NO MORE HUD: Fiore Gardens, a low-income...

NO MORE HUD: Fiore Gardens, a low-income housing project going up in Thousand Oaks, is trying to transcend its affordable label with some elegant touches, such as arched doorways and wrought-iron railings (B1). Housing chief Dick Parke says this is the future: “Those great big block towers just don’t work.” . . . At any rate, Parke says, HUD funding is disappearing: “HUD is out of the business, basically. There just isn’t any money any more.”

FADE OUT: Jones Intercable has a deal for all you cable crooks. The company, which serves Oxnard, Port Hueneme and El Rio, will ask no questions of those who want to report unauthorized cable connections. They’ll even believe you when you say you don’t know how that wire got spliced or that converter got modified. . . . But the gloves are off when the amnesty ends after March, said spokeswoman Julie Holmes, who estimated that the company loses about $1.2 million annually to the pilfering. “We have new equipment to detect theft,” she said.