Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Is 3CDC More Equal Than Others?*

Posted by The Dean of Cincinnati

Guest article by Michael Earl Patton.

With city council promising to crack down on vacant buildings, it’s worth a look to see how this crackdown is going and if the enforcement effort is being applied consistently.  The answer is that it is going slowly, and that enforcement does not seem to be consistent. 

The vacant building list had 1,777 entries as of November 22, 2006.  There are a few duplicate entries, but those are likely outweighed by the fact that the list specifically states vacant buildings owned by the city are not included.  So the total number of vacant buildings is not truly known.  We’ll get back to this point of not including city-owned buildings later.

Owners of vacant buldings are supposed to apply for a vacant building maintenance license—one license for each building.  As of November 22, only 260 licenses had been granted.  In other words, less than 1 out of 6 vacant buildings have licenses.  Getting a license isn’t cheap.  It’s now $900 for the first year, and once one is purchased the building inspectors go over the exterior of the building for code violations.  The code is actually stricter for a vacant building than for an occupied one.

An examination of licenses granted in the Over-the-Rhine area shows that only 40 buildings have licenses, and some owner names one would have expected to see were missing or present at a very low number.  For example, the list of vacant buildings included 276 in OTR.  The list didn’t always give an exact street address, but 11 buildings were identified as being owned by 3CDC.  (The actual auditor listings are under OTR Holdings, which is wholly-owned by 3CDC.) Only 2 of these have licenses—1417 and 1419 Vine Street.  Interestingly, these buildings were purchased in October from ReSTOC, which had bought the licenses for them before the sale.  The other 9 buildings have no licenses, although some have been owned by 3CDC for more than a year, such as 1432 and 1434 Race Street.

For the ordinary owner the penalty for not purchasing a license can be $5,000 and 6 months in jail.  However, with 3CDC being a corporation, there is no real danger of jail.  And after all, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported on March 16 that the whole idea was to have fines and fees add up to liens, which would allow the city to foreclose on the properties and turn them over to developers.  3CDC is one of those developers; it would get the property back anyway.  So, why should 3CDC purchase licenses? 

Of course, before the city turns over the properties to developers, it owns them.  Once it owns them, they are off the vacant building list.  So the city can claim that it has reduced the number of vacant buildings—not by having them fixed up and occupied, and not by tearing them down—but by the simple mechanism of seizing them and holding them until they are turned over to a developer.

The vacant building maintenance license appears to be just a back-door means of eminent domain to seize property for specially-connected corporations.

* From George Orwell’s Animal Farm: “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”

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funnelcake says:
29 Nov 2006  at  08:06 am | #

I’ve come to respect Michael Patton’s positions on many things.  And I understand is concern about 3CDC and take no issue with that.

But when it comes to the vacant buildings in our neighborhoods this license program is desperately needed.  These vacant properties in OTR and other neighborhoods sap away at the strength of Cincinnati’s very core.  They are owned by absentee landlords, many living in states nowhere near to the greater Cincinnati area.  They are speculators sitting and waiting for the city to come in and redevelop an area for them so they can sell at an inflated high price.  These neighborhoods are caught in a catch-22.  The areas are so run down that no one is willing to pay the prices the speculators want.  The speculators won’t lower their prices to match current market rates for the area since they want to turn a big profit for holding.  They won’t offer rental rates at prices the market will support.  Thus the area sits abandoned, waiting for the big turn around that will never come unless eminent domain kicks in.

These are historic buildings crumbling.  This is affordable housing sitting empty.  These are neighborhoods being infested with crime because there are no people to support it.

Make no doubt about it, these speculators are a parasite on our city.  We will never turn our city around until we do finally make it more expensive sit and speculate on an abandoned building than it is to rent it out or sell it at prices the market will support.

Where have our citizens gone?  Away from crumbling neighborhoods they cannot afford.

I fully support City Council raising the vacant building maintenance licenses to a rate that makes it unprofitable to let them sit unused.

It’s time for the parasitic speculators to either shit or get off the pot.  We have a communities to rebuild and fill with people.

says:
29 Nov 2006  at  08:29 am | #

funnelcake, you make some sweeping generalizations here—and that is part of the problem.

