An Idea for the I-Team

Changes call for innovation, and innovation leads to progress.

June 5, 2016

Andrew Maxwell

Director of Policy, City of Syracuse

Director of Innovation, Syracuse I-Team

Syracuse City Hall

via email

Dear Mr. Maxwell,

Although I grew up in western Onondaga County, I've lived in the city for my entire adult life and, like you, consider myself a passionate Syracusan.  I appreciate the many things our city has to offer, including our diverse festivals, cultural opportunities, beautiful city parks, easy commutes, and our thriving downtown with its residential growth and enviable occupancy rate typically hovering at or above 99%.

I've long been a proponent of trying to find ways to extend the successes of downtown into our neighborhoods, including those closest to the downtown corridors. Programs such as the Near Westside Initiative are important in helping create identities and develop under-appreciated, under-served neighborhoods into ones that can eventually thrive, just as many of our other neighborhoods do, including Sedgwick, Westcott Street, Strathmore, Meadowbrook, Eastwood, and The Valley, where I live now.

We need even more of these initiatives that are designed to foster neighborhoods and communities within the city, the type of thing that could help save a neighborhood that's on the brink of tipping into despair, or that might even bring back a neighborhood that has fallen out of favor and is now deteriorating more and more every day.  I believe we need a Parade of Homes in the city.

Not the kind of Parade where homebuilders put up McMansions and McRanches with garages that are twice the size of the average city home; what I'm talking about is engaging the same folks who build the Parade homes, and putting their significant creativity, expertise, resources, and contacts into renovating a city neighborhood.

I've written about this in my blog, including in 2014 where I used Skunk City as the guinea pig neighborhood and described how a public/private collaboration including the City, the Onondaga Historical Association, the Greater Syracuse Land Bank, the school district, and the Homebuilders and Remodelers of CNY (HBRCNY), local businesses, and others could be tapped to help make this work. 

As I write this, the 2016 Parade has just opened, in the town of Manlius. Again. With $450,000 homes. Again. This year, with huge property tax breaks. 

It seems the Innovation Team has been focusing on infrastructure improvements (at least, that's the sense I get from looking on the website), and while clearly repairing our aging water delivery system and roads are critically important, those are necessities, not options. I appreciate having innovative ideas to approach these necessities, and am delighted that we've made progress in that area, but I believe that we need people infrastructure just as much as we need potholes filled.  We need neighborhoods. We need kids in our schools and we need police on the streets and we desperately need to expand our tax base. 

Just today, I found an article from April 2008 that touched on this same subject. In it, then president of the Greater Syracuse Board of Realtors David Manzano was noted to have said that

this is a good time to re-energize housing in the city, because...Syracuse has not felt the effects of the (housing market) crash.. (He) recalled telling a reporter that "for a while we were feeling like the crane was an endangered species, and I'm not talking about the bird."

Now he points to projects at hospitals and DestinyUSA as evidence that investors are once again interested in the Syracuse housing market...(He) also said he felt this would be a good time to educate young residents and then bring them back to Syracuse, to stimulate the local economy and housing market, If we're bringing young people to get educated and come back, it's nothing but good...

They say that all everything old is new again, and I think that's true in this case. Cranes are up at the hospitals; there's work being done on the SU hill with exciting changes coming to the Dome; the restoration of our beloved Hotel Syracuse is nearing completion; and there's work at DestinyUSA and in the Inner Harbor... 

So, is now the time to finally have a Parade of Homes in Syracuse? And is your Innovation Team the group to get the ball rolling?

I appreciate your consideration, and look forward to hearing from you.

Thanks.

The Place We Call Home (Part Two)

In Sunday's post, I referenced the idea that I've floated a couple of times, that we should have a 'Parade of Homes' in Syracuse, to generate interest for people moving to city neighborhoods like the one we live in, or that our friends and family who still live in the city enjoy.

One thing Syracuse is doing, through the Greater Syracuse Land Bank, is getting tax delinquent houses out of the hands of people who cannot or will not pay the taxes or maintain the properties, and get them into the hands of people who will. Houses that are too far gone are demolished, which leaves a hole in the neighborhood, to be sure - but the hole in the neighborhood is better than a crack house, or an arson target, or a long-term blight that pulls down all of the other houses.

