Category: Real Estate

Inspiration: it’s in the details

For a while now, I’ve wanted to talk about the image in the header of the Positively!Pottstown blog. I’ve thought about holding a contest to see if anyone can guess what building in town has the architectural detail shown in the photo. But, frankly, I worry that there might be a really long, cyberspace silence, and that’s not good for a blog’s business! Okay, what the heck? I’m a writer, I’ve endured plenty of rejections, let’s do it anyway!

Does anyone know where those little, carved wood curlicues live?

Hints:
They’re on High Street.
You do not need to trespass or climb a ladder or creep through alleyways to see them.
You do not need special glasses or binoculars, just an eye for detail.

I’m kinda hoping the people who own/use the building won’t give it away, although I’ll gladly post about the history of the building, its current use and some more photos once it’s identified.

I’ll scare up a gift certificate to somewhere for the first person who identifies the building. Let’s have a deadline of tomorrow at 3 pm.

Time to take a stroll!

Pottstown’s Proposed Rental Rules

I posted this earlier today at The Mercury (as Number5). The Mercury/First Suburbs project asked for feedback about proposed changes to the rental registration/inspection ordinance.

” Even Keel has hit the nail on the head. The current ordinances were/are not being enforced. Maybe some combination of revisions to the current ordinances would be ideal, although I’m skeptical of yet more layers & tougher sanctions in an environment where the most basic enforcement hasn’t even been tried yet. And Meadowdeb makes a good point: there are existing laws regarding landlord/tenant rights. An understanding of these must be explicitly part of the discussion.

Bottom line: passing ordinances is not that hard. Enforcement is and that’s been the problem. There should be much more discussion about how enforcement would work. Notifying tenants & landlords, scheduling inspections, showing up for inspections, re-scheduling, collecting fees, procedures with the courts, setting up payment systems for each instance where money might change hands, etc. This should all be thought out before changing an ordinance. What will be the day-to-day reality of any ordinance, even the existing ones?

What is the current Codes Dept. capable of handling right now on top of current duties? I admit I have no idea, so I have to imagine… I’m picturing an inspector coming back to the office from a day of inspections and re-inspections. Did he/she record the inspection results in a handheld device? Does he/she sit at a computer and input the data into a database that’s been set up… by whom? Does he/she hand a pile of papers to an administrative assistant? Are there paper files and computer files? How long does it take to send out the letter telling the landlord what repairs need to be done? The next day or a week or a month? How many units are we talking about here? How much time does a landlord get to do repairs? Does the landlord call to schedule the re-inspection, or is it put in the violation letter? Do inspections start in different parts of town simultaneously? Is there one inspector assigned to each ward or do they work all over town? How do you track the data that’s being collected so that you know how many units/buildings you’ve been to and whether your program is succeeding so that you can report the numbers to the taxpayers on a quarterly basis on your website? Just going through this exercise makes me think annual inspections are too much. By the time you’ve closed a lot of files, it’ll almost be time to give 60-day notice for the next inspection. And does any governmental entity really want to be collecting/tracking security deposits??

I’m not ashamed of having been a bureaucrat in a previous life. As a planner, maybe it’s in my DNA. Bureaucracies can be set up efficiently to accomplish a public policy goal, or they can be an unworkable, expensive nightmare. “Good government” – Pottstown has to be going for that. So, what, EXACTLY, needs to be in place to make enforcement a reality? And can the program pay for itself – salaries, paper, postage, computer & database management? Has there been any discussion based on facts – like the number of rental units in town – to justify proposed fees or prove fiscal sustainability?

Is it possible that the current ordinances could get things moving in the right direction & allow the Borough to put the proper systems in place and then re-assess the program after a year or two of operation? In any event, why not take the time now, in a public roundtable setting, to vet any changes or even new enforcement of existing laws with the stakeholders (landlords, tenants, concerned homeowners)? Then allow for Council to have a public discussion and accept public comment over the course of several meetings. It’s good of The Mercury to do this, but it really should be happening face-to-face at Borough Hall, with civility a top priority.

