Property address: 1202 Glyndon Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21223
Property owner: Tom Evans and Ali A. Fadel, 16 N. Ellwood Avenue, Baltimore, MD 21224
City Council District and contact: District 9, Agnes Welch
More blight in Washington Village — we actually found quite a few properties on Glyndon Avenue that were boarded up and in various states of disrepair. This is the first of five, all on one block.
1202 Glyndon Avenue, front
1202 Glyndon Avenue, rear
If so, Huffington Post wants to hear your story. Some common real estate scams:
- House flipping
- Loan modification schemes
- Foreclosure “rescue”
We haven’t done one of these in a while, seems like a good time.
In the Baltimore City Paper, Ed Ericsson writes a story on “demolition by neglect” in Fells Point. Will the City ever learn its lesson and stop selling off City-owned property to irresponsible developers? This story doesn’t give us much hope, especially when we learned that one of the “developers” is a former Baltimore Housing Commissioner.
While we’re on the subject of not learning lessons, apparently the FHA forgot about one of the main causes of the real estate bubble, and decided it would be a good idea to relax their rules for house flippers. It’s rather ironic that while the FHA decides to open the floodgates for yet more investor greed, the Washington Post reports that “a rising FHA default rate foreshadows a crush of foreclosures”.
If you’re in need of foreclosure info, Congressman Elijah Cummings will be holding a foreclosure prevention workshop Saturday, February 6th at Woodlawn Senior High School. To register, or for more information, follow this link. You must register by tomorrow, Feb. 3.
We reported on Detroit’s “vacant-house-as-art” project, and it turns out that a Cleveland group is getting creative with vacant property, too.
Some bills before the Maryland Legislature this year:
- SB 373, Property Tax – Tax Sales – Complaint to Foreclose Right of Redemption
- HB 63, Eminent Domain – Condemnation Proceedings and Limitation on Condemnation Authority
- SB 413, Property Tax Credit – Replacement Home Purchased After Acquisition of Dwelling for Public Use
- HB 475 / SB 285, Smart, Green, and Growing – The Sustainable Communities Act of 2010
- HB 456, Mortgage Foreclosure Bankruptcy Exemption
Speaking of bills, please don’t forget to send your state legislators a letter in favor of the Split-Level Property Tax in Baltimore City.
MDE Issues Enforcement Actions Against Two Baltimore City Property Owners, One Lead Inspector
From the Maryland Department of the Environment:
MDE’s Lead Poisoning Prevention Program serves as the coordinating agency of statewide efforts to eliminate childhood lead poisoning. Under the 1994 “Reduction of Lead Risk in Housing Law,” MDE assures compliance with mandatory requirements for lead risk reduction in rental units built before 1950, maintains a statewide listing of registered and inspected units, and provides blood lead surveillance through a registry of test results of all children tested in Maryland. The following actions were for properties alleged to be out of compliance with lead risk reduction standards:
- Bernice Neaves & Marjorie Parham, 1 affected property, $21,000 in fines
- Charles Matiella, 3 affected properties, $22,000 in fines
In addition the Lead Poisoning Prevention Program accredits and enforces performance standards for inspectors and contractors working in lead hazard reduction. The following action is for a contractor and inspector alleged to be out of compliance with state regulations:
- Alan Czarnowsky, On December 23, 2009, MDE issued an Administrative Complaint, Order and Penalty seeking $10,000 for alleged violations.
Our earlier post on this topic generated a lot of traffic — I hope people reading it heed the warning. Abandoned homes do indeed pose a danger to the surrounding neighbors — in this case, 15 people were left homeless as a result of a natural gas explosion.
If you would like to help the victims of this senseless tragedy, please click here for information on how to make a donation.
For more information on this story, and the property’s slumlord owner, click here and here.
You’ve been reading about the proposed Split-Level Property Tax Rate for Baltimore City, and now it’s time to act! The 2010 Maryland Legislative Session has begun, and we need to push this through the legislature and get out elected officials to sign on.
