Fact: Salisbury's housing stock is approximately 70% rental. This is one of the most disproportionate ratios in the State, and nearly double the State average for similarly situated municipalities.
Opinion: Under the circumstances, landlords provide an essential service to the City. The alternative is blight, followed thereafter by crime. Take a trip to West Baltimore or Detroit and see what happens to communities where there is no investment from landlords in properties. If the landlords leave, or cannot make a profit, no one is going to fill that void. Keep in mind landlords are the ones maintaining and investing in these properties, not government. If you have no interest in going to West Baltimore or Detroit, take a look at north Smith Street in Salisbury. 20 years ago these relatively large homes were rented to college students and fairly well maintained. The City pushed out college students. Now you cannot pass through during the day without fearing for your safety.
Fact: Salisbury currently prohibits "not more than two unrelated people" from living in certain residential districts (all of which are within close proximity to Salisbury University). There are a minority of properties that have been "grandfathered" and are allowed to have as many as four unrelated persons. Very few of these grandfathered properties, if any, are currently occupied by college students.
Opinion: The idea that college students are "crammed" into residences around SU is simply not true. In fact, it is the opposite-the current statute does not take into consideration the size of residence or bedroom. In other words, a landlord owning a massive, multi-room home on Camden Avenue may rent to two unrelated students. The only people "crammed" in would be families or related persons. SU students may seem like an easy target, but it is simply not reality that they are overcrowding our residential neighborhoods.
Fact: The only existing scenario (with exception to the grandfather clause) where four SU students could living together would be in small, condominium-style rentals (such as University Park, University Orchard, Marley Manor, etc.). Many of these properties are partnered and/or subsidized by SU.
Opinion: The current situation in Salisbury creates a false economy. The large-scale, "favored" landlords, which have support from SU and the City, are the ones charging the "$1600" described by Mr. Crowe. Small, residential landlords cannot rent to three or four students, therefore cannot compete in a free-market economy with the large, subsidized landlords.
Fact: In Maryland, rent control has objectively failed in every community (such as College Park). College Park recently abolished its rent control legislation because it became clear it did not work.
Opinion: Rhetorical questions: why would a landlord ever purchase, improve or invest money in a property when he or she cannot charge fair-market rent? Only government would do such a thing. Do we want more, bigger government controlling our housing stock?
Fact: Salisbury's "Occupancy Code" (which prohibits more than two, unrelated persons from living together in neighborhoods) has been held to be applied unconstitutionally by the United States District Court of Maryland. The City is currently appealing this ruling in the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Opinion: The City is using your money to try to resurrect an unconstitutional law that never worked or made sense in the first place.
11 comments:
A lot of common sense here. Bigger older cities have eventually razed whole blocks or sold abandoned property for one dollar in order to have renewal.
PART I
Thornton’s Rebuttal:
Thank you, Viewer, for showing me there is life on the other side of this monitor...
However, I do want to take to task a couple of your statements.
First, as for the 70% rental rate, it is true because landlords buy up the homes for the sole purpose of renting them. The issue here is not the amount of rentals in the area, it's overcharging for said rentals. Back in the Eighties when Salisbury still had family neighborhoods, the City Council was warned that if homes continued to be purchased for real estate investment only, this result would occur. Because the CC didn’t heed the cautionary predictions, this has resulted in that 70% statistic.
Additionally, blight is what we see everywhere in Salisbury regardless of real estate investment because a lot of the landlords only do the bare minimal to upkeep their properties. There are few that go the extra mile beyond what the building inspector deems as ‘livable;’ however, in others, there are landlords whom do not even do the required maintenance or even bother to register their homes as rentals.
Salisbury is not Detroit or Baltimore or can be construed as an urban/metropolitan area. It’s a small, rural town that is central to the universities and college in the area. I know Salisbury folks hate to admit it, but these schools have become the lifeblood of the community – especially since so many major industries have packed up and shipped out! They employ thousands of locals and their investments in the community are invaluable.
Second, as for occupancy, there are a couple of things at play here that negates this 2-person rule you spoke of in your rebuttal.
Attorney, Luke Rommel, just secured a ruling on Federal Court level about the two-person occupancy situation that should be revisited in short order. (This occurred in December 2015.) I believe a quote in the newscast link states, "It's mathematically impossible..." And the judge is correct when average people try to rent. Example: If a person with just one child chooses to live with his/her love interest or roommate, they have broken this rule and are subject to eviction. http://www.wmdt.com/news/more-local-news/Federal-court-rules-against-Salisbury-in-housing-claim/36728438
Furthermore, please refer to the document listed on the city's website of properties that are exempt from this two-person occupancy rule. You will find many of them are in the Camden district around the school. http://www.ci.salisbury.md.us/business/property-information/rental-property-information
As you can see, there are a number of exemptions listed here where three or four unrelated persons can reside in these rental homes. These two documents show a total of 13 pages, single-spaced listings of address exemptions. Therefore, cramming students into dwellings, equating less than a thousand square feet is a reality. Plus, don't forget, in the county it is a different scenario altogether.
