The "Report on Code Enforcement" dated January 11, 2009 states."Providing safe housing for themselves is a basic responsibility for every homeowner. A safe dwelling allows the family to live free from concern for unsafe mechanical systems, pest infestations, or other treats to health and well-being. In such places the cost for heat, water and sewage should be reasonable and predictable. Responsible homeowners routinely take the initiative to ensure that these basics are provided. Government's role in the regulation of owner-occupied housing is somewhat limited: inform the community of accepted standards, and ensure that the life-safety issues are in compliance with existing code provisions."
I must say that not all of the blighted homes in New Albany are not rental property, some of them are owner-occupied. No, I don't have the statistics but we all know this is true. I have nothing against the regulation of rental properties but I think homeowners should be regulated also. An unsafe house is an unsafe house.
As far as Government's role in regulation being limited, I beg to differ on that issue also. Ordinance G-04-23 lists the responsibilities of the Building Commissioner as follows:
- Enter the premises to determine compliance. 150.101(E)
- Determine the identity and address of landowner. 150.101(E)
- Send written notice by certified mail. 150.101(E)
- Have the city remove material and vehicles. 150.101(E)
- File a lien against the property with the County Recorder for all costs incurred by the city for removal.
Procedure to file a lien on property: 150.101(G)
- Building Commissioner to Recorder
- Recorder to Auditor
- Auditor to Treasurer
- Treasurer add to next tax bill to be mailed.
Let's please change our way of thinking from substandard and unsafe rental property to substandard and unsafe property. We all want the same thing, for New Albany to be a clean, safe, and decent place for all of us to live. While home ownership is an ideal situation, this is not feasible for everyone for various reasons. But everyone should take pride in their home, rather the title be in the resident's name or someone else's name. A person's home is just that.
41 comments:
Looks like England is paving the way to collect MORE money from teh public.
Just another England SCAM.
typo: the public.
Get ready for more fee increases.
An unsafe house is dangerous to the family living there. If the fire department is called to rescue a child from a burning house, does the fireman stop at the door and say, " OH-- I CAN'T ENTER THIS BURNING BUILDING BECAUSE IT IS A RENTAL PROPERTY ?"
Yes, that is a stupid statement, but, the city administration is trying to treat rental houses in a
different way.
Owner occupied houses will need to be held to the same standerd of accountability as rental homes.
Again, this is NOT something brought up by the England administration, this is something a group of citizens from across every neighborhood, every economic status had brought to the attention of the those who ran for office during the last elections.
No one is asking that rental homes be treated any different, we are asking that the owners of the worst of the worst rental homes in this city can be contacted to clean up their messes, not the fake names and dead end numbers that are listed on them now.
Unless of course the Anonymous tract on here thinks the tenants should be fined for the substandard houses?
And once again, as it was said a million times before, the only time an "inspection fee" would come into play would be if a home failed the primary inspection, and then it should only be like $25.
No body is trying to get rich off of fees here, and no body is trying to punish land lords who take care of their properties.
Had any of the "anonymous" posters been at any of the meetings they would know this info, and at any point and time, they can contact me and request copies of the model programs from around the country that have been used to present this to the various government bodies involved.
On homeowners, there is little they can do. It is "grandfathered in" as they say. For all you know Shirley, it may have been legal at the time it was built. Codes change constantly. And since it is not being used as rental unit, they cannot come after anyone for zoning violations.
They need to start on Main Street or Spring Street for violations if they try.
$750,000 is a lot to lose.
As a side note, when discussing this situation with officials, I have also pushed for the same standards to be enforced on residential, commercial, and industrial units across the board.
Every time this comes up, people come out of the wood work crying like babies about the government taking their money.
It does not take to genius to figure out if you keep your property clean you dont have anything to worry about. If you are worried that your going to get smacked around for a nasty property, spend some time and clean your nasty place up. I am tired of my place looking like crap because other peoples garbage is always blowing in my yard or my plants dont match well with your broken down cars and washing machines in your yard.
The mention of broken down cars in the comment above reminds us of the
many old cars sitting in yards and on the street listed "for sale".
WHY CAN'T THE CODE ENFORCEMENT OFFICER SEE THESE CARS AS SHE RIDES AROUND TOWN IN OUR CITY OWNED VEHICLE???
