8 Comments so far

1. AeroSquid on February 10, 2006 12:27 pm

   a 6% increase on water and sewer rates? What a load… the KC Water Department is only good at leaving huge metal plates all over the city for years at a time. they must need the money to buy some more metal slabs. When i drive by Water Dept. guys on the job they always seem to be standing around watching one guy (probably the new guy) work. It must suck to be the new guy.

2. BlogKC on February 10, 2006 1:11 pm

   Aero, that’s the voters’ decision. We voted on half a billion dollars for water and sewer upgrades, and the rate increase is the voter-approved method for paying that bill.

3. Mark on February 11, 2006 8:41 am

   As one who attended the Neighborhood Alliance meeting on the budget when the City Manager and Schulte presented the budget to the neighborhoods, I will wait and see. The smoke and mirrors that have traditionally come into existence AFTER the media events presenting the budget have taken place, seem to result in another round of broken promises.
   After reading the link back to BlogKC from the above notation –take a drive east and northeast and you will see where the promises are never kept. Maybe you could get your camera and put a photo of the real KC at the top of your masthead.

4. Kim Tucker on February 12, 2006 4:31 pm

   read with interest the article in today’s (Sun the 12th) about Desperate Houses. They are discussing all the homes in the cities urban core that are bringing down the entire area and how it’s so hard to get them fixed up.

   There are homes that the owners cannot afford to get fixed up.

   There are homes that the owners have died and the city cannot find any heirs to take over the property or give up ownership rights so the homes are in limbo.

   There are homes owned by banks who don’t want to fix up, but these will eventually get sold to a new buyer who will.

   There are homes that no one has paid taxes in years that are vacant and detiorating.

   The city needs to look at a few other urban cities who have expidited the process of dealing with homes that have ended up in the cities care due to lack of tax payment or lack of heirs. These other cities are working with the local home renovaters (not just the non profit organizations) who buy, fix up, resell or rent out homes.

   Once purchased and repaired the home goes back onto the tax rolls as a functional unit. If Kansas City could get many of the run down homes that are on their lists of vacant and abandon homes that (1) no one is paying taxes on and has not for many years; (2) that need doors and windows boarded up for the safety of the neighborhood; (3) that the city mows on a regular basis during the growing season to keep the weeds down and the rodents down in the neighborhod; (3) that are waiting for funding to be torn down they would be better off financially.

   By expiditing the disposition of the homes listed in the above paragraph which the Star Article stated was 965 Vacant Structures in the heart of the urban core the city could they could (1) make some income from the sale of a few of theses homes, even if it is just to cover the back taxes and penalties; (2) start earning more in property taxes yearly from the homes that are renovated and occupied; (3) Save money needed to maintain the yards, board ups, and eventual tear downs of these homes; (4) Have more of the urban core homes being renovated and not standing vacant inviting dumping and vandalism; (5) Generate a start at renovation in the urban core that is not funded by governement money, but by private money that local renovaters would fund.
   There is a great article on how this was accomplished in several other cities:

   http://www. maes.umn.edu/mnsci/v50n1s10.asp
   http://www. i.baltimore.md.us/news/presscoverage/050525WallStreetJournal.html
   http://www. pdc.us/about_pdc/faqs.asp
   http://www. baltimorehousing.org/index/pri_news.asp?id=2
   http://www. vhda.com/Comm/pres/SPARC.htm
   http://www. realestatejournal.com/buysell/regionalnews/20050526-hagerty.html
   baltimorehudhomes.com/Baltimore-homes-for-sale.htm
   http://www. cga.ct.gov/2000/rpt/olr/htm/2000-r-0886.htm

   Kansas City has found that working with private enterprise has been working in many urban areas of the city such as the renovation of abandon commercial buildings into lofts. They are working with large coroporations in these endeavors.

   With the urban core homes though they are not going to have a lot of large corporations who want to invest, but the small business renovaters across the metro can assist each of the metro communities with the older deteriorating areas. As the Real Estate Investors purchase run down homes in blighted areas, they make repairs and sell to new home owners or they hold for rental. Either way the homes are occupied, the yards are maintained, trash goes away, and taxes are being paid. The neighborhoods start looking a lot better and the property values go up. Taxes go up and the entire city benefits.

   With more people living in the areas they will attract new businesses where the residents can spend their money and bring in more in taxes. You will find a several new retail areas being built in the urban core right now. With more taxes coming in from real estate, sales tax, and other taxes there will be more money for police, codes inspections, road repairs and all the other services that the counties and cities provide.

   To get involved with many of the small business Real Estate Investors and Renovators in the Kansas City metro, the readers of this article can turn to Mid-America Association of Real Estate Investors (MAREI) an association for Metro area Real Estate Investors to learn more about the best ways to buy, renovate, finance, and resell homes. MAREI is an educational and networking association devoted to ethical real estate investment in the Kansas City Metro and surrounding areas.