Not all vacant building owners are speculators sitting on properties with no intentions of doing anything.  Some individuals may own buildings, and be doing their best to redevelop them.  But these individuals will get hit with expensive fees and potential lawsuits.

Why not hold corporations to the same licensing standards?

While the system will do what you describe, it also screws over individuals and gives privilege to 3CDC.

Is that fair?  Should the City be working to give more access to 3CDC than an ordinary citizen, in terms of how codes are enacted and enforced?

anon says:
29 Nov 2006  at  11:05 am | #

3CDC states it owns or controls 190+ buildings in OTR. They are acting like Funnelcake describes out of town property owners only they are in town, well one or two are anyway. The rest of the board members don’t live in the city.

Why do they get a free pass and city largess? We have given them over $12 Million in less than two years and how many tax breaks have they gotten? If the city treated small developers and individual owners the way they do corporate campaign donors the problem would not exist long.

City Council keeps talking about leveraging our contributions to 3CDC. We have seen little improvement in our city and lots of hype from the local press but we don’t see any positive tangable results. If they improve the rest of the city the way they have Fountain Square we can count on many more years of decline.

Apply the ordinances equally or not at all. Do not give us paperwork that says you are tough on vacant buildings, show us.

says:
29 Nov 2006  at  11:35 am | #

funnelcake:
I found it ironic that ReSTOC, which was often held up as the prime reason why we need a vacant building license program, has indeed been buying licenses.  3CDC, which has been described as some kind of savior of Over-the-Rhine, does not.

A vacant building license ensures that the building will be inspected for being boarded up properly and is not structurally unsafe.  All wooden pieces of trim, including cornices and window frames, have to be painted.  Downspouts have to be present.  The roof has to be sound. Any yard has to be kept trimmed. 3CDC, by not purchasing the licenses, also is avoiding many of the inspection items that the owners who do purchase the license have to fix.

What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

Every Cincinnatian says:
29 Nov 2006  at  01:43 pm | #

Please, stop distracting our Mayor, our Council, and our revered business leaders by pointing out potential disparaties in the treatment of our citizens.  Let them get back to their important business of: 1) transferring control of our public assets to quasi-/non-governmental entities; 2) spending our money providing superficial changes to public spaces; and 3) using our money to erect huge, strictly event-driven, cement structures on the most valuable, economically viable land in our city. Afterall, they have friends and supporters who need to have the wealth extracted from us transferred to them.

Dagney Taggart says:
29 Nov 2006  at  03:59 pm | #

One problem with Mr. Patton’s argument.  Restoc has owned 35 vacant buildings since the 1980’s and has kept them vacant, whereas 3CDC started acquiring a year or so ago.  Maybe we should give 3CDC the same 20 year leeway we gave Restoc.  Also, don’t forget that Restoc gets city money every year for operating budget and gets state money on a regular basis.  Do they use some of that money to pay for vacant building licenses?  What kind of oversight and transparency do they exhibit?

says:
29 Nov 2006  at  04:05 pm | #

Dagny, I do not read MEP to be defending Restoc, at least not in terms of his main articles overall point.  Please refer to my comment #2.  Do you disagree with me?

Dagny Taggart says:
29 Nov 2006  at  06:37 pm | #

I agree with both you and funnelcake.

My guess is that the City’s Dept. of Building Inspections takes longer than a year to force an owner to get a vacant building license.  In fact I am sure of it, because they are still trying to get hundreds of people to get them, and owners are avoiding it through different mechanisms.  If 3CDC still has vacant buildings and no active building permits pulled on these buildings in two years, I am quite certain that they will be forced to get licenses.

As I understand it, the licensing fee gets to be more and more each year.  They had the license for 10 years before this in the 90’s, but the fees were a measly $100 and this was no incentive to rehab, in fact is was a license to keep vacant indefinitely.  I understand that some well-meaning people will get stuck paying lots of fees, but OTR, and other neighborhoods are partially screwed up by well-meaning people.  I would agree that the first year fee should be minimal, but that it should increase dramatically each year thereafter.  If substantial work is in progress, then the license fee could be waived even.