OH-- YES, SHE WANTS US TO PROVIDE HER WITH A PAIR OF GLASSES IN ADDITION TO PROVIDING HER WITH A CAR INCLUDING FREE GAS AND CELL PHONE.
OUR ADVICE TO THE CODE ENFORCEMENT OFFICER AND THE BUILDING COMMISSIONER IS TO READ THE LAWS.
The city of New Albany has tiptoed all around this problem. Seems to me like the city has chosen sides, is playing favorites with the lawbreakers. England doesn't want to get involved in a neighborhood squabble, "they don't work like that", citizens of our down, have voted for elected officials to make sure those laws are enforced.
Special laws for special people?
I'd take a hundred running operable cars for sale, over one broke down rusty junker filled with garbage
We are living across the street from a SERIAL CODE VIOLATOR!
Pam's been called several times and has told us everything is ok.
Maybe the City of New Albany doesn't quite get it, if they don't want to do their job, why is England running our city government?
They are the very ones elected or hired to carry out our wishes and clean up our city.
My son and I are voters and deserve to be heard by our city.
IT TAKES MONEY TO CLEAN UP OUR CITY, AND OUR CITY IS BROKE FOLKS.
The difference is clear to me.
I run a business, and our kitchen is held to a higher standard than your home's is. We are more tightly regulated in every respect, and rightly so.
Conversely, someone buys a house, splits it in three, charges for each unit, then somehow manages to keep a straight face while he or she denies that it's a business.
Spare me. No one has ever said that owner occupied houses should be exempt from standards, only that being in business constitutes something different from the rest.
Of course, the state's just as hypocritical. Homeowners 1%, businesses 3% ... and farms and rental properties get the 2% discounted poperty tax rate.
Whatever.
YOU LIKE OTHER BUSINESSES KNEW WHAT YOU WERE GETTING INTO. SO CRY ME A RIVER!
It's time for England to go, get fresh blood in here running our city.
YOU LIKE OTHER BUSINESSES KNEW WHAT YOU WERE GETTING INTO. SO CRY ME A RIVER!
As usual, you miss the point (until anonymous signs a name, I'm assuming that all of you are the same person).
I surely knew, and I'm good with it. It's a cost of doing business, and you make adjustments.
Rental property owners knew, too, but now they're the ones doing the crying, uttering nonsense like "they're not properties, they're products."
Sorry, charlies: They're businesses, too.
I don't know where the idea came from that anyone is advocating homeowners get a free pass while rental owners get hung by their thumbs on the courthouse lawn.
That is not the case. This has all been said before in various public meetings, forums, blogs & newspaper articles but apparently some still don't understand.
Therefore I'm gonna take yet another stab at it.
First of all to the owner occupied question.
There are a variety of programs available for indigent homeowners to get help with repairs involving health & safety issues.
Yet it befuddles me how few take advantage of them. Perhaps we as neighbors need to offer to help them in this area.
As to identifying ownership of these properties, CM Price is correct.
Most of the time, but not always, one can indeed ascertain who the current owner is of an owner occupied home by simply going to the tax assessors office and entering the address into the public access computer.
Remember I said most of the time.
On occassion if the home has been sold recently (and recently can be as much as 18 months) the new information may not yet be in that database.
In those instances one must start the tracking at the recorders office. Even then it won't show up if for some reason the property transfer has not been recorded. So then it's off to the races
With rental property Mr Price is in error. The chain of ownership transfers can streach across family, state lines, & international borders to ad infinitum. Ergo what is on the local records may be and often is out of date information.
Although they be few in number,the most egregious offenders control the majority of the worst properties.
They have made an artform out of transferring (on paper) ownership to a cousin, exwife, future brother inlaw, ect. for the purpose of creating an untraceable paper trail to confuse & frustrate.
The sole purpose of rental registration is to enable whoever the enforcing entity is to go directly to a locally available resposible party to alleviate the issue at hand, be they code enforcement officers, building commissioner, or city attorney, or tax collectors.
Everyone assumes that just because a tax bill gets sent to a post office box in Cancun, the responsible party will pick it up and overnite a check. That would be an erroneous assumption!
Yes liens can be placed on the tax bill and property seized, but apparantly neither is happening.
Just like Pam Badger can site repeat offenders and the city attorney can procesute them or the building inspector can enter any home, owned or rented if he has probable cause, but that isn't happening either. At least not where we can see it.
So please quit buying the crap that the professional slumlords & their anonymous cowardly supporters are feeding you because I know you are smarter than that!