We live next door to a Land Bank success story. A few years back, a couple bought the empty house next door to us with the intention of fixing it up; you can read how that quickly went south and then picked up, and got better. And finally, last fall, the Land Bank and Home Headquarters, and my new friend Ray you met in those blog posts, gave us a gift: the house, completely refurbished - no, transformed is the better word - was sold for $95,000 to a wonderful family.

We got lucky with the house next door, I know, and I'm very aware that everyone doesn't have the same outcome. There's simply not enough money to go around to give every neighborhood, the help it deserves.

Enter Tim Rudd, the newest guest columnist for the Post Standard. He's local; according to his bio, he graduated from Henninger and the Maxwell School at SU, and currently works in the social research field.

In a thoughtful commentary a couple of weeks ago, he noted that the Land Bank cannot on its own handle the problem of Syracuse's tax delinquent properties, because the problem is bigger than that:

As properties become tax delinquent, they often become rundown and less valuable. Thus there is often a gap between the actual and assessed value of properties taken by a land bank. To date, the land bank has not taken possession of all the delinquent properties that the city will eventually seize. This means, to the extent that assessments overstate actual value, downward assessments will continue and less property value will remain to support existing services, at least in the short term. A substantial long-term decrease in total assessed value could hurt the city's credit rating, making its debt larger compared to total property value. In order to protect the city's ability to make investments in our future, it is critical that government leaders expand and strengthen their efforts to stabilize and grow the property tax base. 

The other danger of a continued downward trend in total assessed value is that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Think about it: would you want to be the person to save the last house on the block? Or the next to last house on the block? Wouldn't it be better to get in when, say, the street has at least a 50/50 chance of survival?

How do we do that?

Specifically, government should create financial incentives for individuals, similar to those provided to large developers, to attract and retain residents who will pay taxes for many years. These incentives should economically develop city residents (emphasis added).

Economically develop residents?  Huh?

Treating our neighborhood problem as an economic development problem rather than as a property tax or property management problem, is a really interesting approach. And, it's broader than my Parade plan; where I looked for a neighborhood solution, Rudd looks at an individual homeowner solution. I really like his idea. He suggests we provide the same type of assistance to residents as we do to companies:

Individuals who will live in a house should get preferential purchase prices, instant access to financing, and a structured tax agreement (essentially a payment in lieu of taxes, or PILOT) where some fraction of their taxes pay for the initial investment in their property. These incentives should be promoted beyond Syracuse in hope that they will attract new residents. 

And why not?  The city needs residents, desperately, and it needs owner-occupied houses.  It needs to return to being more than just hipster downtown. We need to expand the energy and growth (and occupancy rates) of downtown out into our neighborhoods, and by Jove, if we have to incent people to come and play with us, why not?

If they're willing to continue subsidizing profitable companies in their move from one part of the county to another, or offering huge tax breaks to private developers who may or may not keep their commitments for development and job creation, our elected officials should certainly consider Rudd's suggestion.

Because in the end, we can spend all the money in the world on fancy projects and pretty buildings, but without people, what's the point?

The Place We Call Home (Part One)

Last weekend my husband and I attended the Home and Garden Show sponsored by the Homebuilders and Remodelers Association of CNY (HBRCNY).

The HBRCNY does a really good job with the show, making sure that there are at least a couple of options for folks in each of the common remodeling categories. They also have pretty good representation from their members who build new homes, and some of those booths seemed to be getting quite a bit of interest, as they do every year, from people who dream of having their perfect house, with all of the modern technology, and the kitchen/great room, or the man cave, or the patio and fire pit, or maybe a pool or even waterfront, if they find the right development.

We go to the show almost every year. Sometimes we're on a mission - last year, it was finding someone to paint the house, which was a hugely successful adventure. Our painter was there again this year, featuring 'before and after' pictures of our house that almost took my breath away.  This year it's getting someone to take a look at a maple tree in the back garden that has definitely seen better days; we've already booked the first consultation. Other times, though, we go just to look at what's new and trending in landscaping, patios, fencing, driveways, and renovating old homes like ours.

