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When you drive down some of our city streets, half of what you see appears to be surplus. Many houses are vacant and abandoned. Building affordable housing in Lake Worth started in the late 1990's. Why this was so important then, or now, is a mystery. There are some people who want to put the blame on a few people within our city or a recent former commission for attracting the poor that resulted in big time slum and blight. This all started way before they were on the scene. It is time to stop the blame game; it is now time to stop the madness of building more affordable housing and solve the problem.
But having so many years to build this housing in order to attract the poor, ended up eventually creating the perfect storm. Nearly every residential property is affordable, or a great portion of our inventory within our city. Over one-half of our housing stock are rentals.
Our affordable housing attracted speculators and investors some of whom became absentee or slum landlords. They charged outrageous rental amounts that made the properties unaffordable. Renters started cramming 20 people into the rental units. It got totally out of control. With the recession and housing bubble that burst resulting in foreclosures galore, this caused the biggest slum and blight this city has ever seen or ever imagined. Coupled with the illegal immigration problem, it was exacerbated even further. We were all left with an untenable situation. The result of all of this affected all property values within our city. Our homes' value, in many cases investments for our future, got wiped away over night, never to return.
We now have excess surplus properties and the City owns 131 properties with 25 of them up for consideration. The city commission now needs to decide what is the best way of handling this inventory. One suggestion was to sell the properties and have them owner-occupied with owners contributing to the tax base. Not sure about the legality of placing a deed restriction on the property to not allow rentals as the Vice Mayor suggested, but at least we are finally talking about this serious problem that started over 20 years ago.
It is too bad we start talking when an issue is totally out-of-hand but at least we are talking.
12 comments:
The city is a dump
How much did you invest in your home?
How come the "best commission ever" and the "best city manager ever" never talked about fixing the blight?
Glad to hear Maxwell is against any more rentals. Should have thought of that before he voted up-zone a single family neighborhood.
Talk is cheap it the vote that counts.
Good question. Why has it taken this commission, that has been in power now for 9 months, just now realizing we have a problem? Is it because the surplus properties are coming before them? Why weren't these elected people speaking out about it at city hall? No one saw them? Why did Amoroso on the CRA keep attracting more affordable housing which brings slum and blight?
You know, you always have to get personal. This problem is not about me. Take your nasty disposition somewhere else. Thanks.
Maxwell has a r.e. lic now. do you think this has anything to do with his new found interest? i remember bo allen screaming about blight a million years ago. Every commission has closed its eyes.
Great topic Lynn.
I agree, forget about yesterday and blaming. Let's just get the job done now.
Fire the Comm Sus guy at $65,000 plus and all reassign all Housing Funds/Reserves for Housing in the Budget.
Outsource the Function with time constraints and Deed Restrictions.
Real Estate brokers will find a way to get alot more than 25 properties into Sales with substantially all of the proceeds going to the city.
All these Utility Liens are BS! If we want to do this we can do this.
we have alot of people in this city claiming homestead and dont live there--jeff clemens when he was mayor stated this was a problem that he was going to tackle---i guess he got stoned and forgot
The only problem with that anon at 10:03pm is finding a Real Estate Broker that will work for the measly Commission that they will make on the Sales of these homes. And if a property sells for very little money, which most of these properties will (with houses on them) and are homesteaded. how much taxable value will be left to bring Money into the city.
And No I am not a developer, or in Real Estate.
That is true, anonymous above. If a real estate agent had to depend on a livelihood from real estate sales in this city, they would starve to death or have to work three times as hard to make a buck.
Surplus properties have not been available for sale ,because of corrupt Commissions.Remember Old Bridge Park?City managers and Attorneys have denied existence of those.
Old Bridge Park,1 1/2 acre waterfront Land ,on P.B.Island now peoples'property. In W.Palm 1 acre sold for $11,000,000, on the westside (wrong side of the ICW., our Old Bridge Park 1 1/2 acres, worth $16,000,000,- was declared surplus by crooked employees of the building Dept.( Remember Jackson,one of them),to be given to a developer for $1.200,000,- by a Mayor????Laurence McNamara managed to save this public Park land, with his Charter Amendment, which forbids sale of Public Parks ,Land without public approval(vote of all L.W.Citizens).
Surplus properties are appraised by whom?An honest independant appraiser of the County,not by a City employee,is the uncorrupt way.
When?The CRA has destroyed many Lake Worth Historic houses, causing loss to our tax base.
Houses for sale in Lake Worth are available from $20,000,- to $60,000,- (3,4 5,Br.homes) can the parasitic Lake Worth CRA match those prices building affordable(future slums)housing?
The Commission is in cohoots with the CRA?????Out of Town kickbacks????
City Manager Bornstein does not want to know the past misdeeds of the Commissions and employees, resulting in our $7,000,000,- Budget Deficit, and lost millions in Utility monies, unaccounted for.He suggests we ignore those!!
The only problem with the "people's" property is that the City is now going to turn it over for Casino employee parking at $40 a month per vehicle. This is outrageous and I haven't heard any commissioner object.
This property was saved by SWAT, the electorate, and was supposed to be turned into a park.
Why is it that commissions NEVER seem to remember or honor the will of the people but are always into their own agenda.
What's going to happen to the 55 spaces for resident's decal parking? Employees will buy them all up for $20 or whatever a year and the residents will have NO decal parking.
We Really need an overhaul of the code /fine process. maybe this is set by law. Maybe we can't change the process. I certainly don't know the law on this. I DO know that by the time a property wends its way through the process, all involved will have died of old age! Also, how in the heck does L.W. have the personnel to fine somebody who puts a palm frond out a day early,but they don't have anybody to code the guy putting out mattresses on the street?
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