Banking on a building revival in Newburgh [Westfair Online]
Cleanup of collapsed Newburgh site to cost $200K [THR]
What Millennials Want From Public Transportation [Next City]
City of Newburgh wins $2.9 million federal infrastructure grant [Mid Hudson News]
3 ‘urban pioneering’ projects planned in region [THR]
Detroit lures Brooklyn poet with free house as part of new program designed to bring writers to Motor City [NY Daily News]
Placemaking is critical for the local economy [Better! Cities & Towns]
The Greenest Building is the One Already Built [Craftsman Blog]
Add your own photos depicting city life to the Newburgh Restoration flickr pool to be used on the blog, or email me. **Flickr users please do not forgot to remove disabling of downloading of pictures. Otherwise I can’t use them*
The $25 bil. settlement was a tip to tptb from the banks and only a small fraction of the monies actually made it back into the communities. Banks do not “donate” properties, they write down losses and liquidate the attached liabilities. -The Johnston street collapse…indicative of a lack of planning, waste of resources and carry through.- Quassaick bridge has been down for several months and the mayor isn’t sure where the funds to repair it will come from (someone might want to look into the agreement the city has with the state as per its maintenance). How is that billions in unfunded $’s are being poured into the new Tap’ bridge yet a key access point into and out of the City of Newburgh is in limbo (temp bridge aside). – Giving houses away, your free pass to serfdom.
The concept of ‘Embodied Energy’ was kicked to the curb by LEED, it’s good to see it’s being revisited.
Expanding on the article, there is the element of potential stored in an old building stock. If and when Newburgh does decide to shift revenue to infrastructure improvement, there will be an increased demand for resources (labor and materials) from the private sector to fulfill this need. While most of those at the ‘big table’ are scrambling to find “a list” of resources to fulfill the demand, the Johnston St. demolition brought to light that indeed the ‘City has trained people. To her credit, Councilwoman Mejia alluded to, cautiously stopping short of specifics, reallocating the ‘City’s revenues to expand the DPW (you could see the hair raise on some) for infrastructure improvements as support toward this effort. One way or the other, Newburgh’s taxpayers are on the hook; pay for infrastructure and support organic economic growth or remain with the current revenue/expense model and hope for more grants/aid for sustainability. Choose the latter and the city will continue to deteriorate, that’s evident for any one paying attention. Choose the former and the city may be rebuilt with the employment of local resources acting to mitigate the need to “combat” the crime and code issues. Having a vested interest tends to do that.
If only things were so simple.
There should be some recognition that crime is not the main industry of Newburgh. Crime must be addressed but immediately after that we need an economic and community development that is sustainably designed. The burden that is being carried right now is far too large by the property taxpayers in the city.
I would like to see a Newburgh Land Run. People could race down Broadway to stake their claims. The first one would be for city residents, the second for outsiders. It worked for Oklahoma, I think it would help jump start this town. Call me crazy but TIME IS MONEY and it is taking far too long to save Newburgh while the buildings are falling down all around.
Newburgh is not ‘restricted’ land… so where is the “run” ? There aren’t any staker’s of claim, ‘sooners’ or ‘boomers’, because the perceived value is at a minimum. Eliminating the $ value of some properties removes an essential element of capitalization,necessary to build an economy, and would plunge property values in the entirety diminishing the tax revenues in the aggregate. Perception is reality, having a massive clearance sale on Newburgh jibes with its ‘revitalization’ meme. The ‘City has, for decades, balanced the servicing of three masters: its tax base, the municipality itself and the renter class. Teetering on sustainability, that dynamic hit a wall when the facade of wealth was taken down in ’07 and exposed a structurally unsound model built level by level with IOUs. The model is out dated.
‘Chit runs down hill…the federal gov just temporarily funded the would be bankrupt federal DOT trust fund. It’ll last till May before new funding is sourced. As NY’s infrastructure needs are linked to these funds, it may be awhile before the Quassaick Creek bridge is repaired. F-16s don’t come cheap.
very simple. there are buildings not being used. that means that they are not of value to anyone. so change that by opening up the buildings to new ownership. A motivation could be a vacancy tax so that greedy owners who leave commercial buildings empty and claim federal tax deductions are forced to get a different strategy. That empty retail space on Liberty across from Washington Headquarters has been empty for at least 5 years! Numerous call to the landlord got offers of rentals at starting at $4,000 a month and recently the rent has gone down to a still unreasonable $1,200. The reason being that a retail space must be used in order to prove the value. A new business must market the location. It will take at least 2 years to build the retail location back. So the rent should be only around $600-$800 to start and once the business is a go, then is the time to increase the rent as the business can accommodate that. A vacancy tax of $600 a month would put a fire under the owner to get a new tenant!
As you said “there are buildings not being used”, does this not imply that ‘the buildings are open to new ownership’ ? What am I missing? Further, you seem to want to legislate a penalty on one private entity for an anticipated benefit of a collective. That’s socialism. Should I be taxed on my portfolio now or be forced to redeem it (fyi, a ‘wealth tax’ has been under consideration with eyes on public pensions as a starter). No, you can’t force demand by eliminating price discovery, a basic tenent of capitalism. As an entrepreneur one assumes the risk for the reward. Proof how market intervention doesn’t work: rates are low, sub-prime lending principles have returned, FICO scores have been redefined and even appraisal values are deliberately being lowered (http://www.opencongress.org/bill/hr5148-113/text) yet mortgage originations are down 60% over the year. Force the banks to book their vacant housing ‘assets’ back to market not fantasy and you’ll see affordability return. It will never happen as anyone and any thing leveraged against the inflated property values would be squeezed.
Things are only going to get tougher for cities such as Newburgh as the federal gov recently eliminated municipal bonds from the list of high-quality liquid collateral assets (HQLA). Muni bonds fund the nation’s critical infrastructure.
(http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/press/bcreg/tarullo-statement-20140903.htm)
Hang on, we’re in for a bumpy ride.