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Charlotte's Decaying Suburbs


Justadude

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....Transit might also make certain improvements, but realistically speaking if you live in a Charlotte suburb you have to drive a car to function. I don't see any possibility for truly integrating these neighborhoods into the fabric of the city, because they are fundamentally designed to provide separation and independence. That's a pretty scary thought ....
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^ I agree that in many cases, Eastover shares similar problems to the start-home subdivisions, though a few key differences should help insulate Eastover.

#1. The building stock is infinitely superior. Most homes have chartacter, and there isn't a HOA preventing people from adding value.

#2. Homes have a much higher value, which means the majority of people qualifying to live in Eastover aren't marginal buyers with high credit risk. The few foreclosures that have occurred in the intown neighborhoods have been resold at near market value thanks to #1.

#3. Location, location, location. Currently, intown/south Charlotte comands a premium for houses of comparable quality all the way up the scale. This isn't to say this will always be true, but I don't see it changing in the next decade.

Of course, all of these factors weren't enough to save Detroit, where you can still get a home equivalent to the nicest Eastover has to offer for under $200k, so anything is possible.

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^ Exactly

About HOA's....in general I despise them, but especially in these communities, they have done more harm than good. If the sole purpose is to maintain aesthetic blandness (for a fee), then it is doomed. This is the reason that I suggest that the city take authority of the HOAs. I'm not sure it is legal as the laws are written today, but I don't think it would be as difficult as the city taking actual properties. Again, if the city were sub out this function to private property management groups, then they could be effective.

Question for anyone....can a HOA place a lein on a property if has gone through the foreclosure process and is owned by the bank and the bank doesn't pay the dues?

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I think the bottom line is the HOAs of these communities are not going to fix this problem. They are there to enforce some sort of standard that was established when neighborhood was built. They can't do much about bad planning, forclosures and all the other problems listed in the article above.

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My aunt, who is a community organizer in Nashville, had a pretty nice take on the social psychology at work here.

"The demographic content makes for an interesting dilemma, too. A lot of times, at least in my opinion, people who move to the suburbs are the type that engage in issue avoidance rather than problem solving. It is quite likely that the decline will continue for a long time because people will just move rather than try to stay and fight.

...When there are problems, you just move, because "that's what you do." Especially when all the houses look alike and you're already commuting a long way to work and all you want is place to call home that you think is safe. If there isn't anything particularly distinctive about the neighborhood, then it is pretty interchangeable with another one."

When a neighborhood is that disposable, of course it is going to crumble. The people in the Observer article have, for their own reasons, come to consider those neighborhoods as home and worth fighting for.

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Well actually that describes every neighborhood built in Charlotte since Eastover was built which was the first gated, car only, neighborhood. And the problem extends beyond University City. The difference of course between the Eastovers and the Ballentynes and the neighborhoods listed in the documentary is in the demographics of the people involved and there is a a tendency in Charlotte to ignore the issues that arise in areas where the lower end of the income scales live.
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If you look at old pictures of housing developments, there's nothing unusual for all the trees being removed and the houses all looking the same. I think something else has changed.

My grandfather told me once that in his day, buying a house meant putting 1/3 as a down payment ... it was a major commitment to the place. Nowdays, people put 3% or even zero down, especially in builder sales where there are various incentives on the table. It's not THAT much different than a deposit on an apartment. Home "ownership" has become more transient.

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Some areas like Eastover have managed to stay affluent and stable, while others like the Shamrock area have gone from affluent to blighted... but none have declined and then been reborn. The only exceptions I can think of are the "old" suburbs such as North Charlotte and South End, which had to be urbanized before they were able to begin an upswing;
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Gentrification /= Revival

Charlotte has had some "gentrification" due to baby boomers and their offspring looking for something different than they grew up in but the resulting neighborhoods have little in common with the original communities that existed in these places when they were built. For the most part they have been turned into exclusive enclaves that have more in common with Ballentyne than the urban neighborhoods that are envisioned by many here. Myers Park and Dilworth are both prime examples. (I remember when there were boarded up rotting homes in both places.)

Real revival means that you restore a neighborhood back to the original intent of the neighborhood or community and make it available to people who are interested in encouraging and maintaining a good community regardless of the income levels that might want to live there. Real revival is unfortunately very rare in the United States and almost unheard of in the South including Charlotte, because we get back to the old problem of government involvement which many people see as socialist and prefer to leave it to the private sector.

