Next Disney Chief Plans Company’s Transformation
Robert Iger doesn’t get the keys to the Disney castle for another six weeks, but he is already well along with his restoration plan. Iger becomes chief executive on Oct. 1 as the successor to Michael Eisner. In March, less than two weeks after the board approved his nomination to become chief executive, Iger dismantled the company’s corporate strategic planning group. In April Iger sat down with Pixar Animation’s Steve Jobs; in July, he negotiated a truce with Roy Disney. Only a year ago, few on Wall Street considered Iger the right man to succeed Eisner, but his accomplishments in corporate diplomacy in recent months are quieting such criticism, The New York Times reported.
LAUSD Plan Would Target Homes
North San Pedro community members are circling their wagons after receiving notice that the Los Angeles Unified School District may select one of three nearby sites one which would displace homeowners for a new high school campus, the Daily Breeze reported. One site isn’t quite big enough for the school, which district officials hope to place on at least 15 acres. Last week, homeowners in the neighborhood nearby received letters from the school district, notifying them their houses might be targeted. Owners of businesses near another site received a similar letter. The proposed 2,025-student high school is being built to relieve overcrowding at Narbonne and San Pedro high schools.
Laws Aim to Ensure Low-Cost Housing
In many cities, including Los Angeles, council members are drafting ordinances to assure that some units in new residential projects will be affordable, the Los Angeles Times reported. The strategy calls for cities to require residential developers to include reduced-priced apartments or houses as a condition of approval for their market-rate housing. But developers complain that “inclusionary housing” policies hurt their profitability and increase housing costs for other buyers and renters. Advocates of low-cost housing counter that developers need to consider the pent-up demand of low and middle-income people. About a fifth of California cities have low-cost housing requirements.
Existing-Home Sales, Prices Kept Rising in Second Quarter
Sales of existing homes continued at a strong pace in the second quarter, while home prices were higher across most metropolitan areas, according to a new survey. The National Association of Realtors said today that existing-home sales rose 4.6 percent to a record 7.2 million units in the second quarter, up from the 6.9-million-unit sales rate a year earlier, The Wall Street Journal reported. In the West, existing home sales rose 1.8 percent to 1.7 million units. After Washington, the next highest increase in the region was in Montana, where existing-home sales climbed 13.9 percent; Wyoming was up by 13.7 percent, while Utah increased 9.7 percent. The association’s home-price report showed a record 67 cities with double-digit annual increases and seven areas posting small declines. None of the areas experiencing declines had previously recorded rapid gains.
