Buffalo Rising Online

It is a shame that the city works this way.

You have to go through 100X the effort of buying a "normal" house. Its hard enough to tell where to start much less have any hope of finishing a sale on a property like this.

You try to buy a place but the city demands "a fair market" value. Obviously the fair market value is not based in reality or the houses would be moving.

Why would they rather go 15->25k in the hole for a demo instead of getting these moved for a nominal charge into the private sector to be rebuit? I guess only they truely know. Its not like there are not 10,000 other buildings where they can blow the demo money.

Miscarriage of public interest, misuse of public funds.

Why would they rather go 15->25k in the hole for a demo instead of getting these moved for a nominal charge into the private sector to be rebuilt?

Someone should be following where these demo contracts are going, and how they get assigned. I'd imagine it's incredibly more lucrative for local contractors to get public demolition funds than to see a house sell a house to a private citizen for owner-occupation. Think of the out-of-town tree removal contractors who were removing healthy trees because there was a price to be had. Worldwide it's easy to see that destruction is more profitable than creation and innovation.

Why does the city need fair market value for these houses slated for demolition? Why dont they just give them away to developers. Im sure there can be guidelines and procedures put in place to make sure only true genuine people will get ahold of these. Instead we demo thousands of houses and sell them off to flippers.

I really wanted to - eventually - purchases and rehab this house.

Alo-alo, I cannot believe Lowe's has a Katrina cottage, I almost thought it was a joke!

Quinn - unfortunately buffalo and bizarro sometimes share more than just the first and last letter.

Hoss - the issue raised in the earlier post is that it's not clear how much the city wanted for this, or other properties. One of the issues I raised was offering property such as this at a percentage of it's assessed value.

1. Have these problems with the city's Real Estate Division started recently, or are they long term and perhaps even predate the Brown administration?

2. Which full time council member is chair of the committee that has oversight of the city Real Estate Division?

3. Whoever it is, how come none of these articles ever hold him or her at least partly accountable for lack of reform?

4. Is the committee in question possibly the Community Development Committee, which according to the city web site is chaired by one of BR's favorite politicians?

5. Why aren't "for sale by city" signs regularly posted on city-owned houses?

6. Why doesn't the city web site maintain up-to-date listings of city-owned houses that are deemed safe enough for resale, along with basic info about each, and also a list of city-owned houses that aren't for sale with a brief reason why not and a point-of-contact for questions?

7. Why doesn't the city promise some reasonable time interval for providing an offered sale price to a citizen who inquires about any particular house, along with a prompt mechanism for considering reasonable counter offers?

THis is an example of amazing governmental ineptitude. Call your councilman now and tell him you can't understand this and ask him why he allows it to continue.

Consider this a big FU to the neighbors. Thanks City Hall!

Turns out head of real estate, John Hannon, is Brian Higgins brother-in-law, but I'm sure that has nothing to do with his continued pay check.

Baltimore turned some of it's core neighborhoods around thru Homesteading. You paid $1 for the house on the promise to fix it up and live there.

It wouldnt bother me so much if this city is funding infill development and had a policy funding rehabilitation of properties as much as it funded demolition. These should be funded equally.

But a demolish only policy is just a travesty for everyone.

JohnnyWalker - Baltimore had an advanage. Most of those $1 properties were for small brick fully-attached row houses, which are signficantly cheaper to rehabilitate than the much larger detached frame houses in Buffalo.

Stop crying, this City is full of derlict houses you can claim as your own. Lucky us.

Someone's head should roll for this.

Here's the info for the Real Estate Division:

Division Head: John Hannon, Director Phone Number: (716)-851-5261 Address: 901 City Hall, Buffalo, NY 14202

Since this was a City owned property, I assume the demolition proceeded through the Department of Permit and Inspection services (but I could be wrong on this). Either way, this Dept has to issue the demolition permit.

http://www.ci.buffalo.ny.us/Home/Leadership/City_Departments/Economic_Development_And_Permit_Inspection/Office_of_Housing_and_Inspections/Demolitions/DemolitionofPropertiesRazedThroughtheDepartmentofP

851-4637

what a shame...this is unreal.