And of course corporations should be treated at least as harshly as any individual, after all Restoc is a corporation too.

Anonymous says:
29 Nov 2006  at  06:40 pm | #

Hey Dean,

Can you investigate the most recent 3CDC event- 11/29/2006 - Downtown Revitalization of Fountain Square
http://www.cincinnatichamber.com/yp/calendar/eventview.aspx?eid=1116

I am wondering why we as citizens of Cincinnati have to pay to listen to what the organization is going to do with Fountain Square. The event costs between $15-$45! I was going to go but the cost of admission was not worth it.

Thanks-
Dr. Moriarty

anon says:
29 Nov 2006  at  07:16 pm | #

To Dagney 3CDC Taggart,

I think the point that was made didn’t indicate we should give Restock or anybody else a pass on vacant buildings. They need to be dealt with because boarded up structures are a public hazard.

Any entity using public money needs to be held accountable. The corruption in our city is systemic and exists at all levels of our government. The shell game we are playing ensures the status quo is not going to change and the politicians that get handouts will continue to give handouts in return. When we have an election we change the names and faces but the corruption continues because the gatekeepers are the filter through which people must pass to get on the ballot.

says:
29 Nov 2006  at  07:22 pm | #

Dagny Taggart:
I know of two non-profit groups other than ReSTOC that provide low-income housing and which are getting hammered on the licenses and the resulting inspections.  At least one receives no city funding.  It didn’t take the city long to go after them.

By your name I presume that you are familiar with the novel Atlas Shrugged.  If so, then you know what happens when the government consistently plays favorites and provides contracts based solely on who knows whom.  It’s not pretty.

Anonymous says:
30 Nov 2006  at  01:08 am | #

Dr. Moriarty,

Investigate what? If you read the event notice you would have seen this was an event for the Urban Land Institute Young Leaders Group. Admission for ULI members who are actually young leaders was only $10. That included food and beverage, a great view of the fountain square project, and perspective on the project from 3CDC. A great deal.

No investigation needed.

funnelcake says:
30 Nov 2006  at  08:59 am | #

Dean - I have no issue the 3CDC being held the the same standard.  I am fine the the building being put on the auction block instead of being handed over to 3CDC.  You think I am generalizing and don’t understand.  Fine.  I am open to discussion to flesh out these issues.

According to that March article Patton was looking at the license fee can be waived for up to two years if you have a rehab plan.

So what is the problem for the little guy?  If you can’t rent out your place, lease your store fronts, sell it or rehab it in two years I think there is a problem.  People are either asking for more than the market will bear, or they are sitting on property speculating.  Some people hold onto historic buildings and let them degrade so that they will be condemmed.

People complain about the lack of low cost housing but you have property owners just sitting on property, not even fixing them up or lowering rates to what the market will support.  I’ll tell you where your low cost housing sits.  It’s in the hand of speculators.  Shops & resturants on Main have a hard time staying in business because the rents are too high.  So they stay vaccant.  This does not rebuild a neighborhood.

Dagny Taggart says:
30 Nov 2006  at  03:49 pm | #

Michael Patton says:
“I know of two non-profit groups other than ReSTOC that provide low-income housing and which are getting hammered on the licenses and the resulting inspections.  At least one receives no city funding.  It didn’t take the city long to go after them.”

How long did it take?  As noted above, the license has been in effect since the mid-1990s and the license can be waived for 2 years if you have a rehab plan.  If the un-named non-taxpayer supported groups you know have had vacant buildings for more than 2 years without a viable plan, then I say it is time to bring the hammer down on them.

You might ask the Board members of these non-profits how hoarding vacant buildings helps their mission to provide low-income housing in a safe neighborhood.  My guess is that if you gave us an address or two we would be able to do a quick search on the auditor’s page and see that the groups you are talking about have been sitting on their vacant buildings for at least a decade.

funnelcake says:
30 Nov 2006  at  05:08 pm | #

Dagny Taggart,
I can’t give you any addresses for the ones Michael Patton is complaining about.  But here is the full list of condemned & vacant buildings:
http://www.cincinnati-oh.gov/bldginsp/downloads/bldginsp_eps14997.pdf

Life is just better with information.

funnelcake says:
30 Nov 2006  at  05:19 pm | #

I am wondering why we as citizens of Cincinnati have to pay to listen to what the organization is going to do with Fountain Square. The event costs between $15-$45! I was going to go but the cost of admission was not worth it.

