Latest news with #Overland
CBS News
6 days ago
- CBS News
Denver shuts down property owner renting RVs, trailers to homeless residents
Denver's Community Planning and Development Department has issued "cease and desist" orders to a property owner in the southwest Denver Overland neighborhood who had been using Airbnb to rent out trailers and RVs parked on his rental properties to homeless residents. Kevin Dickson, 69, owns or co-owns 17 properties in Overland, according to city records, and said he put trailers and RVs on 10 of his properties and had been renting them out to homeless men and women. "I was trying to solve a bigger problem of affordable housing," Dickson told CBS News Colorado. "It was an experiment," he said. "Sure enough, I was helping the homeless." Dickson said he was renting the units out for about $700 per month "to the people who can't afford rent. There's a lot of homeless people who have income but can't afford rent." But city authorities were alerted in July to Dickson's Airbnb ads and began investigating. Denver's Department of Excise and Licenses hit Dickson with six notices of zoning violations, saying that his trailers did not have rental licenses. The Community Planning and Development Department followed up by issuing Dickson three "cease and desist" orders, saying that mobile homes, recreational vehicles, and trailers cannot be used as accessory dwelling units. The orders told Dickson to "immediately stop all rentals and short term rentals of an RV, mobile home or trailer on the property. Scrub/remove all Airbnb and other short term or long term rental sites (...) It is unlawful to use a RV, mobile home or trailer as an ADU." Craig Arfsten has been an advocate for the Overland neighborhood and said he heard complaints about homeless residents living in Dickson's trailers from several residents. He said he knew immediately that zoning laws do not allow property owners to have RVs for rent on their properties. "All of a sudden, you have a neighborhood that has no rules or sense of order," said Arfsten. He said residents were upset because "You don't know who these people (renting the trailers) are, you don't know what these individuals bring to the neighborhood." Besides, said Arfsten, Overland already has La Paz, one of the city's micro-communities, housing some 60 people who are homeless. Dickson said he is removing the trailers and ending what he calls an "experiment. I am a law-abiding citizen, so we're getting rid of everything," he said. He had been renting one of his trailers to Josh Quinn, who describes himself as homeless. Quinn, 33, said he works minimum wage jobs, including working for Dickson, but still can't afford a standard rental unit. "There's no affordable housing out here," said Quinn, who said he is from Florida. He said he had been paying Dickson about $600 per month for the last year to live in one of Dickson's trailers. "It's impossible to find anything under $1,000. I can't afford anything out here." He said living in one of Dickson's trailers in the Overland neighborhood "is the only thing that kept me from being homeless in this past year. It sucks that it's all closing down." The City of Denver has been grappling with a shortage of affordable housing for years. The newly approved Vibrant Denver Bond package contains $89 million for a family health clinic, a children's advocacy center, and affordable housing.
Sydney Morning Herald
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
Instead of doomscrolling, have a laugh at these Black Mirror-esque stories
SATIRE Playing Nice Was Getting Me NowhereAlex Cothren Pink Shorts Press, $32.99 In his novel The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, Vladimir Nabokov spoke of 'parody as a kind of springboard for leaping into the highest regions of serious emotion'. When a writer takes a worn-out or dead style and reanimates it through the fun of formal play and subversion, they combine their instinct for mockery with pathos (Nabokov described this approach as a 'clown developing wings'). My ideal parodist charms with a spirited voice and funny representations, before gradually revealing the seriousness behind their burlesques. What separates the satirist from the comedian is the texture of the laughter invoked, found not in just punchlines and observational digs, but in the equally amusing and horrifying lens through the world is portrayed. Australian writer Alex Cothren's short-story collection Playing Nice Was Getting Me Nowhere arises from the American satirical tradition, whose most visible practitioners are George Saunders and Thomas Pynchon. Like Cothren, these writers combine jaunty, sparkling surfaces with a darkly ironic commentary. They render injustice and suffering through cartoonish exaggerations and flights of fancy. And although the satirist wields the grotesque and the unreal, these distortions have the strange effect of making their critique more acutely felt. Cothren's satirical sketches use the springboard of parody to better understand the follies of vice. In this collection, Cothren contorts various aspects of contemporary Australia so that they are both recognisable and monstrous. They often synergise their subjects — environmental decline, Kafkaesque bureaucracy, the paranoid imagination — with form by adopting false documents to explore these absurdist premises. In The Royal Commission into the Koala Repopulation Scheme, a transcript documents a hilarious back-and-forth between a policy adviser and commissioner regarding an abusive proposal, worthy of Jonathan Swift, to avoid the imminent extinction of koalas. Similarly, the titular Playing Nice Was Getting Me Nowhere cannibalises the language and structure of an academic essay to report how several deaths at an unnamed Australian university affect its casual workforce and symbolises the 'toxic work conditions created by the neoliberalist turn in tertiary education'. By drawing from legitimate research alongside the uncomfortable admission that the casual staff members jostling for a full-time job saw the deaths 'not as tragedies but instead welcome opportunities for advancement:, Cothren imbues the story with a sense of sociopolitical engagement beyond the surface-level frivolity. When it was first published in Overland, Cothren's takedown of Melbourne pokies rooms, Ocean Paradise was accompanied by an image of a supposedly real gaming staff report from which the story adopts its opening. In Cothren's hands, this gaming report becomes a haunting, in which the forsaken victims of greedy managers and crooked machines return to avenge themselves.