The last thing these places need is for developers to come in an push down the neighborhoods and build more McMansions (which is also part of the problem) or for these places to all of a sudden become popular and the homes get re-developed into McMansions which is taking place in parts of SE Charlotte which for the most part, has a lot of very similar housing.

As I mentioned above I don't expect there will be any real change in Charlotte that will do something about the existing problem, but the city really needs to sit down and stop more of it from being created.

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^ Just a point of clarification... what do you mean by the "original intent" of a neighborhood? Some of Charlotte's inner suburbs (NoDa and South End being the most distinct examples) were originally conceived as mill villages. I can't imagine going back to that kind of neighborhood structure, even with the best of intentions. Or did you mean something else?

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I think we all agree that sprawling subdivisions consisting of substandard homes breed a lack of interest and care in their vitality and ability to hold value. Ideas to change this paradigm have been floated but our City Council consistently caves to developer interests and refuses to take a strong stance for responsible growth. Remember the much ballyhooed Transportation Action Plan (TAP) that was proposed last winter? It included such gems (paraphrasing) "Charlotte will be one of the best examples of smart growth in the country". When it came up for discussion the builders complained and the whole idea was dumped. The same is happening with proposals to limit the size of streets and increase sidewalks. It's a bipartisan problem. Plus we have a Mayor that will never go against business interests in this town because he is in hock with them. These neighborhoods are on their own to sink or swim and these days they are sinking fast.

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A couple of things to add: One, everything that has been built has been legal. Following our zoning ordinances and subdivision regulations leads to this sort of outcome in the built environment. Two, not all of these suburbs consist of "substandard" homes--far from it. The Pulte home in U City is the same as the Pulte home in Ballantyne. Speaking of, some areas of U City have more disposable income than Ballantyne (hence Trader Joes, Harris Teeters on every corner).

I think the problem is that transplants move to Charlotte and see these big suburban homes for less than $100/sf in areas like U City. They're new and seem appealing. They move here and after 3-5 years they realize that South Charlotte or Union County provides the suburban community they REALLY want (more white, less crime, better schools). One or two foreclosures on the block leads to uneasiness. One or two break-ins lead to fear. The choice is to stay and fight. But what are you fighting for? The community is replaceable. The same house can be had throughout the region for a range of prices that reflect the value of the intangibles you find important. Class flight ensues...

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That still ties to what I said - we may be over incentivizing home ownership. Traditionally home ownership has been around 65% of dwellings, and that went up to 69% during the housing craze. A lot of people would be better off waiting a little longer and building up a good down payment first.

I know my parents saved up about 15% for their first home purchase. I had 25% when I bought mine. I still followed the "old thinking" that a house is hard to sell... and that you only bought one, when you're sure that you won't move for several years. It was a great relief to me, to even be able to sell mine at a profit after 3 years.

During the craze, people were thinking all you had to do was hold for two years and make a tax free profit.

It is not a popular notion - but I think getting rid of the mortgage interest deduction and the tax free status for home sales would be healthier for buyers in the long run. They would make decisions more rationally, and not think of a house as a profit center and stretch so quickly to get into one. I'd be quite willing to give up my own mortgage interest deduction, if we could reform the tax code and made those awful 1040's nothing more than a post card.

Nobody in their 20's really "has to" buy a house. My parents raised me in apartments until I was 8 years old. I didn't "need" a yard because the gounds of the complex had plenty of space for me to explore and ride my tricycle, etc.

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This is going to be a very difficult problem to fix retroactively, for all the reasons that have been mentioned. I would hope that since the city is going to have to help pick up the pieces of the mess, that they would use this as an impetus to implement new policies regarding fringe ETJ developments... require mixed use zoning for larger developments (incl diverse housing types: SF, townhome, condos), require more neighborhood connectivity (USDGs should help here), charge impact fees to develop parks and other amenities, either require or give incentives for mixed-income neighborhoods (mixing of housing types and socio-economic strata often limits this rapid decay).

While its not surprising to see whats happening, I'm wondering what role does the subprime lending crisis play in all of this? Surely the developers aren't all to blame here?