Our house is a city home, built over 100 years ago.  And that poses some challenges, for sure. The list of  "gee it would be fun to fix..." can get quite long, when we think about it; the reality is we would need a lottery jackpot to take care of everything we could fix. So, we chip away at things that have to be fixed, a bit at a time, watching as the mega-jackpots go to folks in other states, with other dreams.

Pat's lived in Syracuse his entire life; I grew up in the boons but have lived in the city since '79. This is our home. This house, with our gardens and our high ceilings and our porches and our front and back staircases and our pocket doors and all of its other little quirks and perks, and Pat's over 20 years of blood, sweat and tears, is where we want to be.

I wish more people wanted to be here, in the city. I wish more people were here.

I wish more people wanted to live in city neighborhoods like ours: good neighborhoods, generally safe neighborhoods, generally well-taken care of neighborhoods. Neighborhoods with homes having a mix of styles, and ages. On one side of us, the original house dates to 1860; on the other side, the house is just a couple of years older than ours - and two doors up, another oldie, from 1840. Across the street, most of the houses are newer, built between 1920 - 1950 or so.

The neighborhood is racially mixed; we have some houses occupied by families with kids, a couple of homes that are multi-generational, and there's even a shelter for homeless teens a few doors up.

Yes, I wish more people were here, and wanted to be here.

As I've noted in the past, I also wish the HBRCNY would undertake a Parade of Homes in the city of Syracuse, instead of staying in 'burbs.  I think of it every year when we go to the Home and Garden Show, and again each year when the Parade of Homes opens.  This year's Parade, which is really the one we should have had last year but was postponed because of the cold winter, is being held in Manlius, one of the wealthiest suburbs, once again. And once again, no city neighborhood is being swarmed with skilled contractors, with modern technology, with a blitz of construction activity. And that's a shame, because there are lots of neighborhoods in the city that could use Parade-like attention.

Here's my post on this from a while back, which I shared with a prominent city politician; she's not abandoned the idea yet, but she also hasn't made any progress on it, either. I've tried not to bother her too much, but I do touch base with her on occasion to see if there's anything I can do, anyone I can meet with, anyone I can talk with, to help make this happen.

While I've been trying to come up with a way to have a Parade of Homes in Syracuse, someone else has come up with another idea that would move us in a similar direction.  I'll talk about that in my next post.

Making Lemonade

A million times, I think I've heard the old saying "when life hands you lemons, make lemonade."  Well, I think we have a chance to do that.

Below is the email I sent to the Home Builders & Remodelers of CNY, Mayor Miner's office, and Common Councilor Helen Hudson, asking them to consider tackling a 'rebuild' project in Syracuse this fall, since the Parade of Homes has to be postponed until next summer.

The article mentions that the HBR is looking into doing some other event, and I hope they'll consider my idea (or part of it, or something similar).  After all, among the objectives of the organization is this:

to bring together the best and most reliable industry associated businesses, for the purpose of raising the bar of professionalism and customer service, and moving towards the goal of affordable housing for everyone in CNY. 

I have long maintained that a Parade of Homes in the city, not with brand new houses, but with a similar economic investment, could completely transform a neighborhood.  Pulling together all of the many resources available here, from the HBR to the Land Bank  to the myriad branches of government and even local organizations and businesses would be a challenge, but the reward - a renewed neighborhood, increased tax base, and a chance for existing homeowners to benefit as well - should be worth it.

Here's hoping that this time, with a basket full of lemons, we get enough lemonade to go around.

I read on Syracuse.com this evening the unfortunate news that this fall's Parade of Homes at Cranebrook is being delayed until next summer because site work could not be completed timely. 

 As we know, many people look forward to the Parade each year, most for decorating but some for the opportunity to get their dream home. And I know the charities that staff the volunteers for each of the Parade homes may also feel the pinch with the delay. 

Appreciating that, I would say that while this is a setback, perhaps it's also an opportunity to follow the old adage and make some lemonade out of lemons.