-Dr. Moriarty

A) Keeps out the riff-raff.
B) They way they do business it really does cost them that much to hold the event.

says:
30 Nov 2006  at  07:45 pm | #

Thank you, Mr. Patton, for the lead article. It was objective and accurate which is mor that I can say about Funnelcake and Taggart.

Do any of you actually own rental property that you don’t occupy yourself? Have you ever rented affordable housing? You sit on the sidelines and offer a lot of criticism, which appears to be naive.

The Bill of Rights in the Ohio Constitution says:

“Sec. 1.  All men are, by nature, free and independent, and have certain inalienable rights, among which are those of enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing, and protecting property, and seeking and obtaining happiness and safety.”

“Sec. 19.  Private property shall ever be held inviolate but subservient to the public welfare.”

Tell me how the licensing of buildings is legal? And don’t make any vagaries of the term, public welfare. Check out the recent Ohio Supreme Court decision on the recent Norwood case.

My Patton hit the nail on the head when he wrote:
“The vacant building maintenance license appears to be just a back-door means of eminent domain to seize property for specially-connected corporations. “

Funnelcake and Taggart talk a lot but have they invested in affordable housing themselves? They want others to put money in something that will not succeed financially or is so risky that only zealots will consider the risk. And the blanket claim that owners are speculating is crazy; what are they speculating on? Do they see some light at the end of Cincinnati’s tunnel that the droves that left Cincinnati didn’t see?

Funnelcake! Give us about five speculation situations specifically so we can follow-up and test your claims.

says:
30 Nov 2006  at  11:18 pm | #

funnelcake & dagny taggart:
1. The March 16 article to which I refered says no such thing about a waiver.
2. I didn’t give the names of the non-profit groups because I didn’t ask them if I could publicize their situation.  Both groups did speak out on the plan saying that it would hurt them.  Council turned their backs on their concerns.  One group had already been told that the city wants its property—its specific property for some project that the city is mum about.  And the same group has also been told there is no money to actually BUY that property.
3. Yes, the vacant license program has been going on for some time.  The fee before was $300 per year, and the enforcement standards were reasonable.  These are not, nor are they evenly enforced.
4. Not all non-profit groups have access to the cash flow that 3CDC has.  The ordinance makes no allowance for buying a building, starting to fix it up, and then realizing that the job is too big.  Sell it, you say?  Well, any buyer has to have a plan and financing for the entire job in place or else the city will try to seize it.  Still further, there is no guarantee that the city will approve the buyer’s plan.  If they don’t approve it, they will try to seize it.  This is a powerful argument against any individual from ever again buying a “handyman’s special” in this city, except for perhaps the smallest of houses.
5. The ordinance requires that the license be bought even if the buiding is being fixed up.  I know a remodeler who had to do this with even a small, one-bedroom house in Walnut Hills (2331 May Street).  The $900 vacant building license was in addition to the building license.  Yes, if the remodel is completed in a certain time period one gets the money back.  But this only underscores my point.  This was a very small remodeler.  The city made CERTAIN that HE bought the license.  3CDC gets a pass.
6. The on-line list was one I did not know about.  I went to Buildings and Inspections and got a copy.  They did not tell me it was on-line.  The format for the one I have is a little different than the one you give, but it basically does seem to be the same list.  Mine breaks it down by neighborhoods, but does not give East or West on the streets.  That’s why I could not be certain of the identification of some of the buildings.
7. You gave the on-line list of the vacant buildings, but did not give the list of buildings with licenses.  That is a very much smaller list.  I went through that list and almost everyone seemed to be a small-time “player.” I judge this by the fact that they were listed as local people, not corporations.  Thus they have exposed themselves to 6 months jail time for not meeting the requirements.  The corporations were 3CDC (through its subsidiary’s purchase of two buildings from ReSTOC that already had licenses), New Prospect Baptist Church (which appears to have bought some vacant buildings next to it), and ReSTOC.
8. Please note that the list to which you link also specifically states that city-owned vacant buildings are not included.  If the city is not enforcing standards against 3CDC then I doubt very much if it is enforcing standards against itself.
9. I was talking to a higher-level city employee about some of this and he stated, “one check mark by my name and I am out of a job.” I took that to mean that he agreed with me but was under pressure to go along with the property seizures.  For understandable reasons I am withholding his name.