Be sides,it doesn't become you.
Instead, get out your digital camera, take pictures of the offending property, hand it in person to the building commissioner and if nothinhg happens, do it again.
Then is nothing happens, send to the Tribune!
By now it should be obvious to all that promises are just words and words more often than not fall on deaf ears.
So it is up to us to keep the pressure on and the issues in front of their faces.
If we can't or won't stand up, get involved, attend public meetings and quit hiding behind "anonymous", we need to just shut the hell up!
Sounds like a threat Mr. Highwayman?
When did you become an expert on property?
In fact, some of your comment or opinions are incorrect and I will be more than happy to direct you in the right direction.
In fact, some of your comment or opinions are incorrect and I will be more than happy to direct you in the right direction.
C'mon, Lloyd -- take him/her/it up on the challenge! I can't wait to snap the photo of you talking to the person wearing the bag/disguise/mask ... LOL.
Anon 10:48 AM,
I don't know where you're getting a threat from.
As to the possibility of me being in error, fine.
Show me where & how. If I wrong, I'll be the first to admit it.
But for it to have any credibility you are going to have to come out from behind the veil and show yourself and reveal your sources.
Otherwise, you and I will just have to agree to disagree!
I would love also for the brave anonymous one to point out for us Hiways errors.
He has been the main backbone in this fight on blight, has researched, studies, and always seems to have the proof to back up what he says.
So Anon... Please enlighten us..
I was speaking with a few New Albany residents yesterday about our fair city, mainly the water park and our pothole and trash problems.
One person said she has never lived in an area with so much trash strewn about. She said she has seen third world countries which are cleaner.
We agreed that the city needs to be cleaned up and the streets repaired before we concentrate on frills.
Our city is literally a mess. Neighborhood associations are helping by having clean ups but somehow we need to convince all of our residents to pick up after themselves.
Our city is literally a mess. Neighborhood associations are helping by having clean ups but somehow we need to convince all of our residents to pick up after themselves.
Precisely. As Pogo said, we have met the enemy, and he is us.
So: What do we do to possess the sort of resident who doesn't need to be reminded to pick up after himself?
Cheap and squalid rental properties?
Underfunded police?
Bitter people scoffing at every effort to provide the sort of amenities that might attract something else?
Great point, Shirley. Now, follow it to the logical conclusion, and answer this question: What aren't those of us seeing the point working together to achieve it?
And: After my comment here is followed by the usual torrent of anonymous abuse, what purpose do these anonymites really have in being part of the solution?
Great comment!
I am guilty of arguing tit for tat on this subject everytime it pops up, I admit that.
I would however LOVE to see some of the suggestions to correct this blight on our community by the eternal nay-sayers?
1) Does the army of anonymous nay sayers even think there is a problem with the housing infrastructure in the city?
2) Does the previously mentioned group, if they feel there is a problem, think there is a link between the unchecked filth and the increase in property crimes, drug crimes, and decreasing health status of our medically indigent population?
3) Do the eternal nay sayers have any better suggestions to correct this problem fairly across the board with out mandated fees?
4) Can the nay sayers bring my 6 year old Black Lab named ranger back to life after he died a horrible death when a prolific local slum lord emptied a years worth of raw sewage from his basement into neighbors yards in the middle of the night?
5) Lastly, can the eternal nay sayers tell Shiela (a 6 year old girl) that her respitory problems from being exposed to dangerous mold in an unchecked slum lord house will get better? (her doctors cant, and her parents certainly cant, and the slumlord is not helping much either)
Please feel free to educate us anonymous nay sayers!
We have more important issues than rental inspection in this town.
You do understand that the cost of these inspections will be passed on to the tenents and then into England's slush fund.
I encourage the council to NOT pass this if their ever is an attempt rental inspection.
Yes, there are more important issues but this is not a small matter.
This needs to be discussed and will continue to be until all of the homes in New Albany are clean and safe to live in, rentals and owner occupied.
The results of any rental inspection is that lower end tenents will be priced out of the market. Pushing out low income tenants seems to be the underlying goal of this city, I also agree it will end up a slush fund for Mayor England.
I also agree 5:11,isn't blight another term for low income?
I know you all think this is just a measure to clean up blight - but the results is going to be to price a community out of reach to lower segments of the market.