 Could this be the chance we've been waiting for to connect the HBRCNY and the City of Syracuse, not in traditional 'Parade' sense, but through a blitz rebuild Parade?  A chance of a lifetime for an urban neighborhood?  A chance for people to shine who usually don't get the spotlight? 

I encourage you to read my blog post on having a Parade of Homes in the city -- not on the outskirts of the city limits, but smack dab in the heart of the city, in a city neighborhood that could use some help and attention. A neighborhood like Skunk City. 

I think this could be a great opportunity, with the creativity, energy, and know-how that the Home Builders, City Hall, and Common Council can bring to the table.  

Thanks for your consideration.  

Stay tuned.

Hotel Syracuse: Another Step Forward

Hotel developer Ed Riley got more good news this week, and so did the City of Syracuse, when the Syracuse Industrial Development Agency (SIDA) approved a PILOT agreement for Riley's project to redevelop the empty and aging Hotel Syracuse, a cornerstone of 'south downtown' and Warren Street.

The deal approved by SIDA gives Riley's project a tax break of roughly $4.7 million over 14 years, and according to reports, requires him to create at least 100 jobs within three years, use all local labor on the project, and make a significant financial contribution. He still needs to secure additional financing on top of the state grants that he's already received to get the project going. The projected reopening is about two years out, but Riley has promised to make some incremental repairs to prevent further degradation of the structure this winter.

This is just one more stop along the way in the move to rehabilitate and reopen the hotel, which has been closed for a decade. Riley's company, the aptly-named Syracuse Community Hotel Restoration Co., was named the preferred developer back in February, and eminent domain proceedings  in July finally freed the hotel from our years-long waiting for or fighting with the foreign investors who owned her. Another step yet to be completed includes an agreement with the county for a guaranteed number of rooms to be available for conventions.

Regular readers may wonder why I'm not complaining about yet another corporate welfare handout; they know that I'm not a fan of many economic development practices, nor of overly-generous tax deals like the 30-year package offered to a developer to build Syracuse University a new bookstore.

And I'll admit to a hint of confliction on this one -- but just a hint.

As I've noted before, I would love one of the old gargoyles for my garden, but I would much rather we had the Hotel Syracuse restored and reopened, not only for sentimental value, or for the bump this will give our convention business, but also because it's another move towards extending 'downtown' outside the boundaries of Armory Square.

Projects like this one and the new City Center project planned for the old Sibley's building, the Merchants Commons building and others that flex and stretch our center-city neighborhood just a little bit each time, and which offer more than just apartments and condos, are good for the city and the greater metro Syracuse area.

Why?  Because, through projects like these, Syracuse has more to offer, which leads to attracting more visitors, which could lead to new companies wanting to come here, which means more people working downtown who are exposed to what we have to offer, which maybe means more people wanting to live in the city, which gives us a chance to extend our vibrant boundaries even further...

Now, if could just get someone to jump on my Parade of Homes in the City project...

Seriously: A Parade of Homes in Syracuse

I've written in the past on how wonderful it would be if we were to have a Parade of Homes in Syracuse, in one of our city neighborhoods.

The first time was when the 2012 Parade was getting underway.  That year, the event was held in a new waterfront development in the Town of Clay. In 2013, the Parade was at a new development on the Jamesville Reservoir, in the town of Lafayette.

This year's Parade, sponsored as always by the great folks at the Homebuilders and Remodelers Association of CNY (HBRCNY) is going on now, and again it's not in Syracuse -- again it's in the Town of Clay.  Other sites for the Parade over the past several years include Brewerton (2004), Manlius (2005 and 2010), Cicero (2006), Onondaga (2007, 2009), Liverpool (2011), and Clay again (2008).

In 2015, the Parade is returning to another favorite location, Manlius, when they'll put up new homes right near Mallard's Landing.

Some perspective:

• Mallard's Landing is a community where, in one section, the lots alone start at $168,000, according to their website; most of the available lots are listed at well over $200K. And, as as they used to say on Seinfeld, "not that there's anything wrong with that".  I don't begrudge people living in communities like that if they can afford to, and if it's what they want. 