Dagney Taggart says:
30 Nov 2006  at  11:44 pm | #

Not only have I built affordable housing, I have been forced to get vacant building licenses.  Have you? 

Yes it took a few years to make it all happen each time I rehabbed a vacant building, so I had to get the license.  The difference between me and the complainers is that I had a workable plan, and only bought what I could afford.

When I was going through the process myself, I was certainly not happy about paying the fees and having the inspectors make me fix things in an empty building.  I asked the inspectors if this was constitutional, and they said that similar laws exist in many cities and that they have been supported by the courts.  Whatever, I’m no lawyer I just know that vacant buildings RUIN a city and this is one step in the right direction. 

Besides this article isn’t about whether or not it is legal it is about the even enforcement of said law. 

My point is simply that the non-profits corporations that are pointing the finger at 3CDC are themselves guilty of damaging the neighborhoods that they claim to support. 

Do this.  Follow the link above to the vacant building list.  About half of the first page are properties held by non-profits for 10yrs+.  You have to check each one with the auditors page, but you will see that each of the following owns several: City Gospel Mission, Drop-in-Center, Restoc, Aaron Etzler, the City, and that most of them were last transferred in the 1990’s.  The license is a way to make them sh** or get off the pot, thats all.  If 3CDC sits on their vacant buildings for years, then by all means prosecute them too.

says:
01 Dec 2006  at  01:48 am | #

Dagny Taggart:
I myself have not had to get a vacant building license because I have never owned a vacant building.  I have volunteered for a group that has had to get one.

If the city wants to give a 10-year grace period for any new owner of a vacant building, then that should be written in the law.  If a law is applied unevenly—if it is enforced only against a certain group of people—then that is a serious problem.  Generally it is a sign of corruption or prejudice in those who run the government.

Vacant buildings are just a sign of other factors that ruin a city; corruption and prejudice just being two of the possible factors.  Buildings are vacant because people left the city, and over 200,000 people have left since 1960.  Vacant buildings are the effect of people leaving the city, not the cause.  Fixing up all of the vacant buildings won’t accomplish anything if no one wants to move into them.  Anderson Township, West Chester, and Mason do not have problems with hundreds of vacant buildings like Cincinnati does.

Maybe the population decline has halted recently, but maybe not.  Cincinnati Public Schools is still cutting back on its building program because it expects fewer students in the future.

funnelcake says:
01 Dec 2006  at  05:56 am | #

Patton,
R 1. I saw a different article.  This one from 3/14/2006, on the last line mentions the waiver.
click here
R 3. Yeah.  I suspect they weren’t going after the small time developer that was rehabbing a building but instead focused attention on vaccant buildings with broken windows, broken down doors used as a flop house by drug users & prostitues.  Pretty much kills the value & rehab potential of everything else on the street.
R 4a - So what you are telling me is they started a project, don’t have enough money to finish it so they are going to sit on the property indefinitly, years on end until they can come up with the scratch from somewhere.  If they can’t get it done in two years, they are part of the problem.  If their eyes were not too big for their plate they might consider selling off one of their buildings to finance the completion of a project or two.  I swear.  Too damn greedy to have all the buildings to even think about giving up a few to actually get something done.
R 4b. Selling it does not sound that bad.  All the future buyer has to do is either inhabit the building, rent it out, or do what the guy in point 5 is doing and pay for the license up front and get refunded if he/she finishes the work within a year or two.  The government can’t seize it if you have a license.  Finish the work & you get your money back.
R 5. Sounds like a sound reason for the city to automatically wave the vacant building license for a year if someone is obtaining a building license.  These people are not the problem.  I am with you on this one.

