Letters: There Are No Quick Fixes
Wednesday, December 08, 2010
Citizens of Gloucester City,
There are many challenges facing GC today. Two issues are ‘unruly’ or ‘nuisance’ residents, and substandard housing conditions. Both issues have been long in the making and did not occur overnight.
According to Mayor and Council, the root causes of these issues are, ‘Housing and related problems associated with the influx of out of town landlords and unruly tenants into established neighborhoods’. (See, ’Mayor: Support Candidates’, in the October 28, 2010 issue of Gloucester City News or the, ‘Mayor’s Corner: What Has Been Accomplished & What Needs To Be Done’ , posted on October 22, 2010, in Cleary’s Notebook)
To combat these challenges our city implemented a new initiative for more aggressive enforcement of existing housing codes on rental properties owned by out-of-town landlords. The Mayor has proclaimed success of this program by the trend of landlords that are opting to sell their properties rather than fix the housing deficiencies.
GC’s current policy is based on false assumptions. The policy assumes that all unruly and nuisance behavior can be attributed to the tenants of rental housing. This is an unfair characterization of tenants. The fact is there are both good tenants and nuisance tenants, just as there are good homeowners and nuisance homeowners. The current policy also falsely assumes that all substandard housing in GC is rental units. Again, the fact is there are substandard houses that are owner-occupied just as are rental units. Further, the policy focuses on out-of-town landlords, which falsely assumes that all landlords that reside in GC are ‘good’ landlords. The false assumptions do not support the stated problem.
While the intention of the program is good it absolutely disregards the fact that we are already in a depressed and unstable real estate market. This city initiative adds houses to the current stock of unsold inventory further depressing housing prices. This program contributes to GC real estate instability. The simple supply and demand concept dictates greater supply yields lower prices. This is fact, an economic reality, not an opinion.
While the cost of this program is not consuming any tax dollars it is not without cost. The cost is born by all GC homeowners. How? The program contributes to lower prices to long time city homeowners that are attempting to sell (and more days on the market), lower home equity for neighbors staying put (contributing to upside-down mortgages) and for homeowners seeking to refinance. Further, the lower housing prices simply entice new landlords, which is contrary to the programs goals. What may be most disturbing is that these consequences are fully acceptable to the city.
The quality of life issues that can be attributed to a lack of investment in GC have been long in the making. Solutions that could help were recommended in the 1995 GC Master Plan and 2002 Master Plan Reexamination. The city has overlooked serious consideration of these solutions for too long.
What can the city do NOW to encourage incremental investment in quality housing? The city should consider implementing programs to encourage the conversion of multi-family dwellings back to single family (see Collingswood Duplex Conversion Program, 50 – 55 houses converted in 10 years). The city should consider a program to encourage infill residential housing on fallow city property (see Beatrice Nebraska Homestead Act of 2010. 33 applications in the programs first 50 days). The city should better promote the existing tax abatement program to builders, homeowners, and landlords to encourage new housing and home improvements (see Philly Tax Abatement Program). All three of these programs encourage investment in city housing, can be taken advantage of by both GC homeowners and landlords, and benefits everybody.
There are no quick fixes for the current issues facing the city. The Mayor and Council need to consider real solutions to the challenges facing the city, solutions based on credible assumptions, solutions that do not contribute to the current unstable real estate market, that do not further erode our housing values. They need to consider solutions that have been formerly recommended and long overlooked. Tell Mayor and Council to abandon the current aggressive code enforcement program and adopt real change.
Michael Stanton
Gloucester City NJ