• The average price of the 1400 homes sold in Onondaga County this year (through June 10th) is $169,100, or basically just pennies more than the starting price of one of those Mallard's Landing building lots. 

• The House of the Week in today's Post-Standard is one of this year's twelve Parade homes, five of which have already been sold. It has four bedrooms, three full bathrooms, a home theater, and a screened porch, complete with ceiling fan.. (I don't feel so bad now about putting ceiling fans on my new screened porch last year). At over 3100 square feet, it's priced at $449,950. With 20% down, that's a mortgage payment of over $1700 a month; the estimated taxes are over $15,000.  There's also nothing at all wrong with this as a housing choice.

• In contrast, the average sale price of a home in the city of Syracuse this year is $94,300, or about one-fifth the price of the house of the week.  

So. Here I am, armed with the information above, and I wonder, do I just keep writing posts on why I think it's a good idea to have a Parade of Homes in Syracuse and expect everyone else to try and come up with where and how?  Nope - not this year. This year, I'll commit:

Let's have Parade of Homes in the city -- Skunk City, that is. 

Skunk City is a neighborhood on the West side. Picture the area stretching from Geddes Street on the east, Grand Ave to the north, Velasko Road to the west, and Bellevue Avenue as the southern border. Delaware School and Fowler. The Mundy Branch library. A few minutes away from a Wegmans and a PriceChopper, and from Upper Onondaga Park. Very close to downtown. And in need of help.

As of its most current listing, if my count is right, the Greater Syracuse Land Bank has 50 properties in inventory located in Skunk City: an apartment building, five two-family homes, 12 single-family homes, and 32 vacant parcels.

Folks, this is simply not how you sustain a city.  You sustain a city by having homes on the tax rolls, by having thriving neighborhoods with all the nearby conveniences that people who live out where we have the Parades of Homes have to drive to, often through significant traffic nightmares. I mean, how interested are you in the Lyndon Corners, Route 92 or Route 31 treks to the store?

You sustain cities by having committed people staking a claim to their home, their block, their corner, their neighborhood.  People who keep an eye on each other, who help each other out. Who plant community gardens, and daffodils, and put up birdhouses.

Tax-free economic development zones for businesses, and SAIL-OPTs (my new acronym:  Service   Agreements In Lieu Of Property Taxes) with our over-abundance of not-for-profit parcels, and nice signage and Connective Corridors, help some, but they won't sustain a city.

No, what's happening in the once-proud Skunk City is not sustainable, nor are the things that are happening in our other once-proud city neighborhoods. So again, I ask you to imagine a Parade of Homes, right in Skunk City:

• What if the Onondaga Historical Association (OHA), and the Preservation Association of Central New York (PACNY), could provide context for what Skunk City used to look like, and help architects and builders and interior designers come up with a plan for the Parade homes so they'd be scaled and in character for a city neighborhood? That could include both single family homes and two family homes, for multi-generational living or so that homeowners can get some help towards their payments. 
• Wasn't our city architecture mapped back during the Driscoll administration? Does anyone know what happened with that project, and if they got around to Skunk City?
• And what if our local colleges, who have just proved they can collaborate on a grand scale, also got involved in helping to plan additional development in the rest of the neighborhood, small businesses and traffic patterns and greenspace design and public art and all of that? 
• And if the local governmental agencies could make sure that any zoning, code enforcement concerns, environmental issues and the like were all smoothed out as the project was in the development stage so there were no surprises or delays once things got started, wouldn't that be time well spent? 

And then what if  the Homebuilders Association, seeing all of the synergy and energy around the project, joined the collaboration and loaned their considerable talents and recruited their members and regular partners to tackle at least some of the vacant properties in the Land Bank's inventory, and rebuilt the neighborhood?

Of course, there's more to this than just the nuts and bolts. There's people:

• How about the Tomorrow's Neighborhoods Today (TNT) group goes out into Skunk City to make the pitch to current neighbors, to make sure that they are informed, kept abreast of what's going on, and to provide reassurances that it will still be Skunk City when it's done? 
• And what about grants to the current neighborhood residents, so they could take care of some their 'honey-do' lists on their own houses? 
• And let's get the Syracuse City School District folks out in the field too. Delaware and Fowler have issues, as we know, but let's not run from them. Let's make sure the 'neighborhood schools' are truly of the neighborhood, with a whole new constituency paying attention, being involved, keeping tabs on things, offering ideas. 
• Local banks and credit unions, some of whom offer education and assistance for potential home buyers, could be brought into the fold, along with local Realtors, and collectively come up with great packages for buyers to get them into the homes. 

What else can we do?

• Well, let's provide incentives for city employees (teachers, police, fire, DPW, etc.) to live here, whether it's a break on the price of the home, or a short-term break on their property taxes, or a even a bonus each year that they truly live in the city. There are already some programs like this but let's make sure we've got all bases covered and that folks are aware the programs are out there. 
• Maybe all of the families that move into the new Skunk City get memberships to the Rosamond Gifford Zoo, or other community incentives, to welcome them to the neighborhood?
• Let's think seriously about providing incentives to families who enroll their kids in city schools, rather then provide incentives to people who take their kids out of city schools. 
• Let's make sure we give breaks for the builders on materials and sales tax and other upfront charges, just like we do on commercial developments; if this can't happen for residential construction under existing city ordinances, fix the rules so it can. We need to start looking at residential growth, at neighborhood reclamation, as an economic development engine for the city. 
• And let's think seriously about what else we can do to make reclaiming and renewing a neighborhood as interesting a proposition as is living downtown, where we have an occupancy rate above 99%.

Maybe people are already working on something like this; maybe they're not.  But can we afford to sit around waiting for something to happen, waiting to see if we can get a Parade of Homes in Syracuse in 2016, the next open date on the HBRCNY calendar?  Can Skunk City wait that long?

I vote we try to do something now. What about you?

Five Years of veritable pastiche

Five years ago today, I published my first post on this blog.

I still remember the trepidation I felt as I pushed the button on that offering, a mere two paragraphs in which I expressed hopes that I would give people something to think about every once in a while.

Since then, I've published over 400 entries, started probably another 100 that I never did anything with, and jotted down ideas for dozens more, some of which never made it past a link or article that piqued my interest. Just the other day, for example, I found an email that had been in my inbox since April 2013, something I had sent to myself that just said 'research this' and a topic. I'm still working on that research, and hoping to post sometime before April of this year when that idea has a birthday.

I've had ups and downs; things started really slowly, and I've gone through stretches where I thought I couldn't even buy a reader. But slowly, things have gotten better. I've changed the format a few times, and have grown to like where it is today. And I think I'm a better writer now than I was then.  There's still lots of room for improvement, no question about that, but I can look at some posts now and not want to rewrite them, something that, in the beginning, was almost impossible.

Here are the posts that attracted the most interest since the dawn of the blog:

• In this post from 2009, I described trying to renew my ID without having the right ID, a marvelous catch-22.
• A post I did in 2010 talked about public displays of  patriotism (via flying the Gadsden flag) and what happened when one man decided to push the issue with his homeowner's association.
• I did a couple of posts on taxes in 2011 -- one about how people pay them but corporations often don't; the other, related to some folks thinking that Jesus was anti-tax, was fun to put together, given I'm not a religious person. On this I was way outside my comfort zone. 
• And there was the Alexandra Wallace-Jimmy Wong pas-de-deux; she complained about noisy Asians on their phones in the library, and he responded beautifully, in song, to her remarks. This post was also from 2011. 
• Several related posts in 2012 - a homeless man, police doing good deeds, and some introspection - focused on generosity. Others that year, like many I've done, were about politics, or politicians, or money in politics. 
• One of my favorites, lamenting the end of daily newspaper delivery in Syracuse, was really as much about my late father as it was about the paper. 
• One post in 2012, and a related post from 2013, questioned what would happen if we could have a 'parade of homes' in the heart of the city, instead of in the suburbs. I hope to convince someone, somehow, that this would be a worthwhile effort.
• In a popular 2013 post, I wondered what would happen if states color-coded driver's licenses or IDs for things other than immigrant status, which was under consideration for a while (ostensibly for safety reasons) in North Carolina.
• A post on how medical debt impacts credit scores was another popular read; I think I have to follow up on that one. And speaking of medical debt, here in Syracuse and CNY that's a huge issue. 
• Barack Obama promised to have the most transparent administration we'd ever seen. Sadly, that has not occurred; the City of Syracuse is more transparent, as I noted in my post on a neighbor's effort to get a zoning change for an interesting home business. 
• And finally, Syracuse was honored by a visit from President Obama last year, a trip where he was focused on education. I posted on that, and the importance of teachers in a child's life. 

So where do we go from here?  More Syracuse, Albany, Anywhere - Genuine. Honest. Commentary. I hope it will inspire some thought, engagement, or action.

Thanks for your support. Let's have some fun in 2014!

Another Parade of Homes, Outside the City

This week the 'Syracuse' 2013 Parade of Homes opens. As with some of the other recent editions, the Parade is not being held in the city of Syracuse, it's in the town of Lafayette, along the Jamesville Reservoir. Some previous Parades have been in Onondaga, Manlius, Howlett Hill, and Clay (next year will be the fourth time there).

Last year, I imagined a parade-style investment in the city and what that could mean to our future; I can't help thinking the same thing again this year, and hope that our candidates for mayor would imagine the same thing.

I appreciate what's happening in our downtown neighborhood, and won't complain about our ridiculously high occupancy rate for the lofts and funky apartments -- and I love that people are investing in saving our old buildings and supporting the city's core.  But we need similar support in the city's heart -- our neighborhoods.

Looking at some data gathered by the US Census bureau, it seems obvious that we need something bold, something shocking, something completely different, if our city is to survive.  Check out these numbers, which are the estimates for 2007 - 2011:

• Only 41.9% of our total housing units are single family homes; over 20% are two-family, and 14% are more than 20 units;
• The vacancy rate was 15.5%;
• 59.3% were renter-occupied, not owner-occupied;
• 75.5% of all houses were built before 1960; 49.5% were built before 1939.

Imagine being able to restore dozens of those older homes, bringing back their glory and making them safe again. Imagine having professional landscapers transform entire city blocks with green spaces, in collaboration with existing sustainability efforts. New sidewalks and lighting. Active neighborhood watch groups and neighborhood associations. Increased owner-occupancy rates.

Cities thrive when committed people live in them, people who have skin in the game. Schools improve; businesses move in; tax collection increases, and services can continue to be provided to all city residents. There are lots of committed people already in Syracuse, and many neighborhoods are building or maintaining their identities, including Sedgwick Farm, and Lincoln Hill, and Eastwood, and Strathmore and Tipp Hill (their website is under development).

There are lots of other neighborhoods could use that same kind of identity-building, community-building, thriving-city-building energy. We should be able to fix a lot of houses with type of private investment made on the 2013 Parade homes, coupled with block grants and other funding that might be available for this type of work.

Imagine a Parade of Homes in Syracuse.

Sidebar: The local real estate market

Earlier this week, I posted on the benefits that could come from having a Parade of Homes in the city of Syracuse.   The Parade is an annual event held here and in many other areas across the country, where local home builders, interior designers, and landscapers get together to showcase their talents in new housing developments.  My thinking was that the city proper – in our case the employment and cultural center of Onondaga County – would realize benefits across a broad spectrum of measures if that kind of development were to occur within its boundaries.

I wondered, after doing that post, how Onondaga County and the surrounding areas are doing in terms of the real estate market generally.  If someone were to ask me how I thought the market was doing, I’d point to the fact that we still see houses being sold in the wealthier suburbs for half a million dollars and up; I’d point to the number of houses that sell for right around their asking price, according to the weekly real estate section, and I’d probably say we’re not doing as bad as many areas of the country. 