Sorry if I seem a little over excited about this.  But I have thought for years that the city should enact some sort of extra tax for vacant or abandoned buildings.  It really is destroying our city.  If this license makes it too expensive to sit on buildings and forces people to sell it to the ones who will do something with it, I am all for it.

I’m still up for discussion.

funnelcake says:
01 Dec 2006  at  06:26 am | #

dieterschmied,
No.  I am not a landlord.  That is why I am also open to discussion on these issues since I may not have full knowledge of all the implications.  But you can’t just dismiss my concerns because I am not a landlord.  I still have a stake in all of this.  This is my city too.  And when I see neighborhoods getting run down, infested with crime, historic building deteriating before my eyes, I do get a little pissed.

As far as the Norwood property goes, I fully support the property owners who had those buildings occupied.  But if you are sitting on a building for years on end letting it rot, waiting for a market upswing, I have little sympathy if it is going to cost you a little extra to sqat on it.

The city is spending extra money boarding up windows, doors, dealing with the drug addicts, hookers & thugs who inhabit these abandoned buildings.  Crime, fires, exta police.  I feel it is fully fare that the city collect money to monitor & protect these properties if the property owner is not going to rehab it, rent it or lease it out so that people residing there or running there business can keep a proper watch over it.

As far as the 5 specualations go.  No.  I can’t just pull something out of my @ss.  But let’s start with what Taggerty pulled off the list and go from there.

says:
01 Dec 2006  at  04:58 pm | #

#19
Dagney Taggart says:
30 Nov 2006 at 11:44 pm | #

“Not only have I built affordable housing, I have been forced to get vacant building licenses.  Have you? “

No I never had to buy a license because I refused, went to court, and won on Constitutional grounds. Later the 1st district Court of Appeals held up the judge’s verdict based on illegal search. The city changed the law somewhat and I am chomping at the bit to challenge the law on the other three points that I submitted in my brief.

If you want to fight it, get say half of the people that have purchased or refused to purchase these licenses to donate to a fund for a real lawyer and you can hold the City accountable. But for me to get involved I need to see enough of the sheep to stop taking it in the ass.

says:
01 Dec 2006  at  05:44 pm | #

22.
Re:funnelcake says:
01 Dec 2006 at 06:26 am | #

Fair Enough!

You don’t have to be a landlord to respect that principles that this country was founded on. First, I want you to read a very short article pn property rights:
http://www.cato.org/testimony/ct-pi210.html

While it may seem expedient to employ fascist tactics, the results are generally short-lived and then they come back to bite you in the ass. Society cannot just respect basis principles when it is convenient to do so and expect everyone else to respect society.

There are many reasons that buildings are left to deteriorate, the primary reason is lack of demand. I think you would be surprised how many have finally just walked away because they no longer see any connection with their neighbors and neighborhood. The neighborhoods die because there is more to get somewhere else. The civic leaders failed to make the neighborhood fill the need of those remaining, instead they look to attract newbies, who they do not know. They think the newbies have more money, thus will invest in someone else’s dream, thus pay more taxes, etc.

We elect idiot egotists that have no expertise nor new ideas in understanding what people need; they are only inteersted in what the peopel say they want.

I don’t see five specific addresses. Taggart mentions three or four groups but their internal manipulations are not of what I was talking. Take a building that the city now owns and go back to a point where is was functionsing and find something about what caused the building to die according to it’s owners. In most cases there are valid reasons that the owners made decisions that allowed the building to die.

In Columbus, there is a guy who spots deteriorating buildings and then tries to put the owners in contact with buyers without a fee. Seldom will a buyer risk a significant amount of money to speculate that a city like Cincinnati is going to make a comeback. The smart money follows appreciation and wealth. And if the offer is reasonable, most owners will sell.

If you want to become an expert on OTR quickly, go an find Norb or Tom Denhart at Hart Realty and buy him lunch at the Maisonette, oops that gone now too, isnt it?

says:
01 Dec 2006  at  08:47 pm | #

No I never had to buy a license because I refused, went to court, and won on Constitutional grounds. (#23)

Please tell me more, dieterschmied.  I hadn’t considered the unreasonable search and seizure grounds of the Fourth Amendment.  Doing blanket searches in order to find things for which the owners can be fined does seem like a clear violation of the Fourth.