Matthew, if the same gross disfunctionality occurs more often than not as several people said it does, then similar problems would happen trying to buy other houses too. I don't know if that particular house was worth crying over but the non-transparency and run-around are larger problems. You're correct that supply far exceeds demand and the number of houses likely rehabbed are a small portion even if effectively offered for sale. However, on some blocks even a few houses being saved and rehabbed could make a big difference.

Stop crying, this City is full of derlict houses you can claim as your own.

It would be a shame if the energy that people are expressing here was allowed to dissipate. The way to prevent that from happening is to take things offline and into the real world to plan a pressure campaign against the real estate office. Someone with some credibility around here would have to convene such a thing -- any takers?

Everyone in City Hall knows about the problem, but nobody knows how to fix it

The suggestions in Atwater's questions 5,6,7 above might be a good start for fixing it. Or people with expertise could suggest other things.

It's only going to be sexy enough to fix if everyone makes it a cause celeb

Maybe true, but it's unfortunate priorities seem so often focused on what politicians might consider sexy issues while some basic ones linger unfixed. Human nature I suppose. The common council spent some time a few months ago comparing church closings to ethnic cleansing, and debating that at multiple meetings. That's one example of many.

1. Have these problems with the city's Real Estate Division started recently, or are they long term and perhaps even predate the Brown administration?

Predate. Same Director though.

2. Which full time council member is chair of the committee that has oversight of the city Real Estate Division?

I"m not sure but I know the Council has recently started working on this issue.

3. Whoever it is, how come none of these articles ever hold him or her at least partly accountable for lack of reform?

It needs a bigger voice. The Director of this department consistently blames the buyers - in this case and others I have submitted documentation of buyers making valid offers and this department ignoring them. The response that comes back from the department is that the buyer didn't have the funds - this is not the case.

4. Is the committee in question possibly the Community Development Committee, which according to the city web site is chaired by one of BR's favorite politicians?

Not sure.

5. Why aren't "for sale by city" signs regularly posted on city-owned houses?

They should be - but this alone won't fix the problem.

6. Why doesn't the city web site maintain up-to-date listings of city-owned houses that are deemed safe enough for resale, along with basic info about each, and also a list of city-owned houses that aren't for sale with a brief reason why not and a point-of-contact for questions?

In my experience this department doesn't really want to sell the properties (although I think City Hall does - there just isn't enough oversight of this critical division).

7. Why doesn't the city promise some reasonable time interval for providing an offered sale price to a citizen who inquires about any particular house, along with a prompt mechanism for considering reasonable counter offers?

I've been working with the City on this for years. It's the only department left in City Hall (at least of the ones I work with) where you can't get anything done. I'm serious - major improvements in City Hall with this administration - this department is untouchable.

I think Byron needs to get credit for turning City Hall around as far as productivity, communication, and accountability - it's not perfect but wow is it noticeably better.

That being said this department is not productive, accountable, or communicative - it still works as if the past administration never left. At the same time Byron is going around and asking for donations to supplant our demo funds - his Real Estate Department is increasing the list of properties that needs to be demoed.

This house is my new poster child for the issues in the City of Buffalo's Division of Real Estate.

Harvey

Good feedback, Harvey, thanks.

Just seems inexusable that if the problems are so serious and have been known for so long, why should it be as you say the council has "recently started" working on this? They often insist they need to be full time and year round, and yet this kind of thing.

Brown should be held accountable too - it's almost two full years since Masiello left. But for stirring the pot, the council seems to me a much better starting point since they control the budgets.

Based on committee names, looks to me it'd be chairman Joe Golomkek's committee on Community Development that's supposed to provide oversight for the Real Estate division. If that's mistaken, somebody correct me.

