(RECAP: A long-time local builder known for student housing plans to bring a mixed apartment and commercial space development to a property near Radford University that’s currently occupied by a laundromat and another building that formerly housed a Chinese restaurant. Under a company called East Radford Development Corporation, Price Williams Realty has been granted a special use permit by the city for its plans to build a multi-tale building that will house commercial tenants on the bottom floor and mostly one- and two-bedroom rental housing on the remaining floors. Despite the developers’ beliefs that Radford has an untapped rental housing market, their work hasn’t been free of doubters. Councilman Keith Marshall urged during the meeting that a study be performed to see if the city needs more of these kinds of developments. Despite other council members’ insistence to the contrary, he said he believes the development will turn into student housing because of its proximity to campus.)

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(RECAP: U.S. Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine announced that the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (V-A) will award $9,476,756 to housing authorities and nonprofit organizations to help ongoing efforts in the Commonwealth to prevent veteran homelessness and provide stable housing for low-income veterans and their families. “Our country has a duty to honor our commitments to support the men and women who have worn our nation’s uniform, and these federal funds will support state and local agencies and nonprofit organizations,” said Warner. “This funding also adds additional support to Governor McAuliffe’s successful efforts to end veteran homelessness in Virginia by working to provide shelter, stable housing and employment opportunities before veterans fall through the cracks.”)

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(RECAP: The r-star (r*) is the natural rate of interest that sometimes crops up in economics texts. It also might be the Federal Reserve’s newest, largest thought, according to strategists at the Goldman Sachs Group Inc. The notion that the natural or neutral rate of interest has been stuck at ultra-low levels might help the U.S. central bank square a dilemma between hiking interest rates and strengthening the U.S. dollar. “For the FOMC, this is a genuine conundrum, because it means that too hawkish a message could send the Dollar sky-rocketing, a deflationary shock that would also weigh on growth, thereby – in a way – undermining the very rationale for shifting hawkish in the first place,” write Goldman strategists. “To deal with this conundrum, the framework that many at the Fed seem to be converging around is that ‘r-star’ is low, so that the degree of monetary policy accommodation is only moderate, despite policy rates being so low.” Such a stance could allow the central bank to justify keeping benchmark interest rates lower for longer.)

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