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Proposed House Flipping Legislation


DavidSegal

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You're wrong on this one, Cotuit -- you aren't quoting me, unless I'm not seeing the post where I said that. This is what I said yesterday:

"Literally thousands and thousands of properties -- worth hundreds of million of dollars in aggregate -- sold multiple times over the last few years within the borders of Providence alone."

And that I stand by. Like I said, I working on figuring out how much money people tended to put into those, and how much profit they made off of them.

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I should add, I don't have a solid opinion on this either way as I a) haven't read the legislation, b) don't understand the problem, and c) am ignorant of the economics of the housing market in general.

Taking that ignorance into account, I tend to agree with TheAnk's and eltron's views on these matters and if they are wary of this proposal, that leads me to be wary as well. Not that I don't respect your opinions David, or Jen's (who seems to be agreeing with you), I simply don't understand your arguements at this point.

And also, I think it was Jerry and/or Pete, who brought up the best point. I want to know that a real problem is being solved and a real benefit is being created before we add more bureaucracy to our already overly bureaucratic government.

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In Providence, from 2002-2005, it seems that on the order of 15% of housing units were sold more than once. (Don't hold me to that specific number, but it's close.) That's not 15% of properties that were sold, but 15% of the _entire_ housing stock.
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Not to due with this legislation, but while I have David's ear, and since I just finished my boyfriend's taxes...

Massachusetts allows renters to deduct their rent up to a certain amount (I haven't paid taxes in Mass. in a long time so I can't remember how it worked, I think it was a percentage of your rent up to a certain amount, I was always able to deduct the maximum whatever it was), Rhode Island does not. As a representative of a city with a tragically low level of home ownership, I'd love to see you introduce legislation for a rental deduction in RI.

And for anyone getting ready to do their taxes, definately calculate the Telephone Excise Tax Refund, the standard deduction is $30.00 and ours actually came out to $107.33. Well worth it if you've held onto your phone records since March '03.

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Massachusetts allows renters to deduct their rent up to a certain amount (I haven't paid taxes in Mass. in a long time so I can't remember how it worked, I think it was a percentage of your rent up to a certain amount, I was always able to deduct the maximum whatever it was), Rhode Island does not. As a representative of a city with a tragically low level of home ownership, I'd love to see you introduce legislation for a rental deduction in RI.
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Wow, I have to honestly say that my response to the 15% number was, "That's all? Only 15%?" For a city with a half dozen or so universities and whose major growth industries contain some of the most transient types of workers (healthcare and academics) I thought the number would be far higher.
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When we look at it neighborhood by neighborhood, it becomes clear that flipping is concentrated in poorer parts of the city, where said students and professionals tend not to live -- about 40% of all sales are flips in many plats in South Prov, Mt Hope, etc.

Most students aren't buying condos, and grad students make up a small minority of the city's student population.

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great ideas!

I agree with most of this as an excellent solutions. The complex design phase makes it even more difficult for the smaller organizations (CDCs, arts organizations, etc etc) to become developers. I would like to see a process that streamlines things EVEN MORE for organizations willing to commit to affordability or other sorts of community give-back. Its a way to incentivise compliance and encourage small, local participants without necessarily a large cash outlay out the part of the municipal agencies.

I think another piece of this puzzle is rehab and the rehab code. it can be incredibly challenging and practically impossible to take a nontradtional structure and rehab it for something useful. code compliance is a challenging art and science, made even more complex by evolving uses. One idea (especially for new construction OR rehab with changing uses) is to somehow encourage the building dept to keep one person on a particular job for the duration of that job as much as possible. That way, a developer can expect consistent feedback, without having to change things based on conflicting interpertations and compromises in the enforcecment.

I hate the idea, however, of shrinking the sqft size for CDC review, thats where we got that horrible plan for atwells/knight. if anything, i would like to see the purview of the CDC BROADENED to include total SQFT, not just foorprint.

lm

Yes certainly! However, most the problems stem from inefficient city systems, not state issues that you're presumably looking for.

Looking at the big picture, if the state offered a consolidated centralized builidng permit and inspection process for all cities and towns in exchange for a pro-rated fee from municipalities, it would offer a level of consistency across the state, which hopefully would translate into predictability. I understand this is in place to some extent now but only for the tiniest towns on a voluntary basis- I'm talking about replacing all the larger city mechanisms also. A bigger centralized staff allows for greater systemization and most importantly, redundancy in staff expertise so that when one guy quits, the entire city isn't left reeling.

