Update on the Tax Credit

Just received an email from reader PPNA Matt — according to Jim Kraft’s office, the tax credit amnesty period goes back to October 1, 2004 (90-day eligibility period prior to 1/1/05) .  We did receive a couple of emails about the amnesty date, so hopefully that will clarify things.

8 N. Ellwood Avenue: The Saga

We received an email from one of the neighbors who has been watching 8 N. Ellwood Avenue go from bad to worse, and thought it would be interesting to share this with our readers, as we think there are several lessons to be learned from this.

When I moved to this block in July 2005, the house was relatively quiet. A middle-aged man, James Sidebottom, was living there at the time. He seemed friendly enough until around early 2007 when several prostitutes and their drug-dealing pimps moved into the property. The situation got worse around Memorial Day of 2007 when they were constantly hanging outside the property during the wee hours of the night. One of the most interesting conversations that my wife and I heard at this property was when a hooker shouted out at 7AM one morning, “F**k you bitch! Everyone knows that I give the best p***y on this block!” The police knew that the situation was bad enough that they ended up raiding the house on two occasions in August and October 2007. The second raid resulted in the arrests of Mr. Sidebottom and a prostitute, Ayanna Murray for CDS possession. Sidebottom was given 2 years probation, but the charges against Ms. Murray were dropped.

After the raid I began working with the state’s attorney’s office for housing code enforcement to have a drug nuisance suit filed. After a few months of trying to get the police to send their raid paperwork to the SA’s office, we were finally able to get the tenants evicted in February 2008. I spoke with the owner, David Rotz, a few weeks after the eviction (while he was securing the property). He basically said that the tenants had done so much damage to the property that there was no way that he could afford to fix it. Before the raid occurred, I learned that Sidebottom was not paying his rent, yet the Rotzes would not evict him or the other illegal tenants because they feared retribution.

James Sidebottom had several drug arrests dating back to 1988, but was relatively clean between 1999 and 2007. As I mentioned before, he was friendly until the time that the hookers moved in. My theory is that he fell off the wagon sometime in 2006 or 2007, and his supplier made a deal with him to give him drugs in exchange for agreeing to let the hookers live at the property.

The most glaring problem here is with the enforcement of our laws. A landlord wants to get his tenant out, but can’t do it because of fear? What does this say about the legal system in Baltimore City? Charges are dropped, probation is handed out like candy on Halloween, and in the meantime — the neighbors are stuck with a nuisance house. Where’s the justice for the decent people who live on this block? While we commend this neighbor for getting involved, it shouldn’t have to require half the neighborhood and countless emails and phone calls to get our State’s Attorneys to indict and convict our criminal element. We have nuisance property laws on the books — hold your elected officials accountable! (Yes, the position of State’s Attorney is an elected position.)

As for the property owner, this home has been vacant for over a year, and it’s creating yet another nuisance (and eyesore) for the surrounding neighbors. This is only one of many stories we hear about speculative investors who move into a neighborhood and then can’t (or won’t) fulfill their obligation to the community, with regard to safety and quality of life issues. With little or no restriction, this story is repeated over and over again, in neighborhoods across Baltimore. We hope the City takes this home away from Mr. Rotz and hands it over to someone who actually wants to be part of this thriving neighborhood and will fix up the house to live in.

Outer Harbor Initiative Report

From a colleague who attended the hearing:

The Outer Harbor Initiative community development hearing took place Thursday, May 23 at City Hall, in front of a full council chambers. The two-hour meeting was met with a mixed reception from city officials and ended with discussions to take the initiative back to affected communities to further refine the terms of the legislation.

Councilman William Cole (11th District) sponsored the resolution. He was joined by fellow councilmembers Warren Branch, Mary Pat Clarke, James Kraft and Bill Henry. Officials from the Housing Authority testified that they supported the initiative’s goals, although had some reservations about the way the legislation in its current form might be implemented. The strongest opposition to the initiative came from Andrew Kleine, Chief of the Bureau of the Budget & Management Research, who testified that the city’s Finance Department could not justify the funding of a new initiative while other city programs were being cut in a slumping economy. Councilmembers Kraft and Henry also expressed strong concerns about how the initiative would be funded.

Mike Mitchell, director of Chesapeake Habitat for Habitat for Humanity, argued for the urgent need to take aggressive action on the 30 thousand abandoned properties in the city. He cited the success of the redevelopment of the Inner Harbor, suggesting that the same success could spread to neglected neighborhoods if the city had the resources to pursue speculators who are sitting on neglected housing stock.  In response to concerns about funding the initiative, Mitchell argued that the city would reap returns on its investment in the form of increased property tax receipts. Mitchell helped draft the Outer Harbor resolution and has been organizing supporters.

14 speakers were on hand in favor of the initiative, although not all were able to talk due to time contraints. They included a Habitat for Humanity homeowner who spoke of the benefits of homeownership, a local marketing expert who spoke about the effectiveness of promoting emerging neighborhoods via the internet, and a neighborhood activist who talked about ongoing efforts to revitalize the district around Patterson Park.

