10-23-06 Council Meeting Minutes

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REGULAR MEETING OCTOBER 23, 2006 coming out there, you can tell that there are some intelligent people here that have long range goals. The northeast side near Notre Dame and all the amazing development around the campus is just wonderful and how that all has happened in just a short period of time. The City Plan is going to bring all that into fruition. She has been asked to come to speak tonight on behalf of Edie Mathis, who could not be here tonight. She is the President of the Local Real Estate Investors Organization and Landlords Association formally called MIPOA, they have recently changed there name to REIA Real Estate Investors Association of North Central Indiana. In 2001, they brought a petition before the South Bend Common Council, cautioning that when the State Legislature in their wisdom chose to give a $36,000.00 homestead exemption to owner occupants, and gave nothing to non-owner occupant residential housing, and they cautioned at that time that they could foresee, boarded up homes, lots of vacancy, because landlords could not charge their tenants another $100.00 a month for rent. Ms. Hughes noted that she foresaw this hurting the poor people in the inner city, because people who were wealthy enough bought homes, but those who were not had to rent. The discussion was that this was going to create declining values of properties as a result of what the State Legislature had done and it was at this time that they had asked the Council to help lobby them to bring more equity between the owner occupant and the non-owner occupant. Landlords found their property taxes double and triple, and it is a sad state. What was said in that petition has come true, there are an extreme amount of vacant boarded up houses in the City, and that there is one neighborhood between Lincolnway and Portage Avenues with 40 percent vacancy, boarded up housing in that area and other areas of the City. It has been estimated that forty-three percent of the housing stock is rentals in South Bend, and that information was included in the petition. Ms. Hughes stated that the she was told that the Council was studying the 2001 petition that was filed and would like to know if the Council has made any recommendations. Ms. Hughes further noted that there were 10 pages of homes that went up on tax sale, there are a record number of foreclosures in the county, and housing sales are down 6 percent according to local MLS, and that is normally the lower priced homes, kind of in the inner city. So, with that in mind and in addition to all that the Council has done to make the City beautiful, she urged the Council to petition the State Legislature to bring more equity between the owner occupied and non-owner occupied homes, and either give all residential housing this homestead exemption or none at all. Whatever is chosen is should be equitable to all. The following individuals spoke in opposition to this Resolution. Mr. James A. Masters, 211 W. Washington, Suite 1800, South Bend, Indiana Mr. Masters advised that one of the things that he has heard so much tonight and what has been talked about the City Plan is that we champion the diversity of this City. So he is here tonight to present a slightly divergent view, and if his friend Penny Hughes hadn’t told him that she was here to speak in favor of the plan, I would have sworn she was speaking against it. He came here tonight to tell you that as a resident of this City for over 30 years, that he is broken hearted over the state of decline and deterioration that can be seen all over this City. City Plan does not address this problem. In fact in his estimation the City Plan is an example of what is wrong with the City. Because while the City Administration and the Department of Redevelopment and Economic Development and their legion of planners have been focusing on their efforts on creating this City Plan, for twenty years in the future, they have allowed the City of the present to deteriorate before our eyes. The first question that I hope everyone will ask the Mayor is this, How much did all of this cost the taxpayer of this City? How much money was spent on out- of-town consultants on out-of-state consultants? How much did this cost the taxpayers of this City in employee’s salaries and benefits for all these planners? How much did all these meetings cost us, and for what purpose? As we know this City Administration has presided over an unprecedented out migration of population business and jobs from this City. Our tax base is eroded. City revenues cannot support City services. There has been a litany of business that have left or announced that they are going to leave South Bend. St. Joseph Medical Center moving to Mishawaka. Three years ago the State offered to widen South Bend Avenue, SR 23, so that the 40 percent of the population of this County that lives north and east of downtown South Bend can actually get to the hospital. Had that been done the decision to move the hospital might have been changed? The oldest law firm in the County, with offices in downtown South Bend for over 150 20