June 21: Broad Street beautification for DNC | AirBnB collecting hotel tax | Private development, public ownership

South Broad Street is getting all tarted up for the DNC, reports Julia Terruso. Mural Arts will install a temporary mural on the Broad Street median between City Hall and Washington Avenue, and PHS will install 52 planters on both sides of Broad. But, this being Philly, it’s still up in the air whether the tradition of illegal parking on the South Broad median will be tolerated during Convention week.

AirBnB will begin collecting Pennsylvania’s 6-percent hotel occupancy tax on July 1, the AP reports. “The state hotel occupancy tax applies when anyone rents out a property for lodging for a period of less than 30 days.”

A five-story apartment building with a street-level parking garage is coming to the 4200 block of Chestnut Street, West Philly local reports. 

Mayfair CDC and Scioli-Turco had a ribbon-cutting for a new conservatorship property on Bleigh Avenue in Mayfair. 

Shane Phillips at Better Institutions raises a provocative argument in making the case for a new model for affordable housing: cities need private developers to build housing, but do we really need private landlords? Phillips makes the case for a private development-public ownership model that encourages non-profits and quasi-public organizations to purchase older multi-family buildings and rent them out for less.

The navigation app Waze is putting safety over speed, piloting a new version of their service in Los Angeles that’s designed to minimize left-turns. Left turns are known to be particularly dangerous, and left-turning bans have become a standard part of the street safety playbook in a growing number of cities. Shipping company UPS notably discourages drivers from turning left through its routing software.