Sorry, spelling typo tehre - Golombek.

are you people retarded?

That house was a disaster waiting to fall down any second. The only thing salvageable was maybe the bricks in the front of the house which should of gone to Buffalo Reuse.

I was inside that exact house about three years ago on a ride along with Buffalo Police. The stench inside that house alone, nothing would of gotten rid of it!! It was absolutely disgusting!!

I had to leave as I was on the verge of puking. Needles, grabage, piss and literally shit on the floor.

That house was not worth saving. The only thing unreal about this is your ridiculous over reaction.

BRO, so people attempting to buy and fix up this house is retarded how exactly?

BROEdits - A few are focusing complaints about this one house. Some others, including me, aren't. I've no idea.

In previous thread linked in article above, one commenter (MasterofUrbanPlanning) said the city Real Estate Div implied this house could be resold but no price was available. Who knows, he might've been wrong in what told MUP but there's no reason not to have a much more effective, transparent system. At least two other commenters (Harvey, WestSideChic) followed with similar reports of uncooperation about multiple other houses each. Few sentences from those comments:

MasterofUrbanPlanning ...When I went to the Buffalo Real Estate Department I was told a story. It goes like this.... Mr. Real Estate would like to tell you how much this or that building is. He would very much like to sell me what should be for sale. But he cannot, the assessment department is behind, and they set the price. Mr. Real Estate told me he had never worked in such a "%^&-ed up place" in his career. He told me he has had people walk into his office with $15,000 cash, asking to purchase a small lot on their corner, [they liked planting tomatoes he thought] and he could not sell it to them. He also said, that another man and his wife walked in with "a bag filled with money". Seems they went to the bank that morning, after getting sick and tired of the 'mayor's hotline not keeping the house next door boarded and the noise of destruction caused by teens keeping them afraid to sleep', and figured they had the capacity [and the grandchildren to live there]. Sorry, cannot sell it to you, I don't have the current price. Mr. Real Estate, says of the 20,000 empties you hear about, he has a list with about 40 on it. Any on my street? No, sorry ...

Harvey...It is a very serious problem. Urban Roots has been trying to buy a couple of vacant lots for several months now - they can't even get a price. The number of stories out there of people who tried for years to purchase something from the City, until the property got so bad it had to be demoed are numerous ...

WESTSIDECHIC...We have tried to purchase vacant abandoned properties through the real estate office and we have never been able to work anything out. Obstacle after obstacle always more red tape, always more bureaucratic BS. ...

Well here's a thought - I think it's pretty well accepted that most bureaucrats are more concerned with protecting their own jobs than they are with providing service for the greater good. It could be possible that it serves this department's own interests NOT to sell any of these properties. While some or many of the properties they 'manage' most likely are not candidates for rehab, with all of the positive momentum and investment that is happening in the city a department that functions in this antiquated bureaucratic manner has no place in Buffalo. While I personally do not have money to invest in rehabs right now, I am a city resident/taxpayer and to hear that there ARE investors being ignored is absolutely outrageous.

While it's not a solution I will be contacting my concilman Mr. Locurto to let him know that this department is getting some attention, and not in a good way. You have to start somewhere...

That's a little wrong how I wrote it. MasterofUrbanPlanning was talking about a different house also. The previous article referred to people Harvey knows who sought the now-demoed house and got no cooperation from city, and then commenters referred to other houses. I wouldn't be surprised either way about if that house made sense to demo. but common sense tells us some houses the city ends up owning ownership are still in good enough shape to be resold, but it sounds like many or even most of those are never made available for resale even when people ask what the price is. If it's really that bad there's no way to defend it, regardless of what made sense for house in the picture.

manski, Locurto is on that same Community Dev committee according to web site, so he should have some insight about what oversight they have over Real Estate Division, and/or what kinds of legislation they might start at least considering to force improvements. Russell, Smith, and Fontana are others, in addition to chair Golombek.