I think that in the long run, developers will be redeveloping these crappy subdivisions into more substantial, and well built mixed-use developments. This epidemic is too large for the government to solve on its own. What's really ironic is that some developers were and are opposed to higher quality standards, and we're all stuck with their mistakes.

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Back to the real problem at hand. The Observer did another story today on this subject and makes note there were 1100 more building permits approved in these zones where the foreclosure rate is very high. It's amazing the city is allowing the developers to continue to build when there are endless numbers of similar housing being foreclosed and abandoned in the same areas. This directly from the mouth of Charlotte's planning director Debra Campbell. "What do you say to a developer?" she said. " `Because there has been an increase in foreclosures, you can't build?' "

Well duh, yes you do Debra and frankly your response makes me wonder who you are looking out for. You say no if you have a desire to create a nicely planned city instead of one that maximizes profits for developers who could care less. Huntersville and Davidson both did this (for different reasons) by simply placing a moratorium on all new construction in their spheres for over a year while they studied the issue before arriving at a comprehensive development plan for their areas. The developers and land owners screamed bloody murder and threatened lawsuits while this happened, but the end result, is since 1996 these areas have been spared from large swaths of starter home development and the associated problems in their spheres of influence. It's very noticeable if you drive down Huntersville/Concord road. As soon as you cross the county line, there is strip development after strip development. It's even more striking down Huntersville/Mt. Holly road as one side of that is zoned by Charlotte the other side is zoned by Huntersville. Guess which side is populated by vinyl houses while the other remains farmland?

Charlotte could almost immediately put a stop to this kind of construction, but I don't think yet there is the political will in the city to do so, because it has yet to become a big enough problem that it effects the downtown interests. When that happens, most likely you will see some change, maybe including the installation of a new planning director, but unfortunately right now, the city is not using the tools at its disposal to manage this problem.

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The business ethos in this town is so pervasive that it outweighs the guardian role the city should play. The planning dept is too subservient to builders. I don't see Charlotte's mentality changing. The elected city officials quoted in today's article are still viewing the problem through a prism that believes it could not have been prevented which is completely false.

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Back to the real problem at hand. The Observer did another story today on this subject and makes note there were 1100 more building permits approved in these zones where the foreclosure rate is very high. It's amazing the city is allowing the developers to continue to build when there are endless numbers of similar housing being foreclosed and abandoned in the same areas. This directly from the mouth of Charlotte's planning director Debra Campbell. "What do you say to a developer?" she said. " `Because there has been an increase in foreclosures, you can't build?' "

Well duh, yes you do Debra and frankly your response makes me wonder who you are looking out for. You say no if you have a desire to create a nicely planned city instead of one that maximizes profits for developers who could care less. Huntersville and Davidson both did this (for different reasons) by simply placing a moratorium on all new construction in their spheres for over a year while they studied the issue before arriving at a comprehensive development plan for their areas. The developers and land owners screamed bloody murder and threatened lawsuits while this happened, but the end result, is since 1996 these areas have been spared from large swaths of starter home development and the associated problems in their spheres of influence. It's very noticeable if you drive down Huntersville/Concord road. As soon as you cross the county line, there is strip development after strip development. It's even more striking down Huntersville/Mt. Holly road as one side of that is zoned by Charlotte the other side is zoned by Huntersville. Guess which side is populated by vinyl houses while the other remains farmland?

Charlotte could almost immediately put a stop to this kind of construction, but I don't think yet there is the political will in the city to do so, because it has yet to become a big enough problem that it effects the downtown interests. When that happens, most likely you will see some change, maybe including the installation of a new planning director, but unfortunately right now, the city is not using the tools at its disposal to manage this problem.

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Its one thing to place a moratorium in small towns. Its another thing entirely to place a moratorium in a large city. Its going to very hard to get that kind of approach past council. Its still going to have to take some form or "saying no" but it will have to be a more indirect approach.
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Not much...you can watch the video on charmeck.org of the last city council meeting where they breifly discussed this. Councilman Barnes asked City Staff to put together a response to the Observer stories and present that at the next council meeting. McCrory just said he thought that was a good idea and this was something they needed to look at.

I think utimately this issue will be reffered to the Housing and Neighborhood Development Cmte where it will be studied for a couple of months and we'll have to see what they come up with.

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