Proceeding with caution & collaborating could avoid lawsuits, save tax dollars in the long run, and get everyone a program that mostly (nothing’s perfect) achieves the desired outcomes: safe & decent housing and neighborhoods, housing stock that maintains or increases in value, and more positive perceptions of the town, which actually have a basis in reality.

Sue
Positively!Pottstown ”

“Tell us what you think about Pottstown.”

That was an online headline at The Mercury this past Friday, June 25. And then it said, “What positive changes need to be made for Pottstown borough to move forward? Tell us in the comments section below.”

Hmmm… I wondered, “Is this a set-up? Is The Mercury deliberately taunting me over here at Positively!Pottstown?”

I’m sorry, dear readers, I couldn’t hold this in any longer! Here’s what I posted over there this afternoon (as Number5).

” Dear Mercury: thanks for asking! I’ve been thinking about doing a series of blog posts about all these interrelated issues, so I guess this is kind of a jumpstart. Sorry for the length – a lot of pent-up thoughts! And my m.o. is to throw a lot out there and see what resonates on the ground – that’s the spirit in which this is offered.

I’m going to stick with the positive spin of the question – suggesting positive changes.

Pottstown, what’s your story? You need a vision and a voice to communicate that vision. It’s got to go deeper & get more specific than the generalities in study after study. For example: former industrial center retains what is good about its small town past AND re-invents itself for the 21st century. It values its river, historic architecture, walkability, neighborhoods, community gardens and businesses that MAKE things. While the industry used to be all about steel, pies, auto parts, etc., now the town makes art, dance, music, recycled-fashion designs, and solar/green technologies. What the heck, maybe it’s home to several organic coffee roasters too. (This is an example!)

What if just about every decision made by town or a local property owner or civic group took that kind of vision into consideration? There are places billing themselves as “sustainable cities.” Maybe Pottstown could be a “sustainable town”? Could something like that provide the framework for guiding revitalization decisions in Pottstown?

Pottstown has never been for the faint-of-heart; hard-working, gutsy immigrants made this community what it was in its heyday. Now is no different. Arts and business entrepreneurs, who have higher risk levels than the average Joe, would totally be in keeping with Pottstown’s immigrant past.

So, where are these risk-takers? You’ve got a bunch of them in the arts and restaurant community in town already. Another commenter has already mentioned them. Any day now, the Pottstown Arts & Cultural Alliance is going to launch a totally cool new website. PACA is on its way to putting a very new face on outsiders’ perceptions of Pottstown. They are adding value to this community by what they do every day and, now, by more effectively communicating what they offer. And they’re just getting started.

The business community and property owners are critical. Bottom line: You gotta fill the spaces on High Street. I’m putting out there right now: If anyone in the business and real estate community wants to put together a clearinghouse website to market their Pottstown properties in an attractive, easy-to-understand format that SELLS, I will gladly help make that happen within, say, 90 days. I’m from out of town and I’ve gone looking for properties as though I were an investor, and it’s not easy to even find out what’s available, let alone where might be some good locations for specific uses like a café or a used bookstore/literary venue or whatever.

Community groups: reduce fragmentation wherever possible. Join forces around a common, positive, pro-active vision. Link to and intersect with the arts, business & educational communities wherever appropriate.

Good government. There’s no way around this. There has to be a “good government” halo around Boro Hall that can be seen from Routes 422 and 100. Anyone stepping into the building has to know they will be treated courteously, fairly and consistently. There’s got to be follow-through. You got an ordinance on the books, you enforce it. If it doesn’t make sense in your new vision of yourself, you set out on a course of careful, PUBLIC consideration, you ENGAGE the affected parties/property owners, and you change it. The arts, business and community groups can go pretty far if they’re all pulling in the same direction, but unless the foundation of government is strong and inspires confidence, yeah, people are going to be hard-pressed to trust their investments here.

