Federal Housing Administration (FHA): Section 232 Healthcare Facility Insurance Program--Strengthening Accountability and Regulatory Revisions Update Final Rule Amendment--revision of date of applicability. Final rule amendment.

On September 7, 2012, HUD published a final rule that revised the regulations governing the insurance of healthcare facilities under section 232 of the National Housing Act (Section 232). HUD's Section 232 program insures mortgage loans to facilitate the construction, substantial rehabilitation, purchase, and refinancing of nursing homes, intermediate care facilities, board and care homes, and assisted-living facilities. The amendments made by the September 7, 2012, final rule updated the Section 232 regulations to reflect current policy and practices, improve accountability and strengthen risk management in the program. The final rule provided an applicability date of April 9, 2013, for certain of the updated requirements. This final rule amendment changes the applicability date to July 12, 2013, for the purpose of allowing more time to transition to the new requirements.

The role of the public sector in the provision of housing supply in Turkey, 1950­2009.

This study examines the changing role of the public sector in Turkey with regard to housing provision since 1950, and particularly since 2000, and seeks to clarify how public intervention has affected housing provision and urban development dynamics in major cities. Three periods may be identified, with central government acting as a regulator in a first period characterized by a 'housing boom'. During the second period, from 1980 to 2000, a new mass housing law spurred construction activity, although the main beneficiaries of the housing fund tended to be the middle classes. After 2000, contrary to emerging trends in both Northern and Southern European countries, the public sector in Turkey became actively involved in housing provision. During this process, new housing estates were created on greenfield sites on the outskirts of cities, instead of efforts being made to rehabilitate, restore or renew existing housing stock in the cities. Meanwhile, the concept of 'urban regeneration' has been opportunistically incorporated into the planning agenda of the public sector, and ­ under the pretext of regenerating squatter housing areas ­ existing residents have been moved out, while channels for community participation have been bypassed.

Vertical landscraping, a big regionalism for Dubai.

Dubai's ecologic and economic complications are exacerbated by six years of accelerated expansion, a fixed top-down approach to urbanism and the construction of iconic single-phase mega-projects. With recent construction delays, project cancellations and growing landscape issues, Dubai's tower typologies have been unresponsive to changing environmental, socio-cultural and economic patterns (BBC, 2009; Gillet, 2009; Lewis, 2009). In this essay, a theory of "Big Regionalism" guides an argument for an economically and ecologically linked tower typology called the Condenser. This phased "box-to-tower" typology is part of a greater Landscape Urbanist strategy called Vertical Landscraping. Within this strategy, the Condenser's role is to densify the city, facilitating the creation of ecologic voids that order the urban region. Delineating "Big Regional" principles, the Condenser provides a time-based, global-local urban growth approach that weaves Bigness into a series of urban-regional, economic and ecological relationships, builds upon the environmental performance of the city's regional architecture and planning, promotes a continuity of Dubai's urban history, and responds to its landscape issues while condensing development. These speculations permit consideration of the overlooked opportunities embedded within Dubai's mega-projects and their long-term impact on the urban morphology.

Housing policy, aging, and life course construction in a Canadian Inuit community.

The provisioning and administration of social housing has been a continuous problem in the Canadian North since the 1960s, when the Canadian government began taking an active role in the welfare of Inuit. Some of these problems are quite basic and include high costs for construction and maintenance of units. An examination of the development and evolution of Canadian housing policy in the North demonstrates that changes to the administration of social housing programs and, since the mid-1980s, development of formal privatization schemes have steadily shifted housing costs onto local residents. These shifting costs, however, are borne unequally, with Inuit born and raised in the context of permanent communities (the Settlement Generation) facing the greatest burdens.

[Health impact assessment of building and investment projects]. / Die Gesundheitsverträglichkeitsprüfung von Bau- und Investitionsvorhaben.

For regional planning and approval procedures for building projects of a certain order of magnitude and power rating according to the German Federal Act on the Prevention of Emissions with Integrated Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), the German public health departments, acting as public authorities, increasingly perform health impact assessments (HIA). The amended Act on Environmental Impact Assessment, the Decree on industrial plants which require approval (4th Federal Decree on Emission Prevention) and the Health Service Acts of the Federal States of Germany form the legal basis for the assessment of health issues with regard to approval procedures for building and investment projects. In the framework of the "Action Programme for the Environment and Health", the present article aims at making this process binding and to ensure responsibility and general involvement of the Public Health departments in all German Federal States. Future criteria, basic principles and procedures for single-case testing as well as assessment standards should meet these requirements. The Federal Ministry for the Environment and the Federal Ministry for Health should agree on Health Impact Assessment (HIA ) as well as on the relaxant stipulations in their procedures and general administrative regulations for implementing the Environmental Impact Assessment Act (EIA). Current EIA procedures focus on urban development and road construction, industrial investment projects, intensive animal husbandry plants, waste incineration plants, and wind energy farms. This paper illustrates examples meeting with varying degrees of public acceptance. However, being involved in the regional planning procedure for the project "Extension of the federal motorway A 14 from Magdeburg to Schwerin", the Public Health Service also shares global responsibility for health and climate protection. Demands for shortest routing conflict with objectives of environmental protection which should be given long-term consideration. Assessing the direct impact of projects on human beings should be rank first in the list of priorities. The Hygiene Institute supports the efforts of the Public Health departments by providing professional consultant services to ensure consistency in the application of procedures.

Grants to states for construction and acquisition of state home facilities. Interim final rule.

This document establishes regulations regarding grants to States for the construction or acquisition of State homes for furnishing domiciliary and nursing home care to veterans, or for the expansion, remodeling, or alteration of existing State homes for furnishing domiciliary, nursing home, or adult day health care to veterans. This is necessary to update the regulations and to implement statutory provisions, including provisions of the Veterans Millennium Health Care and Benefits Act.