(RECAP: A part of the New Point shopping center is being demolished to make space for The Nexus Flats – a community of two apartment buildings containing 268 units. The remainder of the aging strip shopping center will be refurbished, followed by the introduction of new retail merchants. Each of the four-tale apartment buildings at 544 Newtown Road will have an interior courtyard and feature one- and two-bedroom units, according to Kate Verreault, director of marketing and leasing operations for Boyd Homes, developer of the project. Apartments range in size from 500 square feet to 1,300 square feet. Residents will have direct access to the adjacent shopping center.)

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(RECAP: The ancient Virginia School of the Arts building in Lynchburg may see new life as apartments. A preliminary rezoning petition for the 1.5-acre property on Rivermont Avenue has been submitted by its owner, Jackson III, LLC. The property is currently zoned R-3 medium density residential. Jackson III is seeking rezoning to R-4 high density residential to allow the conversion of the building into 29 apartment units. Jackson III bought the property in 2010. The partners involved in Jackson III also own the 130-plus-year-ancient Piedmont Mills building downtown on Jefferson Street, which is undergoing in its own transformation into residential apartment housing.)

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(RECAP: Second homes, often called “granny flats,” have become a new front in the conflict that pits the need for more housing in the country’s most expensive cities against the wishes of neighbors who want to preserve their communities. The same battles flare over large developments that might loom over single-family neighborhoods. But even this modest thought for new housing — let homeowners build it in their own back yards — has run into not-in-my-back-yard resistance.)

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