As the procedure was explained to me by the city, if a vacant building license was not bought, the city assumed that the property was derelict and a danger.  Only if the money was paid would the inspector go out and see what the truth really was.  A lawyer friend of mine said that also appeared to be a constitutional violation.

Another lawyer friend said that it may be possible to contest the fine based on gross differences in how the law is applied to different parties.  He also said that the Ohio Attorney General has the power to investigate such cases.  Once the new one takes office, it may indeed be worth a letter.

says:
03 Dec 2006  at  01:19 pm | #

For those that just got the license, they gave up their rights to be free from illegal search. By obtaining the license, they could not complain.

The government cannot make the assumption that something is wrong. There is probably something wrong with everyone’s house but I don’t think any judge worth his salt would issue a search warrant.

If the building is vacant, whose public health and safety is being jeopardized? If there is something on the outside that affects the public’s health and safety, that is another story. The building department in NYC claimed arbitrarily that lintels and window soffits might be dangerous and harassed owners, The owners simply chopped them off preemptively and destroyed the architecture. This all happened because elected official were unwilling to challenge the building department bureaucrats. Sad, but it happpens here as well.

Unless there is a class action suit, the city people will continue to act under the protection of conditional immunity.

Don Robertson, The American Philosopher says:
02 May 2007  at  10:23 pm | #

The vacant building licensing procedure will negatively effect owners of property whose every intention might be noble and worthy of OTR redevelopment.

One of the cognizance problems many readers and commentators here have, is they view redevelopment as any change, even a change that is intended to tax many current owners out of existence and bring in condo development that will cause a wholesale gentrification of these neighborhoods.  This is not redevelopment, it is tantamount to a wholesale theft of a large swath of urban property we are witnessing.

If the City of Cincinnati were really interested in redevelopment, it would make it less expensive to restore and rehabilitate vacant properties, not more expensive, as this vacant building tax makes it.

Few readers here own such property, but those who do have certainly looked at the draconian building permit system and the exhorbitant fees associated with every process of renovation.

There are literally six-figure fees for implementing major sewer work needed in quite of few of these vacant buildings.  Six figures, literally, some fees range a quarter of a million dollars plus, and this is money paid to a city licensing board and the operational unit that will perform a minimum of actual physical work, and nothing that cannot be accomplished by a two man crew (a flagger might be another man required) with a backhoe in a single day.

To install a single kitchen sink the permit license fee is $200.  Without the permit fee, I can purchase and install a new kitchen sink complete with faucets for less than $75.

When architectural fees are required, these drive up the costs even further.

Everyone has or is trying to get their hand in the cookie jar in Cincinnati, just like every other municipality all across the country, and even every small town all across the country too. 

This is the American way, and in order for the City of Cincinnati to get ahead of the game, onto a rising curve and making real progress, someone in city government is going to have to pull down some of the barriers, instead of trying to continue to play the game, as is being done in OTR.  These barriers wilt in the face of the well-connected insider. 

Witness an even more strange phenomenon, as with the recent $450,000 no interest loan made to Abandoned Properties, Inc., an outfit that hasn’t paid the property taxes on the subject property on Vine Street in literally years.  They are going for condominium-ization, and the creation of a DisneyLand like beer garden booze-arama deal certainly requiring a city license to dispense alcoholic beverages.  They’ll apparently have no problem getting that license without any input from a neighborhood that probably would be opposed to yet another bar in OTR, and surely would be opposed to the incredible increase in congestion in this urban neighborhood.

No one is creative enough.  And without the required creativity Cincinnati will continue to see the same old, same old.  Many of the residents of OTR will continue to live in squalor surrounded by vacant buildings, and they will continue to get the blame for the real problem that is related to absentee landlords and, obstructive city ordinances and regulations that limit the possibility for change.

It’s time for government to to stop doing favors, and start lowering the costs associated with renovation of the existing apartment buildings that have become vacant.

Don Robertson, The American Philosopher

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