To put my thinking to the test, I did some research and found statistics at  cnyREALTOR.com, the official site of the Greater Syracuse Association of Realtors and the Central New York Information Service.  The site provides a wealth of information on the local real estate market, including a chart which shows that for sales of existing homes across the 19 county towns and the City of Syracuse:

• Sales are up overall, compared to 2011;
• The average sales price across all jurisdictions is up;
• In 14 of the 20 jurisdictions, the number of homes sold is up; of the remaining six, one is even, and three are only off by one sale;
• Only two towns are down in both number of sales and average sales price;
• And in the city of Syracuse, sales are up by 70 homes and the average priceis up $4,100.

Through July, other metrics are also on the rise, including pending sales, closed sales, and affordability.  These figures bump up against a current total of  81 foreclosure properties in Onondaga County, of which 46 are within the city limits. 

Overall, based on these numbers, our local market seems to be in fairly good shape; how are things in your neighborhood?

Imagine a Parade of Homes in the City of Syracuse

HBRCNY photo

Every September, the Home Builders & Remodelers Association of Central New York (HBRCNY) sponsors the Parade of Homes. The event showcases the talents of many local home builders, decorators and interior designers, and landscapers.  There’s also a strong charitable focus; in addition to the sneak peak charity event held just before the Parade’s opening day, the greeters in each home are typically volunteers for local organizations. 

This year’s Parade of eight homes is in a waterfront development in one of the northern suburbs; previous Parades have been scattered across Onondaga County, and frequently the Parade homes are sold before the event begins. Prices are usually at the higher end of the market, given that the homes are showplaces. For example, a Parade home is the House of the Week today and has already been sold for over $400,000.  At just over 3,900 square feet, it features a rec room with three flat screen TVs (32-inch, 60-inch, and 80-inch), and a swimming pool, along with many other upscale amenities.

I frequently wonder what would happen if the local home builders took a chance on the city, and did some extreme homebuilding (or even extreme remodeling) in Syracuse, instead of continuing to build upscale homes in the outer reaches of the county.  Can you even imagine the impact this could have?

• new residents, or returning residents, and the energy they'd bring
• families with children, injecting new blood and interest in the city schools
• a strengthening of the city tax base
• reduced stress and traffic during daily drive times, since folks would already be in the city, where most county residents work 
• the potential for small businesses to spring up in the newly energized neighborhoods
• reduced impact and stress on the environment, as we'd be developing areas that already had the necessary infrastructure

I appreciate that not everyone wants to live in the city; many folks prefer suburban living because of what if offers, but there are also many who prefer it to what they think city living is like.

After living in the city for more than 30 years, I can assure you that most areas in Syracuse don’t really resemble the stereotype of crime infested drug havens full of welfare people who do nothing but hang out on the street all day.  Rather, there are many areas that are ethnically, economically, and culturally mixed, areas that have both owner-occupied and rental units, areas  that have a strong sense of community centered around libraries, churches, parks, and locally-owned businesses, rather than everything centering around the off-ramp and the strip malls.

Imagine how our city would change if the folks who were able and willing to purchase $400,000 houses with swimming pools and home theaters chose to bring their families, their spending power, their commitment, into a city neighborhood en masse, or into multiple neighborhoods, expanding the opportunities the city offers to all residents?

Picture what could happen if we had a Parade of Homes on the city’s North Side, or Eastwood, or in the NoSen section of The Valley (north of Seneca Turnpike), or out on the Near West Side, where there’s already focused effort to transform the neighborhood?  Picture a concerted effort to transform Midland Ave, or Onondaga Street, or Court Street, or East Fayette Street, to remodel some of the beautiful old homes, restoring them to their past glory?  What if we could create new city neighborhood like Meadowbrook or Sedgwick Farms?

This type of effort focused on immediate home ownership for those who can afford it, coupled with the city’s work getting rid of abandoned properties, the Syracuse Housing Authority’s projects to bring ‘rent to own’ units throughout the city, and those of organizations like Home Headquarters, could transform our city neighborhoods, just as the creation of residential units in the center city is transforming that area.

The local builders are clearly talented; the designers they work with are clearly creative; and there’s clearly a need for residential development within the economic and cultural center of Onondaga County.  

Just imagine the possibilities...