Nail down the vision ASAP. Preferably without paying for another study! Communicate the vision, whatever it is, through your ACTIONS. (I’ve got some more specifics to throw out there, but will deal with that on the blog.) Everyone: get your stories straight and tell it that way, over and over again, every time your organization or collective reaches a milestone, large or small. Give the naysayers less and less to talk about, especially on public message boards! ”

” Sorry, meant to sign that post:

Sue Repko
Positively!Pottstown ”

First Suburbs – Challenges of Rental Housing

As property values diminish and services are cut, First Suburbs usually begin to see a decline in rates of homeownership, creating a steady pool of vacant and less expensive properties for investors. In any discussion of the challenges that some rental markets may pose, though, it’s important to distinguish between tenants and buildings.

Depending on the slant of landlord-tenant law in a particular state, and the extent to which tenants in a community are aware of their rights, they may not have a strong voice to advocate for themselves and the condition of their buildings. In any public discussion about housing policy, all parties would be well-served to be careful not to lump all tenants into any broad category. Certainly, public policy itself should never seek to exclude based on negative stereotypes or broad assertions.

Tenants are people. I’m not trying to be a wise guy. This sometimes gets lost as frustrations mount, buildings deteriorate and discussions get heated. But tenants do become the neighbors, classmates, friends and employees in a community; they become citizens of the community. I’m not sure if such a program exists anywhere for tenants, but if community organizing is picking up speed – I’m thinking of Pottstown here – maybe there’s a way to incorporate a kind of Welcome Wagon program into the efforts. The best way to get new residents to understand and come to value community norms might be as simple as knocking on a new tenant’s door, saying “hello,” offering a folder with information, including their rights, and, yes, maybe a homemade pie. (I am talking about Pottstown, after all )

Although I have a lot of faith in the power of pie, of course it’s not going to solve a fiscal crisis. In no way do I mean to minimize the fiscal effect of increasing numbers of lower-income and special needs students straining a school district and the taxpayers. But the blanket blaming of tenants is not the answer. There are larger issues that have to be dealt with to turn a town toward greater homeownership, increased business investment and a stable tax base, so that the school district has a greater capacity to provide needed services. Enforcing the existing laws on the books would make a huge impact, not only on the day-to-day experience for current residents, but the perception of outsiders, funding sources and new businesses, about how well the town itself functions.

My first full-time job out of college was with the Section 8 program in Trenton. I did inspections all over the city, followed up on repairs, negotiated with landlords and re-certified tenant income. Several days each week were spent in the field, doing scheduled inspections. Other days were spent in the office, meeting with clients and keeping the paperwork moving. A quick look at Pottstown’s website shows that all the pieces are in place to carry out a rental registration and inspection program.

There’s the zoning ordinance, the required form for the initial registration of a property, the schedule of residential rental registration fees, the checklist for the inspection of residential rental units, and the inspection application with a change in occupancy. I am not sure why I have read/heard that the program is “voluntary.” The ordinance states that owners or rental agents “are required” to submit registrations and update any changes in occupancy.

In a recent post, a local blog – The Pulse! by a citizens’ action group, Code Blue – reported that a request for a list of all the Borough’s rental properties could not be accommodated because no such list exists.

Whether that was done in error or not, an excellent starting point for a rental registration list would be a list of the non-owner-occupied properties from the Montgomery County Board of Assessment Appeals. The entire property file, with all the data collected for assessment purposes, is available online. This wonderful tool allows anyone to search, for example, by Land Use Code and find out that Pottstown has 352 duplexes, 94 triplexes, 52 quadplexes and 43 conversions to 5 or more apartments.

It is not possible to use their advanced search function online to find out all the properties where “property owner address” does not equal “property address.” But the county will send the entire file, or just that search/sort, for $53 to anyone who requests it through the open public records process, as I recently did.