I'm sure that this house was torn down so fast that Buffalo ReUSE couldn't even get to it.

BROeditscomments and becker, As someone who bought a derelict property in which someone had been living for months without running water I can assure you that it's quite possible to turn a property like this around. The smell from the kitchen whose sink had been used as urinal was enough to almost make me vomit as I ripped it out, but I now rent that part of the house to someone who is happy to pay $1,000 a month for it.

You'll also remember the house on St. John's that sat for years with a huge hole in the roof after a fire only to be fixed by new owner and returned to the tax-rolls.

Whatever the problem is, and I think those who say that John Hannon is a big part of it are right, something has to be done to rationalize and professionalize the transfer of these properties to responsible owners.

Can BRO get an official response from the city on this demolition?

I think Hoss said what we're all thinking. This house was demolished now, in the wake of the previous thread, because it was shedding a light on the problem. Somebody figured that with the house gone the focus on the problem would go away.

Of course the official response will be either that it was on the list all along and they just happened to get to it on a Friday a week after the original posting (about which they knew nothing) happened, or that the house was literally about to fall down.

If you believe that, I've got a $2,000/month apartment I'd like to rent you for $1,500/month because my tax credit just came through.

BRO, so people attempting to buy and fix up this house is retarded how exactly?

Some things are not worth saving.

This specific house was not fixable. Anyone with half a brain wouldn't sink a dime into this property. As someone who has worked closely with Buffalo's vacant housing crisis, i can assure you that despite what Harvey and anyone else thinks about this specific property, as pretty as the outside may look in the snazzy picture above, there was no saving this house.

You have to be realistic... there are still over 10,000 houses just like this one all over the city. Some are worth it, and some are not. And if you think you can save every house in this city

I applaud you atwaterlouse for trying to steer the debate on this thread. My comment was meant for the retards who think heads should roll or are outraged every time our community rids ourselves of one of these filthy disgusting, and extremely dangerous eyesores.

As the weather get colder, that house could of went up in flames at any time.

And whose head would roll if a firefighter was killed trying to save the houses next to this one.

I said this in the original post and I'll say it again, this is completely undermining EVERYTHING that is discussed on this web site as well as the greater pro city movement. Please get the responsible people here into the next episode on WBFO and interview them to figure out what is happening here!

What are people prepared to do about it? Note: posting on BRO doesn't count.

BROeditscomments, I don't find your assessment of the condition of this house credible. Jeff Brennan is a contractor with significant experience working on properties in the City. If he was willing to purchase this property and felt that it could be restored I take him at his word. Also, arguing whether this house was not salvageable in December 2007 is a red herring. Jeff tried to buy the property a few years ago. If it has declined from salvageable on unsalvageable in that time then the blame is entirely on the City, and it only serves to strengthen the argument of those who question the City's policy.

No matter how you slice it the bottom line is that the City took a property with actual and potential value, dumped a significant amount of money into it, and now has something that has hardly any, if not negative, value. That is simply not smart on any level.

I agree with both the 13:50 comment by Charger and the second (clarification) 09:16 comment by BROeditscomments. Those both are moving away from what I’d consider a more extreme sounding comments by each of them previously on either side of this. Sometimes what’s not written in a comment can make it sound more extreme than the writer intends.

One can agree most of the 10,000 and growing vacant houses won’t be saved, and also agree people who want to take a chance on buying/rehabbing a city owned house should be allowed to unless for people with a bad record of violations or unless the house is a danger. But either way, the city should provide them a reasonably prompt purchase price offer or an official written explanation.

Seems pointless to me for a witch hunt about why this one house was demoed Friday instead of few weeks or months later. It had "gas cutoff" written on it, and in previous BR article Dec 10, Harvey's quote said he was told it was *already* on city's demo list - before mention on BR. It's not as if the city doesn't demo houses on a regular basis. They plan 1000 next year, average of 20 per week if spread evenly over whole year.