The Age
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Age
Instead of doomscrolling, have a laugh at these Black Mirror-esque stories
SATIRE Playing Nice Was Getting Me NowhereAlex Cothren Pink Shorts Press, $32.99 In his novel The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, Vladimir Nabokov spoke of 'parody as a kind of springboard for leaping into the highest regions of serious emotion'. When a writer takes a worn-out or dead style and reanimates it through the fun of formal play and subversion, they combine their instinct for mockery with pathos (Nabokov described this approach as a 'clown developing wings'). My ideal parodist charms with a spirited voice and funny representations, before gradually revealing the seriousness behind their burlesques. What separates the satirist from the comedian is the texture of the laughter invoked, found not in just punchlines and observational digs, but in the equally amusing and horrifying lens through the world is portrayed. Australian writer Alex Cothren's short-story collection Playing Nice Was Getting Me Nowhere arises from the American satirical tradition, whose most visible practitioners are George Saunders and Thomas Pynchon. Like Cothren, these writers combine jaunty, sparkling surfaces with a darkly ironic commentary. They render injustice and suffering through cartoonish exaggerations and flights of fancy. And although the satirist wields the grotesque and the unreal, these distortions have the strange effect of making their critique more acutely felt. Cothren's satirical sketches use the springboard of parody to better understand the follies of vice. In this collection, Cothren contorts various aspects of contemporary Australia so that they are both recognisable and monstrous. They often synergise their subjects — environmental decline, Kafkaesque bureaucracy, the paranoid imagination — with form by adopting false documents to explore these absurdist premises. In The Royal Commission into the Koala Repopulation Scheme, a transcript documents a hilarious back-and-forth between a policy adviser and commissioner regarding an abusive proposal, worthy of Jonathan Swift, to avoid the imminent extinction of koalas. Similarly, the titular Playing Nice Was Getting Me Nowhere cannibalises the language and structure of an academic essay to report how several deaths at an unnamed Australian university affect its casual workforce and symbolises the 'toxic work conditions created by the neoliberalist turn in tertiary education'. By drawing from legitimate research alongside the uncomfortable admission that the casual staff members jostling for a full-time job saw the deaths 'not as tragedies but instead welcome opportunities for advancement:, Cothren imbues the story with a sense of sociopolitical engagement beyond the surface-level frivolity. When it was first published in Overland, Cothren's takedown of Melbourne pokies rooms, Ocean Paradise was accompanied by an image of a supposedly real gaming staff report from which the story adopts its opening. In Cothren's hands, this gaming report becomes a haunting, in which the forsaken victims of greedy managers and crooked machines return to avenge themselves.
7NEWS
16-07-2025
- Automotive
- 7NEWS
2025 Jeep Wrangler gets price cuts after years of price increases
The Jeep Wrangler Rubicon is now the cheapest it has been since 2022 following a price cut, but the iconic hardcore off-roader is still a much pricier proposition than it used to be. In two-door guise, the Wrangler Rubicon is now priced at $79,990 before on-road costs, down from $82,590. The Rubicon four-door is now $82,990 before on-roads, down from $89,450. However, Jeep Australia has once again rejigged the Wrangler lineup, axing the more affordable Sport S and Overland variants. Hundreds of new car deals are available through CarExpert right now. Get the experts on your side and score a great deal. Browse now. Therefore, while the Rubicons are the most affordable they've been since 2022, the base price of the Wrangler range is now more than $10,000 higher than in that year – and close to $20,000 higher than it was in 2021. Jeep has repeatedly raised prices during this generation of the Wrangler, citing global supply chain issues and rises in material costs. This trend was reversed with last year's update, which saw the old 3.6-litre petrol V6 replaced with a 2.0-litre turbocharged four, but only the now-defunct Sport S and Overland received price cuts – the Sport S four-door's price, for example, was slashed to $75,950 before on-roads. Other than the addition of two new colours – '41', an olive green; and Mojito, a lurid lime – there are no changes to the Wrangler. The revised lineup is in showrooms this month. Both variants are powered by the aforementioned 2.0-litre turbo four, producing 200kW of power and 400Nm of torque and mated with an eight-speed automatic transmission as standard. Jeep's Rock-Trac active on-demand four-wheel