All of this is to say that there is a pretty good, existing list of non-owner-occupied units based on County data. So, what are the obstacles to running a rental registration and inspection program? Do fees need to be set to cover the cost of administration? Is current staff trained and ready to go? Administrative systems would have to be put in place to handle the incoming data and to assist in the monitoring and follow-up. Funds would have to be budgeted initially to notify ALL property owners by mail, website, newspapers and blogs that the ordinances are now going to be enforced as of a certain date, maybe 60 days out. And that fines will be levied for non-compliance. And that the police will be tracking the properties where they are called out three or more times for disturbances, which has its own consequences.

Enforcing these provisions is no different from enforcing tax collections. In fact, this kind of enforcement is possibly more critical to sending the message that a town is on top of its game, which is really the first step toward attracting new residents and economic activity.

First Suburbs: Affordable Housing Notes from NJ

Affordable housing policy is near the top of any First Suburbs agenda and rightly so. In towns that are experiencing the economic disinvestment described earlier – the loss of industry and large and small businesses – the value of the housing stock becomes more critical to the property tax base. And because education is by far the most expensive part of public services, a strong housing market is essential. Yet, the housing markets in First Suburbs suffer the same kind of disinvestment. How can the cycle be broken? Of course, that’s the multi-billion dollar question. And, of course, there’s no way I can answer it. All I can offer here is a resource for your further investigation of the regional and statewide inclusionary zoning system that has evolved over the past 35 years in New Jersey. I hope that these notes and links can inform the conversation and spark some ideas that help SEPA’s First Suburbs as they advocate for more equitable housing policies in their own region.

The New Jersey Fair Housing Act was passed in 1985 to try to even out social, economic and educational disparities between cities and suburbs. The Legislature passed it in response to a couple of New Jersey Supreme Court rulings, Mt. Laurel I (1975) and Mt. Laurel II (1983). The first decision basically found that large-lot zoning laws didn’t allow for a variety of housing types at varied price levels, which excluded people of color and of lower incomes. The second decision created the foundation for a system for determining a “regional housing need,” the “fair share obligation” of individual municipalities in that region, and the “builder’s remedy,” described below.

The Fair Housing Act created a Council on Affordable Housing and a vast body of regulations and calculations to assign a “fair share” number of low- and moderate-income units to each town based on a variety of factors. The program was voluntary. Towns could submit Housing Plans, get them certified through a lengthy process, and then be monitored for compliance. The “carrot” part of this approach was that if towns did this, they couldn’t be sued by builders or housing advocates over their zoning. But if they didn’t participate in the system, they could be subject to “the builder’s remedy” whereby a builder/developer could sue the town to increase the zoning density so that he could provide affordable units in a new development – usually 20%, which would remain affordable (price-restricted) for 30 years. Special housing courts with judges and court masters – urban planners who specialized in affordable housing – would hear these cases and make decisions, essentially taking zoning control away from the non-participating towns. That was the “stick.”

When the Legislature stepped up to pass the Fair Housing Act (and stop the Supreme Court from interfering with local zoning), it created a mechanism – Regional Contribution Agreements (RCAs) – to water down the court’s influence by allowing towns to buy their way out of up to 50% of their affordable housing obligation. “Sending” towns could pass bond ordinances and send the money – based on an agreed-upon per unit fee – to a designated “receiver” city in their region. In this way, some towns reduced the number of affordable units built within their borders, but they also provided urban areas with much-needed rehabilitation and new construction funding at a time when the federal government was cutting these programs. Still, it was clearly a way around the original intent of the court decisions.

More than 25 years later, in July 2008, the NJ Legislature and Gov. Jon Corzine abolished the RCA provision and also created a non-residential development fee of 2.5 percent to be charged on non-residential construction or improvements to raise revenue for the construction and rehabilitation of affordable and workforce housing in the state.

New Jersey’s system grew out of strong, grassroots advocacy for lower income people in the state’s cities, who knew that inner-city residents were being systemically kept out of better public schools, and safe and clean environments due to exclusionary housing laws. Builders were also pushing against these laws for their own gain during a period of generally remarkable economic growth in a state with ever-diminishing developable land.