This house did help show how f-ed up things are when citizens asked the city a while ago about buying it, back when it might’ve been saved, and were blown off as apparently usually happens. Issue to me is a big improvement in the system so people who know what they're getting into and want to buy one anyway are allowed to pretty easily.

Artvoice story Hoss linked was about 1500 MBBA-owned hosues. Nobody has said this was one of those. It might've been one of the 8000-9000 other vacant houses in Buffalo. Even if it was MBBA-owned, having it disappear wouldn't seem relevant to its use as a continuing bond asset as Hoss theorizes.

If people want to say there was cause-effect, it’s hard to ever disprove a charge like that. But I don't see any reason to think the house being pictured on BR had anything to do with when it being demolished Friday.

For any house beyond realistic chance of saving, then sooner it comes down, the better it IMO. Arson, blight, crackheads, etc. Separate issue from the other thing, overlapping only in the judgment call of when decline has overcome rehab likelihood. Professionalism and transparency should be demanded in those decisions, but the key is trying to keep a house from getting anywhere near that bad in the first place, in those cases when someone has an interest in buying it.

Colin - in earlier comment, Harvey said the council “recently started working on” this problem.

A good next step would be for whichever council member/s is/are involved to issue some info to the public about what specific changes they think should happen and how they plan to encourage or force such changes.

It would be nice if council members would start regularly posting such info to the web, 21st century style.

The next time any council member wants BR to praise a pet project for something they find more fun to talk about, they could tell them first to give a good update about where this stands.

I'm a bit late jumping in on the conversation, but to put in my two cents worth:

1) As to BROedits' post on the condition of the house: I have many friends in a revitalizing neighborhood here in RaChaCha who are part of a core, committed group of neighbors who have purchased and rehabbed their homes - many of which were purchased in derelict condition. People are getting to them one by one, and there are still a couple left. I was in one of those, and it fit BROedits' description to a "T". The folks in the neighborhood laughed at my shocked reaction and told me that most of their houses were in comparable condition when they bought them. Don't EVER underestimate what gutsy, committed, civic-minded people can take on and accomplish - the same kind of people (except even more so) who are turning around Harvey's neighborhood. I know 'cuz I've met many of them.

2) As to what to do to shine a brighter spotlight on Buffalo's dysfunctional real estate department, here's an idea: your inimitable Buffalo columnist, Donn Esmonde, loves nothing more than to take a stick to public malfeasance and incompetence - my favorite columns of his are those in which he gleefully takes swing after swing at a big, richly deserving target. In these terms, it sounds like the real estate department would be a "target rich environment" for Donn, and the comments here provide plenty of ammunition. I'd encourage people to e-mail with links to this article (and the previous one "There are real solutions that are being ignored"), and ask him to give this demolition, and the real estate department in general, The Esmonde Treatment.

Enough is enough!

lol i love how half the posts contain BROedits in it...apparently the first amendment stops when you get to this site

ps - there are more than enough boarded up houses for all of us...the city really should give/sell cheap houses to those who want to give them a try...imagine owning your own house, granted there might be crack dealers outside (or inside if its cold), to do whatever you wanted with...amazing. Only in Buffalo

Let's show up late for the parade and then try to stop it...(BR: Deleted comment...this one was true but it hurt us)....

(BR: Deleted comment...this one was true but it hurt us)....

What the F**k is wrong with you? Elena and Newell, are you really that f**king shallow?

Im going back to WNYmedia, at least there you can talk shit and not get edited because you hurt someones feelings..

Go F**K yourself. Edit that ass clowns!

Adios!!!!!

ecb: Fuck you... how's that for irony?

Three days and that's all you can come up with? Witty BROEdits. You've proven for the thousandth time what an idiot you are. Why do you keep embarrassing yourself?

Does anyone know how to get in contact with Al Alo who was mentioned in this story?

Jon