Weekly Link Round Up

15344558258_a5f948b39e_z

The weekly link roundup is a collection of links related to Newburgh, revitalization, urban planning and anything else that might inspire change or create dialogue. “ Photo by Brian Wolfe

State audit finds fault with Newburgh spending plan [THR]
Newburgh’s police chief to hang up uniform after 42 years [Mid Hudson News]
The Starter Kit for Renovating Historic Homes [Preservation Nation Blog]
Transforming a Neglected Square [Project for Public Spaces]
Revitalizing historic properties revitalizes cities [Baltimore Sun]
New Detroit homeowners need financing to restore purchased homes [Metro Times]
Trenton city council unanimously passes fee for vacant property owners [NJ.com]
What’s the matter with Atlantic City? [Community Progress]

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**

3 Comment

  • “…the percentage of families in poverty has risen from 23 percent to 29 percent in Atlantic City since casinos first arrived, hardly evidence of economic improvement. Workers commute from the mainland, the profits go to companies headquartered elsewhere, and the tax revenues go to the state.”

    I guess this is why Mayor Kennedy wants a casino here. She must have an interest in the poverty industry too. Sad. This is obvious to anyone’s who’s paid attention to Atlantic City. It was a wonderful beach resort with iconic buildings and branding. The casinos destroyed it. The industry is not sustainable to anyone but the owners, and as this article points out, additional casinos cannibalize each other based solely on distance from the gambling base. The disingenuous promise of money for the schools would do nothing when it’s management of the money, not the lack of it, that’s the problem here.

    As for vacant properties, the City of Poughkeepsie recently passed a resolution that properties in foreclosure must have a $10,000 bond put up on each property by the banks. We need a similar law here.

    As for the city’s budget, we’re about to see the wreckage left by former Councils regarding our extraordinary debts. Without a tax rate decline, this city will be in a tailspin. We’ve recently lost a handful of key businesses that closed partially because of the property taxes. The loss of income from the sales taxes alone will hurt the city badly. And as we’ve seen with the newer businesses that provide a good number of jobs, we’re forced to give them tax breaks or lose them to competing local communities. And the non-profits keep growing. Who’s left holding the bag? The homeowners.

  • “All this has been reviewed by the State. There are no issues with it.”
    http://newburghny.swagit.com/play/11202014-785

    Cutting through the word cloud…
    …by using taxpayer subsidized credits to renovate a vacant housing stock with additional taxpayer
    money we can offer to rent the properties to subsidized renters and there by pay minimal property taxes.
    But hey, no PILOT and “Everybody gets paid”. (item 1b)
    …because only 7% of revenues are allocated to infrastructure…Bond it. (item 3e)
    …project the revenue shortfalls away and don’t address the f o r e seen expenditure increase. (item 5)
    …prospective buyers aren’t buying because they’re ignorant and we need to inform them properties are
    worth at least X amount. (item 6a)

    The tax rate/levy is symptomatic of the condition of expenses outpacing revenues. Yes, poverty, crime
    etc. as a whole is an industry that privatizes the revenues and publicizes the expenses. It’s a ‘skimmer’
    economy that has got out of hand. A reset would be financial suicide for a minority and spark an ‘Urban Spring’ by the majority. Across the board austerity is the safest alternative at this point but I’m not counting on it.

    http://www.osc.state.ny.us/localgov/audits/cities/2014/newburgh_br.pdf

    • 4.1% Homestead and 3.5% Non Homestead property tax increase for 2015. On a cumulative basis, since 2011 (excluding prior one time ‘negligence’ adjustment) that’s a 36% and a 35% tax increase respectively.
      ‘Got Recovery?