There were other questions about the initiative:  The suggested use of Tax Increment Financing for redevelopment efforts raised concerns. Councilmember Clarke repeatedly expressed worries about the intitiative interfering with community development block grant process, raising questions about a redevelopment she is supporting on Dumbarton Avenue in Pen Lucy. A number of questions were asked about which communities would be served by the initiative and how they would be identified. Councilmember Henry suggested that the name “Outer Harbor” was too restrictive, and should be changed to something more inclusive for neighborhoods across the city. Mitchell ended the hearing by calling for a broader array of neighborhood meetings to continue to discuss and refine the provisions of the proposal, using City Council and community feedback.

Updates on the initiative will be available at http://www.outerharborinitiative.com

More Reader Mail: Questions From a Landlord

We received an interesting email the other day, and since we’re fond of publishing reader mail, we thought we’d share this one with you.  In the email, “Baltimore Landlord” poses some interesting questions.

I don’t get it.  Say someone buys a house as an investment.  He tries to find a “good” tenant, i.e. someone who will be a good neighbor, not destroy the house and pay (a normal) rent on time.  If he can not find such a person, what should he do?  Should he put in addicts and illegals who will pay minimum dollars just so the property won’t be vacant?  Or should he rent to a Section 8 tenant, in which case he will have to have a Taj Mahal in perfect condition, and lose money on his investment?  In my opinion there is nothing wrong with a vacant property, as long as the property is maintained.  This means that if the neighbors see a problem, they should immediately contact the owner to get it taken care of.  Similarly, if you see the grass is high, maybe be a good neighbor and mow it when you mow your own lawn.  (You could even send a “reasonable” bill to the owner who would be glad to pay you so he doesn’t have to deal with it himself!)  If there is a little bit of trash littered on the property, pick it up before it gets worse.  You are living there and see things as they happen, the owner only sees the property periodically.  If people didn’t just attack the owners things would work a lot better for everyone.
What are your thoughts?

Our response:

First let me thank you for taking the time to write.  Obviously you put thought into your questions, and I’m going to try to address both of your emails in one.  Please feel free to respond if you still have questions on this topic.

If the overall problem was as simple as you make it out to be in your email, we would agree with you.  And most of our neighbors do look out for each other, including a neighbor’s vacant rental property.

The people we list on our website are not absentee property owners who live far away, with few exceptions.  They are not people who simply own a house for extra income.  They are, for the most part, well versed in real estate law, and Baltimore City building codes.  However, with this in mind, they choose to violate the law, and create health and safety hazards for not only their tenants, but for the surrounding community.  In most of the cases, we’re not talking about a “little” bit of litter.  We’re talking about buildings that have caved in, or dumpster loads of debris and rubble that was left by the owner or his/her contractors when the property was abandoned.  In the case of 1110 Carroll Street, these owners were cited and fined more than once by the city for violations at that address, and they were cited and fined by the Maryland Department of the Environment for lead paint violations in multiple properties.  As a landlord, it is your responsibility to perform lead abatement for the health and safety of your tenants.  The MDE offers abatement classes, and there are several lead abatement contractors who will perform the work for you.  There is no excuse for not doing it, no legal excuse, and no ethical excuse.  One of the landlords we’re looking into has been sued over 450 times as a result of lead paint, building code violations, and other health/safety/trash issues.

We don’t expect people to lose money on their investments.  However, with any investment comes a certain amount of risk, and (in the case of rental property) a large amount of responsibility.  We expect property owners to maintain basic health and safety standards.  Nobody’s attacking these people.  On the contrary, they, through their negligence, are causing problems for others.  Good property owners take care of their investment.  Look at some of the properties featured on our website and ask yourself if you would allow your own property, the house you live in, to fall into such a state of disrepair.  If it’s not good enough to meet your basic needs for shelter, why would you expect a tenant to live there and put themselves at risk?  If your next-door neighbor (whose home is attached to yours) allowed his house to cave in, and it caused water damage, rodent infestation, and a fire in your house — would you still be as tolerant?

We came across one property that was a complete mess.  After doing some research, we discovered that the man had only owned the property for two months.  After calling him about his property, he cleaned it up immediately and it hasn’t been a problem since.  Now that, Mr (or Ms.) Baltimore Landlord, is a good property owner.  And we didn’t add him or his property to the website.  There are a few cases like this, so we saw no need to list them.  Most cases, however, are not so neat and tidy.  We use quite a few criteria before deciding to add someone to the website, it’s not arbitrary or personal, please be assured of that.  And many of the properties we visit on tips from neighbors or by driving by don’t get added simply because they’re boarded up but very clean and tidy.  You can tell that whoever owns the property comes by periodically to check on it, which is what we would expect of a good property owner.  Again, they would never be added to the website, and we have quite a long list of them.

The properties you see on the website are among the worst we see daily.  We’re not out to “get” anyone, we simply want people to live up to the responsibility they take on when they purchase an investment property.  Nobody would want to live next to a slum property.

Thank you again for your email, and please feel free to write us any time with your questions and concerns.  We truly appreciate your feedback.

We love reader mail like this.  Opening the door for dialogue was actually one of the reasons we started this blog.  So many of our city’s neighborhoods have suffered because of clusters of blight, and we don’t want people to think we’re heartless and not open to the possibility of having a fair and civil discussion on this topic.  We feel very strongly that each and every resident of this city has the right to live in a safe, healthy environment, and that starts with basic shelter.

Some useful resources for landlords, homeowners, and residents:

Baltimore City Health, Building, Fire, and Zoning Codes

Michie’s Code of Maryland

Maryland Department of the Environment Lead Abatement Requirements for Homeowners