Filed under: Are You Kidding?, Real Estate | Tags: abatement, Gentrification, taxes
Philadelphia has been in a budget crisis for some time now. When Nutty Mayor Nutter tried to force his iron will and close a dozen branch libraries a few months ago, the people fought back and won. Many library advocates at the time pointed to the city’s 10 year, transferrable tax abatement program for rich ass condos in Center City as the cause of the city’s lagging tax revenues.
And now, dear reader, we bring you the penthouse condo tax abatement to end all Philly tax abatements.
Behold 50 16TH STREET S 56/57 PHILADELPHIA, PA 19102. For a cool $30,000,000 (yes, 30 MILLION DOLLARS) you can live on top of one of the city’s twin towers in a small-ish 16,000 square foot penthouse.
The nice (read: baby killer) realtors also just throw in the description: “In addition, the owner of this residence will enjoy a 10-year tax abatement.”
We’re pretty sure the owners of this “residence” (read: monster mansion deathtrap) will enjoy a little more than the tax break. But what exactly would those pwned 0wners be paying in taxes for this swank pad in the clouds, if the city of Philadelphia chose to tax them sometime in the next 100 years?
Using the Philadelphia Forward guide to taxes, we will do the math for you.
30,000,000 market value x .32 = assessed value of 9,600,000 (9.6 million..chump change!). Then we take 9,600,000 and multiply by 8.264% real estate tax rate which equals $793,344 in taxes, annually. per annum. each year.
So EACH YEAR people, the scumbags who live in the 50 16th st penthouse get a 793,344 DOLLAR TAX BREAK. Multiply that by 10 years, and the city just lost out on $7,933,440 in tax revenue. Almost $8 million on one apartment. Gee, that sounds like enough to save the libraries and open the pools, doesn’t it?
Filed under: Displacement, Gentrification, Real Estate, University City District | Tags: eviction, Gentrification, university city, upenn, west philly
From something called The Jewish Exponent. Exponent? You people have to get a little better at naming your newsletter…
“David J. Adelman is the president and CEO of Campus Apartments, a company, which provides housing for undergraduates, graduate students, faculty and support staff at various colleges and universities throughout the United States.
Under Adelman’s leadership, the company has broadened its focus to include mixed-used projects on campus that incorporate both retail and office space together.
The company has increased its revenues by 300 percent over the last five years.
Adelman’s commitment to his clients extends to initiating and funding other types of projects that enhance the quality of student life on American campuses.
One of them is the University City District, a partnership between the University of Pennsylvania and other institutions to improve the safety and cleanliness in communities around Penn’s grounds and immediate area.
Moreover, Campus Apartments is the largest private-sector supporter of the district, contributing more than $500,000 over the past decade.”
That’s really charming. Campus Apartments in Philadelphia is making so much money, they can throw a half-million dollars at a gentrification committee in 10 years. That’s basically like having an employee for ten years who is paid $50,000 a year. Ah, lobbying. I’m sure Adelman’s “commitment to his clients” lies more in their exploitative monetary relationship, rather than “student life.” It’s scum like Adelman who have created the notion in yuppie pea-brains that $1,000 per month for a “studio/1BR” is a good deal in West Philly.
Filed under: Displacement, Gentrification, Poverty, Race, Real Estate, University City Creep | Tags: creep, Gentrification, home prices, university city, upenn, west philly
Every once in a while something really funny comes across our news desk. Apparently one real estate agent for RE/MAX thinks that home buyers elbowing to get their kids into the UPenn run Alexander school are making a mistake. These special brand of West Philly gentrifiers are looking to get into the Penn Alexander Catchement Area, a strangely mapped zone that qualifies your special kid to get into that special school.
Except the wise folks at REMAX give their top reasons to AVOID the special real estate zone, besides saving money…
“You don’t like the smell of Dirty Diapers on Wednesday mornings. True, the Catchment Area has exploded with the arrival of little stinkers like the one below. If you don’t like the smell of streaky green diapers on garbage day, move a few blocks away…”
Wow. Could that pesky diaper smell actually serve to dissuade people from this elitist neighborhood? We can only hope. However, the Philly Weekly article that inspired our real estate blogger actually had to quote someone using a FAKE NAME because of how much they’re ripping off people.
“We bought our first home, which is in the catchment, eight years ago for $100,000,” says Frank, a property owner/manager who now lives outside the city and doesn’t want his real name used in this article. “When the school opened, we watched our house go up to $150,000, then $200,000. Now it’s worth $400,000. With home prices rising, our rental price is higher. I’m aware that there aren’t many people in the city who could afford to rent our house.“
Local parent Pat Warner says “People have more money,” says Warner. “It’s not a bad thing, necessarily, but it’s different. And it certainly seems less diverse.”