   You find out more about MAREI at http://www.MAREInet.com or attend our next General Meeting. Attendance is FREE for our members and just $25 for Guests with discount registrations available on our web site listed above. Or you can email our business office at info@MAREInet.com or call our business office at 816-523-4400.

   Kim Tucker

   Mid-America Association of Real Estate Investors
   http://www.MAREInet.com
   816-523-4400

5. Hippster on February 13, 2006 9:00 am

   I think KCMO would rather do all that without private help. That way life-long bureacrats make more money. They did it last year and ended up spending about $1.3m to fix two houses that were to be sold for about $150k each, plus they didn’t pay the contractors. I’m sure there’s an investigation or a task force or a blue ribbon panel looking into it.

   I’m with you, Ms. Tucker, but I wouldn’t count on KCMO coming round to your point of view.

   KCMO government: the suburbs’ favorite advertisment.

6. Kim Tucker on February 13, 2006 2:00 pm

   Renovate? Demolish? Reoccupy? Home Renovation Programs Make the Best Use of Public Dollars

   by Dave Hansen

   Fixing up abandoned houses is a much better idea than tearing them down. According to a study by housing researcher Edward Goetz, public subsidies to renovate abandoned houses in low-income neighborhoods of St. Paul not only provide much needed housing, but many related benefits as well.

   In the first detailed economic analysis of a U.S. home renovation program, Goetz’s research team analyzed a St. Paul, Minn., Houses to Homes effort. They found that resulting increases in nearby property values, and associated taxes, easily paid back the maximum $42,000 renovation subsidy.

   The city program began in 1991, in an effort to eliminate about 600 boarded-up houses in blighted areas. In the five years of the program Goetz reviewed, 266 houses were renovated and 320 demolished. Another 1,169 were re-occupied without any public investment or major repairs.

   The research compared the costs to rehab, reoccupy or demolish houses with many economic impacts on the city.

   Costs included:

   up to $42,000 subsidies
   demolition expenses
   reduced tax revenue
   declining property values
   police services
   code violation inspections
   Economic payoffs over the same 20-year period were:

   increased home values
   increased property taxes
   sales taxes, including adjacent properties
   Goetz’ research examined 75 city blocks. On 25 of the blocks, a house had been renovated, razed or left abandoned, and sale prices and renovation projects of nearby homes were tracked over a five-year period. Where houses were rehabilitated, money spent by neighbors’ for fix-up projects were found to average $13,500. With demolition or use without fixing up, the value of other houses on the block fell by $1,200.

   “Rehabilitation spurs nearby property owners to invest in their own homes,” Goetz says. Razing a house or continuing to occupy it in marginal condition does nothing to stop the downhill slide of property values. “The sales tax revenue generated from building materials expenditures, by itself, is enough to cover the average Houses to Homes subsidy,” he says. The study estimates a total payback of about $59,000 in tax revenue and cost savings per rehabilitated house over 20 years.

   The bottom line is that fix-up pays, but not necessarily to the entity making the investment. While St. Paul provides the subsidy, the increase in property taxes is divided between the city, county and state. Goetz notes that, “A significant portion of the benefits are captured by other levels of government, which is a good argument for state and county investment in housing programs.” Since St. Paul cut its subsidy in half in 1996, only two homes have been renovated under the program.

   Goetz’s study was funded by the Coalition for Community Development, a consortium of nonprofits involved in housing issues. Other research he engages in for the Minnesota Agricultural Experiment Station focuses on the overall impact of local housing policies, including urban and suburban subsidized housing, and high-rise public housing.

   Kim Tucker
   http://www. MAREInet.com
   General Meeting Wedensday Feb 15th - details on the web site.

7. bridget on February 13, 2006 3:12 pm

   Kim, way too thoughtful to be implemented by the City Housing Department. Right now you have to beg several different departments to give you full disclosure on what the city wants by way of compliance when you begin to renovate a building. One department seems to be pitted against another and the jerk with the plan is left floundering in the middle. Heaven help him if he has real world dollars invested and a time line by the financial backers to meet. Perhaps that is why most development in the City is done with some sort of City based money. We seem to think that tearing down one old structure that can and should be repaired and throwing up a 20 year life expectancy structure paid for by CDBG dollars is the right thing to do. We continue to build our future slums.

8. Troy Meyer on February 13, 2006 8:48 pm

   Please sell me some of these KCMO houses. I’m buying cheap and we do a GREAT job of rehabbing and making them a diamond in a blighted neighborhood.

   Troy Meyer
   Call me….816-806-9055