Ask yourself one question, with rental prices going up, and a surplus of tenents looking for rentals, are they going to pass on any cost to tenents?
Also look at the revenue it brings to our corrupt city.
Maybe the city should live on a budget like we do instead of lining England's pockets?
The blight we're experiencing in New Albany has little to do with renters, and landlords, moreover, it has to do with the economy: tons of forclosed properties, short sale properties left by folks who have no way of continuing the payments. Their properties are left unattended to (mostly) by the Banks/Mortgage companies, lots of weeds, dead landscaping, green pools breeding mosquitos to transmit West Nile Virus.
On the other hand, class warfare is what Baylor and others are all about these days, not landlords.
YOU SURE HIT THE NAIL RIGHT ON THE HEAD, IT'S CLASS WARFARE. THE HAVES AND THE HAVE NOTS.
"OH WHAT A TANGLED WEB THEY WEAVE, WHEN THEY SET OUT TO DECEIVE."
I CALL IT INTRUSION OF PRIVACY, UNCONSTITUTIONAL SEARCHES AND A WAY OF COLLECTING MORE FEES FROM US ALL.
I object. Roger, Highwayman and Christopher D. you blindly classify all landlords as slumlords.
I hope for everyone's sake the City Council does their homework on this before rashly copying another city's ordinance on the assumption that it's all going well, or that it'll accomplish anything other than raising rents and driving investors away.
Tax revenue is the life line to our city.
Get out their and help your neighbors instead of "bitching" about it.
Shirley,
I don't agree with you. Maybe the building commission (inspectors) need to do their job, and are you aware out of last year there were only three cases brought to City Attorney Gibson? There are laws on the books, and I say enforce them.
NO new fees.
So I'm supposed to believe that nine separate anonymous comments posted in the period of roughly an hour and a half are from nine different people?
Looks like Brian and/or Pat has been busy this morning ... but wait: They actually have the courage to stand behind their names.
And, both of you have failed to answer the question: Exactly why are rental properties not a business, and eligible for regulation just like any other business?
Will one of you at least try to answer this question?
Anon 6:07
I was not advocating more fees, I just want everyone to clean up their property.
I know there have been a lot of forclosures lately, but this has been a problem for a long time. I don't care if the homes are owner occupied or rental properties, there is no reason for garbage in the yards and junk cars everywhere.
Yes, there are laws on the books that need to be enforced. I thought that is what I said, if not then I apologize.
I am not in any way condeming or otherwise saying anthing about people with lower incomes. A home does not have to be worth a lot of money for the occupant to have pride in it.
Thank you, Shirley. I was about to say the same thing. I have been to lower-income areas in other cities and have not seen the sloth that I see in New Albany.
We organize neighborhood cleanups with one involving active City participation and the other two with individual participation (ie- dumpsters made available with one for lawn debris & one for household with a truck for tires). The first one we did I was dismayed to see the number of people watch us clean up the alleyways and bring stuff out to us or in one case they poked fun at us as we cleaned up their mess. I even had a woman hunt us down to demand why we hadn't picked up a bale of straw she threw over the fence when she had driven through and seen us working. These are able-bodied people. The prevailing thought is that "If I throw it over my fence or into the gutter it's no longer my problem." We need to combat that.
On the topic of rental inspections, I was a renter when I first moved to New Albany from Louisville. I lived on Cherry St overlooking the ball fields. It was a nice, clean, modern apartment house and the landlord was very good to us. We were good tenants and it was our last stop on the way to buying a house. The rent was modest and he didn't raise it but once in the five years I lived there.
I have since been involved, through volunteer groups, in helping lower-income residents. In this capacity I've been inside many of the homes/apartments that rent to the "lower-income demographic." The first thing I notice is that the tenants are clean. The inside of the house is clean, no dirty dishes, laundry, garbage piling up, etc. The other thing I notice is that in some (not all) cases there are roaches climbing out of the heat vents, broken window panes, missing flooring, non-separated gas/water meters, promises of "if you rent this I'll fix it up."
I had one disabled woman that was told by her landlord that he had a better place for her to live and he moved her into a house that had roaches on the walls and in the floor vents, antiquated electric, inside doors used as outside with indoor hardware (think bathroom doorknob instead of deadbolt), rotten bits of food and dead bugs in the fridge (I only found out since we took food to her & I helped to put it away), a cellar without steps & ponded water, a listing floor with a gas range at the end of it... I could take up pages with this. This is one example of several I've seen. For this she was charged the modest rent of $550. That is not cheap based on the substandard quality.