Gee, you think? Gentrifying the neighborhood isn’t bad, it’s just different. Whiter. Richer. Stinkier. Chew on that.
Filed under: 4224 Baltimore Demolition, Displacement, Future Plans, Gentrification, Licenses & Inspection (L&I), Real Estate, Zoning | Tags: eviction, west philly
Pre-Civil War building at 4224 Baltimore Ave destroyed
As anyone who has passed by Clark Park recently knows, developers have destroyed the historic mansion at 4224 Baltimore Ave.
Photos of the demolition:
Flickr gallery from eye-of-thundera
A quick primer article from University City Review here.
Copy of the letter from L&I to nearby residents:
___________________________________________
City of Philadelphia
Department of Licenses & Inspections
January 28, 2009
NOTICE OF PENDING DEMOLITION FOR PROPERTY LOCATED AT:
04224 BALTIMORE AVE
Pursuant to the requirements of The Philadelphia Code, Title 4, Subcode “A,”
Section A-303-2, you are being notified by this Informational Bulletin that
the structure located at the subject address is scheduled for demolition to
begin on or after July 3, 2008. (Then, that date is crossed out, and this is
handwritten:) Jan. 28, 2009
In accordance with The Philadelphia Code, this notice is provided as an
informational courtesy only and does “not create any actionable right for any
resident or owner of the subject property or any neighboring property.”
For information concerning the demolition, please contact:
CAMPANELLA JAMES & ASSOC INC
1601 S CHRIS COLUMBUS BLV
PHILADELPHIA,PA 19148-1404
Klehr Harrison Harvey Ronald J. Patterson, Esquire
Perry Cocco (this is handwritten in, above the name below which is crossed
out):
Steve Gallagher, Supervisor
West District
43rd and Market Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104-2969
215-685-7680
________________________________________
This is the building on the south side of Baltimore which sits high up on a
hill, back from the street, and has the empty lot next to it which used to be a
community garden. The building formerly housed a women’s shelter. It’s
across Baltimore Ave. from the original Green Line, and across 43rd St. from
Clark Park.
>From the UC Historical Society website:
4224-26 Baltimore Ave
John Neil McGarvey, developer
c.1860
E.A. Wilson, architect for renovations
c.1920
Two, three-story, two-bay, brick with stone facade Second Empire, semi-detached houses. Distinguishing features include stone and iron fence around terraced yard, porch, segmentally arched windows, bracketed cornice, convex mansard roof with pedimented dormers and slate shingles, ground floor bay windows.
________________________________________
The site was purchased from developer James Campanella by Thylan Associates, a developer that has fingers in many, many pies, for a cool 3.5 million dollars. Thylan promptly demolished the residence, and one can only assume he wants to build condos overlooking the park. Thylan also owwns 4508 Chestnut, a building which is now rented out handsomely to the UPenn LIFE senior living center, as well as an abandoned warehouse at 13th and Callowhill which is planned to become luxury lofts. He also owns developments all over New York City and Putnam, Westchester, and Dutchess counties. Oh wait, I forgot, he owns 1111 Locust St and a bevy of properties in Connecticut. Lenard Thylan, the head honcho of the development company, had to go and brag about being a rich, soulless gollum to the New York Times a decade ago. What wonders Mr. Thylan must have worked since then in the lucrative field of gentrification, er real estate development.
It’s clear that to buy a property essentially just for the double lot, and tear down a giant building in livable condition worth at least $600,000 in its standing state, must require a pretty elaborate plan. I mean, how many condos do you have to sell to break even on just the land? A lot. Residents of West Philly should expect big, tall, ugly things from Thylan Associates in months to come. RIP 4224-26 Baltimore.
Filed under: Licenses & Inspection (L&I), Real Estate, University City District, Zoning | Tags: expansion, university city
Why does this man get it more than you do? BJ Widick, author of Detroit: City of Race and Class Violence, is one of the few people who fall into the category of “old white men” who get it. Before his untimely death last year at the age of 97, Widick was well known as a Columbia prof and unionist, and a good Serbian/Midwestern rabblerousing hybrid that exemplifies what makes this country great. (Or as they say in the vaporous toxic cloud of University City marketing, what makes this place so very diverse and special. Desirable diversity, the hot new fetish!)
Below is an excerpt from Detroit that was actually transcribed from a Gary Nunn radio broadcast from 1957. Behold.
