"The Jordan Garden House" Had its Slummy Contract Canceled

1716 26th Avenue North is often referred to as "The Jordan Garden House" due to its proximity to the "peace garden" at the corner of 26th and Knox Avenue North.  (Although the Jordan Area Community Council does not own the house.)  The house has been a vacant eyesore for years, since it went from one owner to tax forfeiture.  And since Hennepin County has had low or nonexistent standards for who they'll sell tax-forfeited properties to, this one was purchased by the infamous Ken Welch of Assertive Properties.

The story that sticks with me about Welch with this house is that reportedly a local non-profit developer was interested in making an offer to buy and rehab the house.  The developer figured Welch would be open to a deal, as the house simply couldn't be financially viable in its boarded and vacant state.  The annual VBR fees alone had to make the property untenable.  Instead, the offer was rebuffed on the grounds that the place was still financially worth keeping even in that condition.  Why would that be, I wonder?  I have my own theories, but welcome any ideas folks may have.

For the purpose of this post, however, the important development is that Welch/Assertive no longer owns the house.  And here's how that happened:

Hennepin County vs. The Wirth House

A year later and the house at 3431 Colfax Avenue North still sits in bureaucratic limbo.  I wrote a previous blog post about how the city of Minneapolis was needlessly proceeding with demolition, and to their credit they have both held off on tearing the structure down and worked with partners in an attempt to find a solution.  There are still city staffers just itching to pull the demo trigger on this one, but as a whole the city is really moving in the right direction on issues like this.  But now the holdup is with Hennepin County and it's not clear if a solution for rehab will be available anytime soon.  We certainly do not have anyone at the county willing to go beyond the bureaucratic call of "duty" at this time.

How did we get here?  Well...

Conservation Districts Don't Do Enough for North Minneapolis

The newly-proposed conservation district ordinance should excite me.  Either the preservationist in me should leap for joy that neighbors may have another tool available to preserve the character of their community, or the libertarian in me should bristle at the prospect of fewer property rights.  Instead, I'm left shrugging my shoulders and responding with a resounding "meh."

At the very first meeting when the idea was first rolled out, I had one question that would shape my assessment of this ordinance moving forward:  How would a conservation district help north Minneapolis?  And more to the point, how would it help "level the playing field" between neighborhoods where it's already easy to preserve houses and features vs. neighborhoods where doing so is continuously an uphill battle?  Could a conservation district be used to slow or stop certain demolitions?  And to bring it home to an area in need of preservation a block away from me, could a conservation district help The Endangered Dutch Colonials of Oliver Avenue North?

The answer back then was essentially...

Photo Tour of Tax Forfeitures, Continued

 

The first round of tax forfeiture photos were just the properties in Jordan, but I set out to chronicle all of the houses that the County will have in their possession if they aren't redeemed.  Neighborhood groups are typically asked to make one of three recommendations on such properties; either that we support the city's acquisition, that we recommend allowing the houses to go to an auction, or that we recommend the properties be withheld from auction for six months while an alternate use is determined.

Where that limited set of recommendations falls short is that we may not support what the city does with a property post-acquisition (not to mention that neither we nor the city may even know such things at this moment).  We certainly don't have reason to trust that the County will avoid selling to slumlords at auction.  And there's no way to know whether we'll find a good investor in six months or if that investor will even find the County to be a willing seller.

So in general, those three choices almost ought to be scrapped for a different system entirely--at least for distressed communities where the tax auction process invites a worse breed of buyers than other parts of Hennepin County.  What that process might look like is a topic for another post.  For now, we march on with the photo tour.  The above property is 3301 Oliver Avenue North, and then we have...

Fall Round of Hennepin County Tax Forfeitures

It's that time of year again, where seasons may change but the risk of tax-forfeited properties being sold to slumlords does not.  A nineteen-page list of Minneapolis tax forfeitures was recently sent to neighborhood groups from the city of Minneapolis.  Credit where credit is due:  I've been critical of the city's policies surrounding vacant houses, but they've been a good partner on tax forfeitures.  Specifically, we used to get lists with only a few days to respond with neighborhood organizational positions on what to do with these houses and vacant lots.  The city really went to bat for our communities with the argument that this simply wasn't enough turnaround time.  Now we have until November 26th to submit comments.

The Jordan neighborhood has roughly two dozen such tax forfeitures, although for the purpose of this and subsequent blog posts, I will focus only on houses and not vacant land.  As I took a look at each Jordan property, like 2122 Ilion Ave N pictured above, I came to two conclusions.  There wasn't a single one I'd tear down (except the one that was already demolished by the time I got there), and there wasn't a single one I'd consider an acceptable slumlord acquisition.  So it's time to put our city and county government on notice:  We are watching how this process plays out, and it better result in a better north Minneapolis.

Jordan has a baker's dozen tax-forfeited properties with structures on them.  Twelve, technically, but the thirteenth was an arson-damaged home that was torn down after the list was generated.  Aside from the Ilion house, we have...

A New Approach to Tax Forfeitures

Post and stock photo (of a tax-forfeited property) by the Hawthorne Hawkman.

The previous post outlined the problem of tax-forfeited properties in north Minneapolis being scooped up by slumlords.  A good discussion happened on the North Talk Facebook page that helped shape a few ideas for a solution.  What follows is based on my current understanding of the issue, and may change as things develop.

But as it stands now, the first concern is that the resale of tax forfeitures is heavily skewed towards the expansion of problem properties in our community.  The houses are sold as-is, they are not listed on the MLS (because apparently the County cannot or will not contract with a Realtor to list them), open houses are held, but attended almost exclusively by landlords, flippers, and fools.  Out of those prospective buyers, bids are placed at the auction, and the financing mechanism of 10% down and ten yearly payments makes it too easy for bad actors to add to their inventory.

The City of Minneapolis and approved development partners do often pick up some homes, but the majority are left to the auction process.  Changing that process seems daunting at first, because...

Tax Forfeitures are a Slumlord Pipeline

Post and photo by the Hawthorne Hawkman.

On my occasional forays downtown, I like to stop by the Hennepin County Government Center to look into property histories.  Today's curiosity involved properties repossessed by Hennepin County through tax forfeiture.  One in particular piqued my interest, as it is in my community.  The condemned house was purchased for the amazingly low sum of $11,000 in December of last year.

But that's not the whole story, nor even the most infuriating part.  No, what truly amazed me was that the buyer didn't REALLY pay $11,000.  Instead, he put down just...

Snow Shoveling Rules Not Followed on City Properties

2611-15 Penn Ave N

2631 Penn Ave N

 Post and photos by the Hawthorne Hawkman.

So we got a bit of a snowstorm the other day.  I spent about six of the twenty-four hours between Sunday and Monday mornings out shoveling.  The last time I lived in a house on a corner lot, it was in college with ten other housemates.  Looking back on it, I can definitely say that the "eleven 21-year-olds" shoveling model is far superior than the solo approach I had to employ.  But quite a few of my neighbors on my block haven't even done that much.  One neighbor in particular is a rather egregious offender:  The City of Minneapolis.

I usually take my dog up two blocks and back down again for our ambulations.  Tonight, instead of the usual route around Queen, we stayed along Penn to see what lots were unplowed (the dog's interest in the topic is confined to the joy of running through chest-deep snow).  Almost all of those such parcels belong to CPED, the Community Planning and Economic Development arm of Minneapolis government.  And all of those lots are vacant with no structure on them.

 The first two vacant lots to the north of me are owned by both CPED and GMHC, but they were both plowed by my neighbor.  Including those, the breakdown of vacant parcels is this: