Arguments against the new parking policy and the War on Property Rights
Tom Grover posted this in
Posts on
April 29th, 2008
- The City’s new policy on property ownership creates unfair and unnecessary financial hardships and burdens.
- Construction modifications will cost property and home owners tens of thousands of dollars.
- Properties that can no longer function as a rental unit because there is not parking will decline in value.
- Property owners will lose income when units become vacant.
- Many retired couples and widows on fixed incomes are dependent upon renting the basement of the home they live in. Eliminating the parking of their tenants will put their income, livelihoods and ultimately homes at risk.
- The City’s new policy on property ownership will increase mortgage foreclosures, vacancy and blight.
- Property owners will see duplexes, legal conversions and other properties change in use through the new parking policy and therefore value of properties will dramatically change. Owners will then be upside down- paying the mortgage of a duplex while receiving no or little income.
- On Thursday when the new policy goes into effect, changing the use of many legal properties, tens of millions of dollars in real estate value will vanish.
- Massive foreclosures will result throughout inner-Logan.
- The City’s new policy will create the very problem it seeks to solve- blight. Foreclosed and unrented properties will become vacant. Owners, under financial distress, will have no resources for maintenance or improvements. Properties will sit vacant with weeds growing and boarded up windows. Real blight will result.
- The flood of foreclosed properties in Logan will devalue all property in Logan. The supply will far outpace demand, possibly excaserbated by national economic trends that will likely hit Utah.
- The City’s new policy on property ownership will not attract young families to “inner-Logan” as it intends.
- One of the proposed solutions to accommodate more parking is cement pads in back yards. What young family is going to purchase a home that has converted or must convert the play area of children to parking?
- CMPO and Logan City have extensive plans to run several corridor roads through “inner-Logan”. Busy streets already exist on 1st East, 2nd East, 6th East, 5th North and 10th North. What parent would want small children playing in such busy and dangerous streets?
- The Mayor would like to see a return of the neighborhood to the nostalgia of the 1950’s. In the 1950’s most families had just one car. Today even young families have at least two cars, yet the new policy accommodates just one car for most homes. This is an unattractive investment for them.
- The City’s policy instability makes for a risky investment. Given the dramatic shift in policy by the City, young families must wonder what other dramatic shifts may continue to change the use and value of homes in the future. A home is the biggest investment most Americans ever make. Young families will not invest in a City with unstable property policies.
- It is not the business of the City to decide what kinds of people will live in what kinds of neighborhoods. This is both anti-market and anti-liberty. It is social engineering.
- Changing the rules in the middle of the game is unfair.
- The only laws that count are the laws that are enforced. Logan City may be enforcing existing laws, but is dramatically changing its policy as if a law were being created.
- Logan City is not a homeowners association. Residents who wish to have a say in the private property of their neighbor should invite their neighbors to create a voluntary homeowners association. They do not have the right to use the force of government to impose their will on adjoining private property.
- Proceeding with the City’s new policy creates adversarial relationship with citizens.
- “What’ll happen a year from now is if they think we’re just bluffing we’ll put enforcement behind the statement. There’s going to be some of those nasty incidents” –Logan Mayor Randy Watts, Herald Journal, June 28 2007
- The City is willing to create collateral damage of legal properties and responsible citizens to eliminate illegal properties. The City cannot accurately discern illegal and legal properties. Therefore, it has put the burden of proof upon citizens and property owners. Legal properties without exhaustive documentation and often expensive legal representation will lose their rights.
- The desired effects of the current policy can only be maintained by an aggressive Executive and Council. The presence of Utah State University adjacent to “inner-Logan” is an omni-present market demand for rentals and student housing. A passive Mayor and Council in the future may not be willing to continue fighting the market forces, reversing all of the initiatives by current leadership.
As one of those young families that the mayor would like to see move to inner Logan, you have summed up beautifully the exact reasons why we utterly REFUSE to even consider owning in Logan.
i chose to move to logan from nibley becouse of the outrages way the stupid politics in that town ruined it. I have had my home now in logan for 5 years. I gess i to am exactly what logan city is trying to get to move into this town. but me and my wife have already decided to move if we catch anymore flak for are parkstrip. i dont use it as a parking spot i just chose to landscape it, and put a white picket fence. so we have decided to move but i will keep this house and rent it out. i think it will turn blighted and i will be a slum lord but i wont care couse i will be out in benson were my park strip is the front 40. Enjoy my blighted home logan