drive system is also standard, with a 4:1 low-gear ratio and a 77.2:1 crawl ratio, locking front and rear differentials, Dana solid axles and a two-speed transfer case. All exterior finishes bar Bright White cost $1145 on the two-door and $1490 on the four-door, with the only other option being the Sky-One-Touch Power Top for the four-door. This carries a price tag of $6450. Here's an overview of Wrangler Rubicon pricing from 2020 to now. All prices exclude on-road costs. The Wrangler is one of just four models Jeep is still importing to Australia, alongside the electric Avenger and mild-hybrid and plug-in hybrid Compass crossover SUVs, as well as the petrol-powered Gladiator dual-cab 4×4 ute. Jeep pulled the plug on right-hand drive exports of the petrol and plug-in hybrid Grand Cherokee large SUV earlier this year, while the electric Wagoneer S has yet to appear here. It's expected to arrive in 2026 alongside the electric Recon off-roader, as well as a new generation of Compass. In the first half of this year, Wrangler sales have sunk by 46.7 per cent compared with the same period last year, to just 220 units. Jeep sales overall are down by 15.5 per cent, with major declines across most of the range offset somewhat by a bump in Grand Cherokee deliveries – likely as a result of sharp runout deals for the now-defunct SUV. Last year, Jeep delivered 724 Wranglers in Australia, a far cry from the JL Wrangler's zenith of 1734 sales in 2021, or the Wrangler's all-time high of 2900 sales in 2014.
Perth Now
16-07-2025
- Automotive
- Perth Now
2025 Jeep Wrangler gets price cuts after years of price increases
The Jeep Wrangler Rubicon is now the cheapest it has been since 2022 following a price cut, but the iconic hardcore off-roader is still a much pricier proposition than it used to be. In two-door guise, the Wrangler Rubicon is now priced at $79,990 before on-road costs, down from $82,590. The Rubicon four-door is now $82,990 before on-roads, down from $89,450. However, Jeep Australia has once again rejigged the Wrangler lineup, axing the more affordable Sport S and Overland variants. Hundreds of new car deals are available through CarExpert right now. Get the experts on your side and score a great deal. Browse now. Supplied Credit: CarExpert Therefore, while the Rubicons are the most affordable they've been since 2022, the base price of the Wrangler range is now more than $10,000 higher than in that year – and close to $20,000 higher than it was in 2021. Jeep has repeatedly raised prices during this generation of the Wrangler, citing global supply chain issues and rises in material costs. This trend was reversed with last year's update, which saw the old 3.6-litre petrol V6 replaced with a 2.0-litre turbocharged four, but only the now-defunct Sport S and Overland received price cuts – the Sport S four-door's price, for example, was slashed to $75,950 before on-roads. Other than the addition of two new colours – '41', an olive green; and Mojito, a lurid lime – there are no changes to the Wrangler. The revised lineup is in showrooms this month. Supplied Credit: CarExpert Both variants are powered by the aforementioned 2.0-litre turbo four, producing 200kW of power and 400Nm of torque and mated with an eight-speed automatic transmission as standard. Jeep's Rock-Trac active on-demand four-wheel drive system is also standard, with a 4:1 low-gear ratio and a 77.2:1 crawl ratio, locking front and rear differentials, Dana solid axles and a two-speed transfer case. All exterior finishes bar Bright White cost $1145 on the two-door and $1490 on the four-door, with the only other option being the Sky-One-Touch Power Top for the four-door. This carries a price tag of $6450. Here's an overview of Wrangler Rubicon pricing from 2020 to now. All prices exclude on-road costs. The Wrangler is one of just four models Jeep is still importing to Australia, alongside the electric Avenger and mild-hybrid and plug-in hybrid Compass crossover SUVs, as well as the petrol-powered Gladiator dual-cab 4×4 ute. Supplied Credit: CarExpert Supplied Credit: CarExpert Supplied Credit: CarExpert Jeep pulled the plug on right-hand drive exports of the petrol and plug-in hybrid Grand Cherokee large SUV earlier this year, while the electric Wagoneer S has yet to appear here. It's expected to arrive in 2026 alongside the electric Recon off-roader, as well as a new generation of Compass. In the first half of this year, Wrangler sales have sunk by 46.7 per cent compared with the same period last year, to just 220 units. Jeep sales overall are down by 15.5 per cent, with major declines across most of the range offset somewhat by a bump in Grand Cherokee deliveries – likely as a result of sharp runout deals for the now-defunct SUV. Last year, Jeep delivered 724 Wranglers in Australia, a far cry from the JL Wrangler's zenith of 1734 sales in 2021, or the Wrangler's all-time high of 2900 sales in 2014. MORE: Explore the Jeep Wrangler showroom