These comments relate directly to my experience with Providence, but I'm sure they translate pretty well to Pawtucket, E-Prov, etc.

1. Consolidate the permit review process by including building review, fire marshall, zoning, site/DEM, and health department review in one submission. Most major cities do this already as well as some counties that are bigger than our fair state. The current departments would still do their review, but the developer would file one piece of paper, one fee, and get comment letters and requests and a chance to revise drawings as it moved from department to department.

2. Agree to enforce either NFPA 101 or the International Building Code as the dominant building code - not both! - or at least publish consistent interpretations on where they differ. Most jurisdictions adopt either one or the other, and if they formally adopt both, are at least clear about which they are really enforcing.

3. Allow documented pre-review meetings with code officials early in the design process to be relied upon for final building review and the notes officially made part of the building permit application.

4. In Providence, raise the threshold of project size for CPC review, or at least, allow an expedited review for multi-family residential projects that meet a certain level of affordability.

5. Adopt amendments the zoning and building codes to encourage small scale mixed-uses (retail on ground floor) without triggering very expensive construction methods as is currently required. For example, in buildings with sprinklers and monitored fire alarm systems with a ground floor less than a 4,000 sf, allow unseparated mixed use groups between residential and mercantile occupancies.

That's just the for design phase....I'm sure others can offer suggestions for the construction phase inspections.

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When we look at it neighborhood by neighborhood, it becomes clear that flipping is concentrated in poorer parts of the city, where said students and professionals tend not to live -- about 40% of all sales are flips in many plats in South Prov, Mt Hope, etc.

Most students aren't buying condos, and grad students make up a small minority of the city's student population.

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I would like to see a process that streamlines things EVEN MORE for organizations willing to commit to affordability or other sorts of community give-back. Its a way to incentivise compliance and encourage small, local participants without necessarily a large cash outlay out the part of the municipal agencies.

I think another piece of this puzzle is rehab and the rehab code. it can be incredibly challenging and practically impossible to take a nontradtional structure and rehab it for something useful. code compliance is a challenging art and science, made even more complex by evolving uses. One idea (especially for new construction OR rehab with changing uses) is to somehow encourage the building dept to keep one person on a particular job for the duration of that job as much as possible. That way, a developer can expect consistent feedback, without having to change things based on conflicting interpertations and compromises in the enforcecment.

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).

Laura brings up a fantastic point - for developer's willing to give back public amenities - MAKE IT EASIER!!!! In Chicago, in return for green and environmentally building features, a developer can use a COMPLETELY PAPERLESS permit application, and decisions are guaranteed in 6 weeks, instead of 12. For an example here, we have been waiting SINCE JULY (27 weeks if you are counting...) for fire department approval (or denial) on an mixed income affordable housing project that is not that difficult...they are very typical woodframe buildings like can be found anywhere in the city, not something new and exciting. Its insane...

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Not to due with this legislation, but while I have David's ear, and since I just finished my boyfriend's taxes...

Massachusetts allows renters to deduct their rent up to a certain amount (I haven't paid taxes in Mass. in a long time so I can't remember how it worked, I think it was a percentage of your rent up to a certain amount, I was always able to deduct the maximum whatever it was), Rhode Island does not. As a representative of a city with a tragically low level of home ownership, I'd love to see you introduce legislation for a rental deduction in RI.

And for anyone getting ready to do their taxes, definately calculate the Telephone Excise Tax Refund, the standard deduction is $30.00 and ours actually came out to $107.33. Well worth it if you've held onto your phone records since March '03.

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As far as streamlining the development process --

The suggestions you've made are helpful. Better yet would be more specific references to existing statutes and such, as some of know much more than I do about the development process and where these changes need to be made. It'd be great if one of you (Eltron, Cotuit...) could take the lead on pulling together a more formal proposal that we could shop around to Thom, the CDCs, etc.

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As far as streamlining the development process --

The suggestions you've made are helpful. Better yet would be more specific references to existing statutes and such, as some of know much more than I do about the development process and where these changes need to be made. It'd be great if one of you (Eltron, Cotuit...) could take the lead on pulling together a more formal proposal that we could shop around to Thom, the CDCs, etc.

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