If Mahmood Khan put as much effort into screening tenants, or fixing his properties, as he does into paying his attorneys to fight the city of Minneapolis, the northside would be a better place. Instead, demolitions that are all but inevitable get tied up in court for years on end, and in the meantime Very Bad Things continue to happen at Khan properties throughout our community.
As a die-hard preservationist, one part of my credo is to never hold the owner against a property when determining whether a structure is worthy of rehab and continued use. Khan tests that ethic more than anyone else. I hear through the grapevine that some of the features inside 2639 Oliver are quite nice--amazing, even. But as long as Mahmood Khan owns the house, none of that will matter. If he really was serious about preservation and rehab, he would have entered into a restoration agreement with the city long ago. Although he doesn't do such a great job of keeping those either.
In any case, a judge reversed the demolition order on this property, and all I can say is thank God the court opinion is "unpublished" and can't be used as a precedent. Although just as surely as we know this won't be the last of his houses with a demo order, we know damn well Khan will now try this trick again. The ruling, although wrongheaded, does have some interesting points. For instance, it states...
