"Schenectady profiting as landlord, investing little" What color is the sky in their world? Are there rides?
I have a feeling that if they enforced their own building code, they would be millions in the red. Very few landlords abandon buildings that are in tip top shape.
The headline should read "Let's welcome our newest slumlord. The City Of Schenectady".
Schenectady profiting as landlord, investing little $2,500 limit set for maintenance spending on foreclosed homes Wednesday, July 17, 2013 By Kathleen Moore Gazette Reporter
SCHENECTADY — The city has collected a small windfall from the houses it seized through foreclosures last year.
By offering month-to-month leases to tenants living in those houses, the city has now earned $45,719 in the first year of its venture into property ownership.
But city officials have not invested much to maintain those houses, which they intend to own for only a short period of time. All of the houses are for sale. Early on, city officials decided they could only afford to spend $2,500 per house on maintenance, Building Inspector Eric Shilling said.
If a more expensive problem cropped up, he said city officials advised the tenants to move out.
Last winter, tenant Rose West was told to leave when she reported a gas leak she believed was related to the furnace. City officials told her they couldn’t justify the expense of a new furnace.
In the end, the leak turned out to be in a gas line to her dryer and she did not have to move, but she had to call National Grid and others to evaluate the situation. City officials never came, she said.
Shilling said that moving out was the only option he could offer.
“I’m not quite sure what assistance we could do,” he said. “Obviously, we have limited resources. We didn’t choose, like a private investor. … We simply don’t have the resources to make all the repairs in all these houses.”
When the city foreclosed, code inspectors looked at each occupied building. If they found unsafe conditions then, the tenants had to move out.
The rest were offered a month-to-month lease, but they were told that the city would be selling their buildings and that they should start looking for a new place to live.
“The city wanted to give people time to move on and find another place,” said Deputy Finance Commissioner Anthony Ferrari. “We’re not fixing properties. The idea is not to fix them so they can stay there; it’s to give them time to move on or buy the place themselves.”
Not many tenants took the city’s offer. At its peak, 20 units were rented by the city; now that number is down to seven, Ferrari said.
City officials offered to rent apartments when they discovered, somewhat to their surprise, landlords had been collecting monthly rent while not paying their taxes. That left the tenants holding the bag when the city foreclosed for back taxes.
“We didn’t want to throw people on the street,” Ferrari said. “They were paid up on their rent, their landlord just didn’t pay their taxes.”
But those who started paying the city found they didn’t really have a landlord. When they called to report problems, the Codes Department decided whether the problem was worth solving.
Many problems were too expensive to resolve — such as leaking roofs and broken furnaces — while others were considered too minor — like peeling paint.
Only a few repairs have been made. In one case, city officials ended up spending $5,000 — twice the self-imposed limit — repairing a sewage pipe that turned out to be far more damaged than inspectors believed. Shilling authorized the complete replacement of the sewer lateral.
“You can’t sell a house that doesn’t have a working toilet,” he said.
Every house is for sale, and that also complicates matters, Mayor Gary McCarthy said.
“It’s a house that owes us $30,000, and somebody complains, ‘We need a new roof.’ I’m not going to spend $11,000 on a new roof,” McCarthy said.
And he also didn’t want city officials to patch up old equipment, like furnaces, that a new owner will replace.
“I don’t want to put a lot of money in these properties in an unplanned endeavor,” he said. “But at the same time, people are not going to be put in a hazardous or life-threatening situation.”
If a house becomes that dangerous, Shilling said, he has no choice but to advise tenants to move out.
city officials decided they could only afford to spend $2,500 per house on maintenance, Building Inspector Eric Shilling said.
Well, what about the homeowners? The DEMS increase taxes on the homeowners, forcing the homeowners to pay for the property tax for the downtown millionaire political cronies of the mayor and rest of the dems in the city/county.
Then the city goes through these Hitler-like orders on the FINANCIALLY STRUGGLING homeowners, ORDERING them to fix stuff in their houses and then, in Hitler-like fashion, the city imposes extraordinarily harsh financial penalties on the homeowners who tell the city that they could only afford to spend $2,500
Current DEMS in the city = BIGGEST HYPOCRITES IN THE HISTORY OF THE CITY.
Optimists close their eyes and pretend problems are non existent. Better to have open eyes, see the truths, acknowledge the negatives, and speak up for the people rather than the politicos and their rich cronies.
Not to worry ... we built new and separate shrines for Mayor McCarthy ...
Really?
Optimists close their eyes and pretend problems are non existent. Better to have open eyes, see the truths, acknowledge the negatives, and speak up for the people rather than the politicos and their rich cronies.
“I’m not quite sure what assistance we could do,” he said. “Obviously, we have limited resources. We didn’t choose, like a private investor. … We simply don’t have the resources to make all the repairs in all these houses.”
Well Mr. Shilling, welcome to the world of average-Joe-taxpayer!!! We have NO MONEY EITHER AFTER BEING TRIPLED TAXED AND FEE'D!! But you keep writing your citations for lack of handrails, peeling paint, etc when REAL code violations (illegal apartments, faulty wiring) are causing house/building fires every month or so.
Such complete idiots...it's amazing how this freak show keeps going...
Well Mr. Shilling, welcome to the world of average-Joe-taxpayer!!! We have NO MONEY EITHER ...
Such complete idiots...it's amazing how this freak show keeps going...
Yet McC, the dem council, the ex mayor of BS, the savage woman, the current county dems, and Plex, just do not understand.
Their answer is make the taxpayers build new buildings for their millionaire cronies, then make the homeowners pay the taxes for their millionaire cronies and the the city will improve.
These points must be highly publicized this coming election season.
People in the city need to be told that the dems are screwing them over. The people are duped into believing the city is getting better because of the new buildings that they (the residents) paid for and the fancy light poles.
But come this election season the opponents must get the EVIDENCE out to the people, they need to tell the residents what the tax base value has been, year by year. Show it like, "here are the new and/or renovated buildings for calendar year 1, here is the before and after value of the tax base. Then here are the new and/or renovated buildings for calendar year 2, here is the before and after value of the tax base. " And continue the chart with year 3, year 4, etc.
At the same time, show in the chart the EVIDENCE showing the annual drop in home values just shown based on the equalization rates and the RAR's alone. Then show the percentage of reductions of those who persisted with their assessment grievances because if someone actually goes beyond the BAR, they WILL win. At the same time, the candidates need to present all the EVIDENCE of the endless response by the DEM puppets on the BAR that say "denied insufficient data" leading to the extra effort.
And explain to the people how the city is the BIGGEST HYPOCRITE when the city ORDERS homeowners to fix things, claiming blight hurts the home values, but then the city ignores it's own codes which causes blight.
And the candidates need to point out to people how the city, after taxing the homeowners to the nth degree will NOT allow homeowners to say they cannot afford to fix things in their homes, but how the city can use that excuse.
Renaissance? Notice the total silence as never ending evidence comes out.
Optimists close their eyes and pretend problems are non existent. Better to have open eyes, see the truths, acknowledge the negatives, and speak up for the people rather than the politicos and their rich cronies.
“I’m not quite sure what assistance we could do,” he said. “Obviously, we have limited resources. We didn’t choose, like a private investor. … We simply don’t have the resources to make all the repairs in all these houses.”
We didn't choose?
They did, in fact, choose to take the properties from the private investors(owners).
Logged