I did call the health department, building commissioner and the fire marshall. The health department had come by and so did the building commissioner. Before anything could really get moving on it, the place burned to the ground due to faulty/overworked wiring. The furnace couldn't be used so she was using space heaters.
This woman was disabled, but was paying her rent. She was not dirty, or ignorant. She just hit a bad spot in life. I helped her to get into decent housing, but it took effort such as a birth certificate and proof of identity. I sometimes wonder if people rent these ramshackle places becaues they have too much pride to go to Sect. 8 or public housing, don't have any credit and alot of these rentals are as we always said, "A Coke & a smile" joints (places that don't do background checks and don't care where the rent comes from). These are the most-vulnerable citizens and they should be able to find decent places to rent.
I know that landlords are in a situation where they feel they are being attacked. It's hard to find clean, decent, tenants that don't use their rental as a dump, tear up the walls, strip them of plumbing, etc. or destory their rentals and walk out with no way to recoup the losses. It's the cost of doing business, as difficult as that is. But on the other hand, there are many of us that have started out in rentals and were decent, kept up with the rent, paid deposits, etc and when we moved on got all of that back. Landlords have the right to rent to anyone they choose, so it's really in their interest to keep a nice property to get the best possible tenant.
I've been reading that there is a group of landlords that want to do the right thing and that's a move in the right direction. Self policing is always better. But we need to do something. The City is judged not only by the quality of streets, schools, amenities, but also by the housing stock. I've read where landlords can't rent a place because the owner-occupied is in bad shape or another landlord's property is in bad shape. We're all in this together and we need to work on it together.
To the person who said we should help our neighbors, we do. We've had cleanups in the neighborhood, as I've stated above and I've cut yards, pulled limbs, removed tires and other debris from the alley, called Code Enforcement, Street Dept, you name it, to get things taken care of. I can't say that I am the majority, but I pitch in. I have also known several of my neighbors to help each other to clean things up especially after Ike and the ice storm. Sometimes we need more than just a handful of people to do all of the work.
Mrs. Nungent,
Youe the exception to the rule. You do a great job, we should pull together as a community, instead of being judgemental of others.
To Anon February 27, 2009 6:02 AM
You could be no more wrong if you tried. At every meeting I attend, every letter I write I have a disclaimer that all landlords are not slumlords.
A city does not notice the "landlords", a city notices the slumlords.
All the talk about this being to get rid of low income families again, could not be more wrong.
Again, what I have called for does not include an "inspection fee" to end up in a slush fund.
The home inspected to ensure that it is up to code (working plumbing, electrical, HVAC, and in a safe and habital condition as set forth by not only our local ordinances, but by state and federal housing laws.)
You know those pesky things like the floors not caving in, holes through the side of the house, no infestations of insects/rodents, no fire hazards, the home not being a former meth lab that was not properly cleaned, no human excrement dumping out into the basement/crawl space becase the plumbing is busted...
If the inspector has to come back to re-inspect then perhaps a $25 fee would then, and only then be charges....wooooo $25 bucks, boy that will break a person who owns "investment properties"...
Again, this is NOT about railroading the poor out of town, or launching an offensive against all landlords, this is abouthaving a tool at OUR disposal to go after the mere handful of slumlords in this city who are endangering the health, safety and well being of the lower income families who deserve the right to live in a safe home at an affordable price.
Being poor does not mean you have to have some POS preditor taking what little money you have to "rent" you a dangerous decaying house.
If any of the Anon nay sayers do not agree with this ideology, then I would submit that they themselves know they are guilty of commiting such horrible acts on the lower income families of this city, and dont worry, while youre collecting your rent from them to live in an unsafe home, I am busy making sure the children and adults living in said homes are getting the medical care they need for the illnesses and injuries associated from being exposed to such hazards.
Dont believe, then you are more than welcome to volunteer at any one of my 4 clinics and see for yourself!
LIST YOUR 4 CLINICS, IF YOU DARE. SO YOUR A DOCTOR AND THIS IS ALL YOU HAVE TO OFFER NEW ALBANY?
Please by all means, show me where I indicated that I was a doctor?
Being a community advocate such as your are, I am quite sure you are able to find the Clinic for New Albany/ Floyd County...
Post a Comment