“The Real Estate Board pursues–and enforces–a policy which will in time spread the ghetto, block by block, until it becomes the entire heart of the city. You can watch it happening almost day by day. As a Negro family moves a block away from the ghetto’s former boundary, real estate agents go to work on the fears of the white residents in that block. The prospect of a double sale is created; a new home to the panicked white seller, and an old one to another Negro. Block by block it works…There are no apparent legal weapons against a group of men [the Detroit Real Estate Board] who practice the most vulgar racism in their internal membership policy–whose external policy results in what we could only describe (should it happen in any other country) as a form of Fascist race segregation and economic discrimination based on race.”
Gee, radio sure was different back then. It should be noted that is not just realtors who are factors in the displacement of people of color–the State functions as an apparatus of the rich to declare buildings out of code, unsafe for habitation (thanks L&I!) and thus ripe to be picked up on the cheap by whites with cash-in-pocket. If you don’t know already, most people cannot get a loan/mortgage from a bank unless a house is in “habitable” condition, e.g. conforms to code, has working furnace and water heater, needs no major repairs. Why? Because if you default on your payments or they jack the rates, and they then repo your house, they want to be able to sell it easily for more cash money. See the cycle? In order to buy foreclosures or condemned/gutted properties, the buyer must have 100% cash, which leaves the option of a buyback out of the question.
At this point I’d like to introduce some of the great new tools of the trade that scum sucking devil worshipping money grubbing, ahem, West Philly real estate professionals, use to research which properties to buy and essentially steal based on the support of wonderful public-private partnerships like the University City District.
Number one on the list is Trulia, very popular as a way to search forclosed homes and fancy gentrified flipped homes. They won’t be honored with a link, but you can probably figure it out. See how much your neighbors are trying to flip their “gorgeous renovation” for.
Number two is Property Shark. This requires an account but it is bona-fide free. This gets you into the property history of any address, complete with zoning info, last sale price, mortgage status, and neighborhood demographics. See how little your landlord paid for the building in which you rent an apartment, or how much those yuppies on the corner paid. See how one building is against zoning code, or how every building on your block is owned by some absentee landlord from Florida.
These tools can be used for subversion or for ill. More on all this in another edition of University City.
Filed under: Appropriation, Displacement, Gentrification, Race, Real Estate, The Master Plan, UPenn Mortgage | Tags: eviction, expansion, Gentrification, home prices, ucd, university city, upenn, war, west philly
Using the power of the internet, anyone can find this snazzy article about how UPenn is a Zombie Flesh Eating Monster. According to the Philadelphia Business Weekly, the UPenn-subsidized mortgage program was already a smashing success way back in 1998.
“It’s just been overwhelming,” said D-L Wormley, Penn’s managing director of community housing. “It literally is people from every part of the university – professors, the housekeeping department, a vice president, the physical plant. And that’s the thing I’m most thrilled about.”
And what’s good for Penn is good for West Philadelphia’s residents, the banking community there, local construction contractors and neighborhood real estate values.
Part of the new program includes cash for faculty and staff already living in the area bounded by Market Street, 49th Street, Woodland Avenue, University Avenue and the Schuylkill River: Penn is offering up to $7,500 in matching funds toward exterior home improvements.”
Of course by 2004 this program was considered a battle plan against local residents (read: black people.)
“The change in the program is two-fold. First, the geographic boundaries originally set by the program are being extended. The new borders reach out westward to 52nd Street, northward to Haverford Avenue, and eastward and southward to the Schuylkill River. The old boundaries extended only to 49th Street, Market Street and Woodland Avenue in the west, north and south, respectively.
The second alteration of the program consists of a reduction in the maximum size of the loans available to those participating in the program from $15,000 to $7,500.
The forgivable cash loan “can be used for a down payment, to buy down points, or for interior or exterior home improvements,” according to the program’s policy. The loans are forgiven after seven years on the condition that the purchaser remains in residence during that time.”"
Wait, you mean if I own a house for 7 measley years and work for UPenn during that time, I get fifteen thousand dollars for free? That’s right. Doesn’t that mean that there’s some unfair advantage available to UPenn staff?
And of course, there is:
“Penn officials note, however, that it is not their intention to force people from the neighborhood. But, the program gives the Penn-affiliated buyer a clear advantage in the real estate market.
“If two buyers are competing for the same house … the Penn buyer is already $7,500 ahead,” O’Donnell said. “If there is a bidding war, the Penn buyer is going to win.”"
Aye aye, sir! Fire away! Move the negroes out of here! Move in the zombies with cash bonuses that they don’t have to repay!
end the upenn zombie monster parade
