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Friday, August 3, 2007

Adding Up

In a recent post to his St. Louis Real Estate Law blog, attorney Greg Kelly offers an interesting idea for ensuring that Paul J. McKee, Jr. stops abusing city government's ability to provide maintenance for his north side holdings. Writes Kelly:

Right now, the city adds a 10% premium to the final bill before sending it to the property owner. Simply increase that premium by 10% for each subsequent bill. At some point not too far down the line it will be come cost prohibitive to have the city maintain the property.
by Michael R. Allen on Friday, August 03, 2007
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4 comments:

Anonymous said...

If they were LRA properties, the taxpayers would be footing the bill for the grass and board ups.

At least this way, some guy in St. Charles is paying.

6:15 PM, August 03, 2007
Anonymous said...

He'll be compensated by the state. You are/will be paying for it if he has his wish. If LRA could get 100 mil we could get LRA buildings to a state normal people aren't scared to purchase and rehab, or at least some basic maintenence.

7:09 AM, August 04, 2007
Doug Duckworth said...

Yes, the City foots the bill for LRA property grass cutting, through the City Department of Forestry, at an excess of 3.4 million per year.

I ask you to drive around St. Louis Place. Grass cutting is a small concern when it comes to the rampant rustling of McKee's and LRA's holdings. Soon, grass will be the legacy remaining if the City does nothing to stop this rustling, aka, sanctioned blockbusting by Paul McKee.

12:34 AM, August 05, 2007
LisaS said...

Actually, I don't think that's a bad idea, and here's why:

The point of the City issuing maintenance citations is not to remind property owners to maintain their buildings & mow the grass, but to provide a real and tangible deterrant to letting things get bad in the first place. In the current system of lax enforcement, fines are waived--which I think is okay in an individual case. But for the second or third or tenth case ... the fines should be levied and paid, without reimbursement from the State as the previous tax credit bill proposed. Why should I pay someone to break the law and degrade the value and safety of my city?

Also--for the cases where the City has to perform demolition and lawn care services, someone downtown needs to do some research to make sure we're (City government is, after all, representing the citizens) charging market rates (or even slightly above) for demolition and lawn service. That could provide both deterrent and profit center in and of itself.

12:11 PM, August 05, 2007

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