit El settlement said 350 new housing units would be built there. It hailed the committee’s decision as “a tremendous achievement for Beit El”.

The forum, which last held such a hearing eight months ago, was due to reconvene on Thursday to advance additional construction projects in settlements and give final approval for others.

Peace Now said the committee was set to move forward with projects comprising at least 4,430 new settler homes.

Most countries view settlements Israel has built in territory captured in the 1967 Middle East war as illegal and as an obstacle to peace with the Palestinians. The United States and Israel dispute this.

Israel cites historical and biblical links to the West Bank and around 450,000 of its

Israel approves first West Bank settler homes since Gulf deals

Israel approved 2,166 new homes in settlements across the occupied West Bank on Wednesday, official figures sent to AFP showed, ending an eight-month lull in settlement expansion.

The approvals came less than a month after the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain signed agreements to normalise relations with Israel, which in return pledged to freeze its plans to annex swathes of the West Bank.

NGO Peace Now said the settlement uptick signals Israel’s rejection of Palestinian statehood and deals a blow to hopes of a wider Israeli-Arab peace.

It said that around 2,000 more homes are expected to be approved on Thursday.

“Netanyahu is moving ahead at full steam toward solidifying the de facto annexation of the West Bank,” it said in a statement ahead of Wednesday’s decisions.

US President Donald Trump sees the Gulf accords as part of his broader initiative for Middle East peace.

But a controversial plan he unveiled in January gave US blessing to Israeli annexation of large chunks of the West Bank, including the settlements, communities considered illegal under international law.

Israel agreed to delay those plans under its normalisation deal with the UAE, something Emirati officials have cited in response to Arab and Muslim criticism.

The two Gulf countries were only the third and fourth Arab states to normalise relations with Israel, following Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he sees others following.

The Palestinians condemned the accords and quit the rotating presidency of the Arab League in protest at its failure to take a stand against them.

The Gulf agreements broke with years of Arab League policy on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict which made its resolution a precondition for normalising ties with Israel.

The latest settlement plans, for a total of more than 4,000 new homes, were