We are in a very different economic and political environment now. One of Gov. Chris Christie’s first moves was to order a 90-day moratorium on most of the activities of the Council on Affordable Housing. The NJ courts once again stepped in and issued a stay on a portion of the order, while it is on appeal. The Governor is now reviewing the results of a Task Force on the matter. Even though many suburban towns truly voluntarily participated in this system, changed their zoning, and opened up their communities and schools to low- and moderate-income residents who might not otherwise have been able to live there, the complexity and the burdens of this system are legendary here. It has certainly produced affordable housing (see numbers here) and some degree of economic and educational opportunity for thousands. But there are still very real differences separating our cities and more affluent suburbs, namely, blatant racial segregation. Still, I think those Supreme Court justices back in the ‘70s and ‘80s were on the right track, recognizing that ordinances and public policy can have discriminatory effects and staying on the alert to try to counteract any systemic inequities.

New Jersey’s property tax/school funding system is broken – to say nothing of “home-rule,” our 566 municipalities and 605 school districts! The current widespread fiscal crisis only puts that in high relief. Finding political, social and economic solutions, that are also pragmatic, remains our challenge – and probably will be for some time to come. Taking New Jersey’s experience into consideration, though, may help SEPA’s First Suburbs get a better feel for how some housing policies might play out at the intersection of the private and public sectors in their own hometowns.

Note: The original post said that Gov. Christie’s recent order was repealed; a stay was issued on a portion of the order while it is under appeal.

Sue Repko is a writer, licensed urban planner in New Jersey and a member of the American Institute of Certified Planners. She grew up in Pottstown and blogs at Positively!Pottstown.

Riverside Ride

A couple Saturdays ago, I had a block of time to check out the free bike program at Tri-County Bicycles. They run the Bike Pottstown program out of their shop; this totally awesome program lets you check out a bike for the day in exchange for handing over some i.d. and signing a waiver. These single-speed, canary yellow two-wheelers with basket in front hearken back to simpler times – when you pedaled forward to keep moving ahead and backward to stop with no big decisions to make in between. (Apparently these Fuji Sanibel Cruisers – 30 of ’em- were custom painted by Blast From the Past Street Rods.)

I wanted to ride along the Schuylkill River Trail and got some info from the guys at the store and also looked at some of the brochures they have up front. Heading outside, I went right on High Street, took the first right onto Charlotte Street, the next right onto Queen Street and let the downward incline pull me along. It was a bit chilly and rain was in the forecast, but I was willing to take my chances. There’s nothing like cruising along on two wheels to feel like you’ve finally been set free.

At the end of Queen Street, I took a left onto Hanover Street, but not before a quick peek into the former Goodwill firehouse from 1871 on the corner. (Does anyone know what’s happening with that building??) Following the signs to Riverfront Park, I ended up at the trailhead, where the new parking lot looks like it’s just about done.

And then I enjoyed a few miles out and back along the trail, passing walkers, joggers and a couple other cyclists. Although I could usually hear the hum from Rt. 422 or 100, the overwhelmingly green vistas were a gorgeous and welcome break from the built environment. Can’t wait to go back when the sun is shining!

I had forgotten to bring my helmet, but I have to make a plug for remembering to bring yours or asking for one from Tri-County Bicycles. Please note that cyclists using a bike from Bike Pottstown must be at least 16 years old.

And, finally, I have to give a shout-out to the many groups and businesses that support this program and made it come to life: Pottstown Health and Wellness Foundation, Exelon, Pottstown Police Officers’ Association, Borough of Pottstown, Tri-County Area Chamber of Commerce, Greater Valley Forge Transportation Management Association, Preservation Pottstown, Tri-County Bicycles & Blast From the Past — all testament to what can be achieved when everyone’s pulling together.

Tri-County Bicycles
256 E. High St.
Pottstown, PA 19464
484.941.6000
Hours: Monday thru Friday 10am – 6pm; Saturday 10am – 5pm

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