PART II
Third, comparing College Park to Salisbury is a bit misleading because in the University of Maryland College Park area, a student can make a substantially bigger paycheck should they choose to rent off-campus. However, in Salisbury, jobs are shrinking and the pay is an affront when compared to the rental prices and cost of living.
Four, as I have said, I am an OPPONENT to any government intervention in free market and trade; however, that free market should use some common sense and have a command of simple math skills.
Fair market for Salisbury wages is no more than $500-600 a month when looking at the qualifiers rental agencies like to use to determine a person's eligibility. This rule, in my experience, is a person should make four times their rent in gross (not net) salary. Given this rule, when rent is $1,600 a month, this means a person(s) needs to make $6,400 a month. ($81,600 per year) If for argument's sake, we have a two-unrelated person limit in effect - that's $3,200 a month, which correlates to a $38,000 minimum per year, per person in order to qualify for said rent.
What job, on a part-time or even full-time basis in Salisbury, pays $38,000.00? Not many, but if you have an inside track on that one, I want your phone number because I want that job!
As for the Constitution, there is a stark difference between Economics and the verb used in the Constitution. The problem here is price gauging and that is technically illegal.
as a former homeowner if fruitland i can will state as fact to look at the rentals it seems like the largest landlord has offices on waverly drive ,and at the time had 4 college students living in the house beside me home inspectins and laws are worthlist if they are not enforced the city and county is run on the good old boy philosophy if you don't bother me i won't bother you with the high rents the working class cannot afford to live in wicomico county,unless it is out in the boonies there are very few jobs paying enough to support a family in this county is it going to change,i doubt it ,so more people move out whereis the tax base coming from when there are no more jobs with people having enough income to support the economy
Big landlords here make big money, buy more houses, make more money, sell the whole thing for a fortune and spend the money in Florida. Very little can be said about what legacy they leave, or what contributions they made to the city. Most don't live within city limits, either, which says something about their assessment of how livable the city is.
The rental industry here accounts for an annual gross of over $120,000,000 for the roughly 5600 rental housing units.
The cry from big landlords is that they'll take care of their own problems without government intervention. That has proved to be not the case. There are a few who maintain their properties well, but they hold no influence over those who don't. And then there are big landlords who don't take care of their properties. They stand out like sore thumbs, yet join the cry to self-regulate, some of them the loudest of the lot.
Many of these neighborhoods were never intended to house more than families.
Please I live on Camden and I know the amount of students living in these houses and there is ALWAYS more than the code allows! Or there are 10 male hispanics that swear they are all cousins... Its a joke (by the way I am a single family homeowner who is an idiot and didnt do my homework when I moved into Salisbury. I guess I get what I deserve LOL)
"Salisbury is not Detroit or Baltimore or can be construed as an urban/metropolitan area. It’s a small, rural town"-- Thorton
I thought this too thirty years ago and than one day I realized it was no longer true. Also I am responsible for nothing here but the first comment and we have already done some razing in Salisbury and we will do more. Two out of three of the first houses I lived in as a young man in Salisbury no longer exist.
Everything grows old and most of it falls down or is torn down.
I have stated this months ago and will repeat it. SU sets the market rate for rentals with what they charge for dorm rooms. Look at the per person dorm room rate and look at the per person cost for rent.
Just after the 4-2 law was passed that restricted non-related occupants to two, a little house (1200 sq. ft. or so) across from the synagogue on Camden was occupied, according to city officials, by an estimated 60 people. Yes, sixty.
This house was owned by a couple of Ocean City landlords who charged by the head and by the week. $50 per head x 52 weeks x 60. You do the math. The place was a disaster. It was shut down and sold to another landlord, a young one, who had a permit to fix some stairs to the second floor, but took it upon himself to gut the place to the studs and the dirt. He was caught at it and the then-mayor (her) tried to leverage $20,000 from community funding to bail him out. This did not happen. A local developer who specialized in bringing back historic homes put a load of cash into it and sold it to a couple from out of town as a primary residence. It went from being a potential total tear-down to being a lovely little historic home. One small success story. Too bad there aren't more.
The writer says in the last paragraph, "...your money...", not "our money..." Do you think that they live in the city? Not likely.
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