The proposed leglislation would allow Baltimore CIty to charge a higher property tax rate to slumlords and “investors” who allow their vacant properties to languish, causing health and safety hazards in our communities. The property tax rate would not be charged to law-abiding citizens who are in the process of rehabilitating their homes. The additional tax revenue for Baltimore City is sorely needed, and could potentially go a long way in helping to balance the City’s budget. It would also act as a deterrant to those who have destroyed our neighborhoods with their blighted properties.
You can read our past postings about the tax rate proposal here and here. The second post also contains a link to a Baltimore Sun piece about the tax rate.
Please contact your elected officials today, and ask them to ignore the efforts of the powerful realtor lobbyists and others, and listen to the citizens of Baltimore City. We’re tired of dealing with the negative effects of these blighted homes, and we’re ready to hit the owners where it counts, in a way that will benefit all City residents.
Reader MG has drafted a sample letter you can send to your legislators — you can download it here, or you can write your own. If you don’t know who your legislators are, you can do a search here. Letter is in Word format.
Yesterday in Cleveland, a vacant home exploded, leaving 15 families homeless. Natural gas is suspected as the cause of the explosion and resulting blaze, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports.
Bill Calderwood, who lived next door to this home, was quoted as saying:
“I’ve been complaining to the city about this place ever since someone broke in the place in June and stole copper wiring and pipes,” Calderwood said. “In fact, I called the gas company Friday because I smelled gas — and now this.”
Sound familiar, folks? Something else that might sound familiar:
The house was owned by a shell LLC — EZ Access Funding, LLC. The company is represented by Marc Tow, a California lawyer who in September, was under investigation by the California State Bar for a housing loan modification scheme. Tow was also sued in 2002 by the SEC for violations of the securities registration and anti-fraud provisions of federal securities laws. Tow is still an active member of the California State Bar.
Hopefully the Cleveland Plain Dealer will look further into Mr. Tow and his business dealings with EZ Access Funding, and put these slumlords out of business.
We hope they don’t come to Baltimore!
We originally wrote about this property in February of last year. Unfortunately, it would seem that the owner, Stanley Rochkind, has not fixed any of the property’s many defects. Perhaps it’s because Stanley has been too busy defending himself against the 42 lead paint lawsuits that have been filed against him (and his many shell LLCs) since February of 2009. We can only hope the plaintiffs see better results than Sargeant Street has.
1260 Sargeant Street, January 2010
We originally reported on this property in January of 2009. In fact, it was the first property we wrote about, and the property that gave us the idea for the blog. It was a mess — a haven for derelicts, full of trash and overgrown shrubbery, and a general eyesore if you were sitting at the intersection of MLK and Washington Boulevard. It’s still vacant, but at least the property owner has maintained the minimum standard of cleanliness — and we’re considering this a “win”.
You can see what the property looked like a year ago here, here, and here. You can also read the property owner’s response to our efforts here. Needless to say, he wasn’t happy to find himself on the internet.
Here’s what the property looks like today:
701 Washington Boulevard, January 18, 2010
Side of 701 Washington Boulevard remains free of trash.
Rear of 701 Washington Boulevard, formerly a homeless camp.
Dear Readers,
It was one year ago today that I sat down to write the very first blog post. When I started this blog, I had no idea anyone would read it, let alone care about the issue. I could never imagine the number of people who would send emails, leave comments, and join our Facebook group, or follow us on Twitter.
Over the course of the past year, we’ve seen a few houses fixed up, a few demolished, and many continue to languish — empty and abandoned, a constant reminder that Baltimore has a long way to go in the struggle against poverty, crime, and apathy. Those of you who have contributed in even the smallest of ways have convinced me to keep going — you’ve convinced me that we can make a difference. People are listening — people who have the ability to change things in this city. We’ve succeeded in making people uncomfortable, showing people that life does not exist in a vacuum, and accountability and transparency are more than political buzzwords.
So I guess this is my roundabout way of saying thanks for a great year, and we look forward to the day when — with your help — we can finally write ourselves out of existence, the day when the problems that plague our city no longer exist. I am forever grateful for your help, backstage cheerleading, and even your angry emails.
Here’s to the day when “blight” is no longer a word used to describe our neighborhoods.
Your Faithful Editor
