After reading the letter that was sent out to the residents and property owners by William Waters' Department for Community Sustainability, I didn't think it was that bad. This is one of the times lately that I feel the commission might have over-reacted just a bit to something staff has done and a problem that staff was trying to correct.
If it had been set up in bullet points rather than a long, officious letter, it might not have been confusing to some. No one likes to read, long onerous looking letters. The problem, if any, was the design rather than the content. Probably if the second paragraph began, "If your property is a rental, an inspection...
Next, a big box might be good to check off if the property is NOT a rental. The property owner should fill out the form so that the information can be entered into a database whether he rents his property or not. The entire fee schedule was provided for the type of rental property as well as a return envelope.
It was clear to me as stated in the first paragraph, " If your property is currently rented or leased and you have not obtained the required Use and Occupancy and Business tax Receipt, please complete the application on the reverse side and submit payment according to the charts.
The complaints from the Commission this past Tuesday were:
Waterman: It went out to every property owner in the city. No where in the letter does it say what not to do if your property is not a rental. Wasteful. Someone should have reviewed this before it went out. Well, how else are you going to know who is renting or who is not unless you send it out to all? People have been cheating the system for years.
Maxwell: "It is the worst piece of government in action I have ever seen...shoddy work."
Golden: Says that the letter is not well written.
Stanton: "I am responsible. Give me a chance before the crucifiction."
Some resident spoke, a retired vet whose wife is disabled. He was given notice to evict by his slum landlord who received the letter. This is most unfortunate but it is exactly this type of landlord that the city is targeting.
6 comments:
I agree, the letter wasn't that bad, it does say, "If" it is just a little scary when you get it as you think you did something wrong and it has your Property ID Number on it from the Tax Collector.
My problem is waste, if a property like mine is homesteaded and not rented out, I live in it, it is wasteful to send out this mailing, paying for printing and postage to come to me, they should go to places that are not homesteaded I think.
I just didn't like getting it. It makes me feel like you might be doing something bad when you are not, that is my issue with it.
Only problem with mailing them out to only properties that are not homesteaded, some people claim a homestead when in fact they are not here the majority of the time. Some even have an out of state license tag. They cheat the system by paying less taxes. We need to catch all of these people. Now, if they fill it out and lie and are caught down the road, they can be in deep do do. I would go after that type of person with a vengeance.
I am a homeowner (with a homestead) and we own two rental properties within the city of Lake Worth.
We play by the rules, the utilities are in the name of our tenants, which means each time a tenant moves, out and the utilities revert to us there is a fee. We have a rental license for each property, each property was inspected, we pay for the rental license. We also pay a use and occupancy fee to the city for our two rentals. And even though we play by the rules, the City still shows up and demands to inspect our rentals when a new utility account is opened.
People who play by the rules will fill out the form truthfully, the people who don't play by the rules are still NOT GOING TO PLAY BY THE RULES. And when I fill out the form truthfully, even though I've already paid the rental license and use and occupancy fee for my rentals, I know I'm going to get additional correspondence from the City, see below, on this topic and its going to take more time and energy and money to fix and I ALREADY PLAY BY THE RULES.
As aside my rant re how the city handles those of us who play by the rules - They send out code to inspect even though they already inspected when we got our rental license and they leave a door hanger with the tenant telling the tenant we need a rental license when if the city had any sense of organization they would (1) know we already had a rental license (2) know that they already inspected the property and not waste valuable code enf. time reinspect and (3) assuming we were slum lords leaving a door hanger with the tenant is not the best way to communicate with land lords.
I see. What a mess. Well, hopefully they will have a database and be able to communicate with the Utility Dept as to whom is paying the bills at that particular parcel number. If it doesn't correspond to the named owner then they can check to see if a Use and Occupancy license has been paid. Sounds quite involved. Although that still wouldn't do it if the utilities are kept in the owner's name on behalf of the tenant.
Illegals can't have the power or water turned on in their name. So, sometimes you are not doing it to skip out on the inspection fees.
I just had an experience with the utilities where they would not open an account for tenants unless they showed Utilities their lease. This is a good idea but I was annoyed since they have never done this previously. They say it's always been on the books but they never enforced it til now.
Even though I was extremely annoyed and unfortunately showed it, the Customer Service rep at the utilities kept her cool and acted very professionally. I felt like calling to apologize later.
The reason this is a good ide is that it might help to keep people from renting beds in single family houses causing overcrowded conditions and neighborhood deterioration. KUDO's to Lake Worth Utilities for a change.
Mr. Waters did a great thing with this letter and it justifies all the people who do play by "the rules."
SHAME on anyone who is Calling him to task as it was a very appropriate action and frankly if you don't like it....Your breaking the rules!
Mr. Waters has the heart and soul of our City in his own heart and is truthfully moving us forward in a direction that the majority is happy with.
If your renting with our the proper license then SHAME ON YOU and get a clue.
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