Are boarding houses really the problem?

[AlexS]

I am a bit lost here in this discussion.

The Springfield Historic Overlay specifies which uses are permitted. Rooming house is not one of them (boarding house is a sub category of rooming house). Rooming house is classified as special use and new special uses are not allowed in the district.

So what really is being discussed here ?

Sec. 656.368. Springfield Historic Zoning Districts.
Springfield Historic Zoning Districts include the following:
I. Residential Medium Density-Springfield (RMD-S) District.
(a) Permitted uses and structures.
(1) Single-family dwellings.
(2) New two-family dwellings meeting the performance standards and development criteria set forth in this Section.
(3) Original use two-family dwellings.
(4) Original use multiple-family dwellings. Such dwellings cannot include more units than were within the structure at the time of construction.
(5) Community residential homes of six or fewer residents meeting the performance standards and development criteria set forth in Part 4 of the Zoning Code and the special use criteria set forth in Section 656.369.
(6) Housing for the elderly meeting the criteria for special uses set forth in Section 656.369.
(7) Family day care homes meeting the performance standards and development criteria set forth in Part 4 of the Zoning Code.
(8 ) Foster care homes.
(9) Essential services, including water, sewer, gas, telephone, radio, television and electric, meeting the performance standards and development criteria set forth in Part 4 of the Zoning Code.
(10) Churches, including a rectory or similar use, meeting the performance standards and development criteria set forth in Part 4.
(11) Neighborhood parks, pocket parks, playgrounds or recreational structures which serve or support a neighborhood or several adjacent neighborhoods, meeting the performance standards and development criteria set forth in Part 4 of the Zoning Code.
(12) Bed and breakfast establishments meeting the performance standards and development criteria set forth in Part 4 of the Zoning Code.

Sec. 656.368. I (d)   Special uses.
Special uses include residential treatment facilities, rooming houses, emergency shelter homes, group care homes, and community residential homes of over six residents. New special uses are not allowed in the district and existing special uses must conform to the standards set forth in Section 656.369.

§ 509.242(1)(f), Florida Statutes: Roominghouse.--A roominghouse is any public lodging establishment that may not be classified as a hotel, motel, resort condominium, nontransient apartment, bed and breakfast inn, or transient apartment under this section. A roominghouse includes, but is not limited to, a boardinghouse.

Sec. 656.1601. Definitions.
Boardinghouse means a residential facility building where meals are regularly prepared and served to the residents only for compensation and where food is placed upon the table family-style without service or ordering of individual portions from a menu. A boardinghouse shall not be deemed to include a hotel, motel, group care home, family care home, recovery home, residential treatment facility, emergency shelter, emergency shelter home or nursing home.

Rooming houses means a building in which sleeping accommodations are offered to the public where rentals are for a period of a week or longer and occupancy is generally by residents rather than transient.

[sheclown]

I've been looking at Jacksonville's history during the 60s.  Wow.  What a tumultuous decade.  What role, if any, did consolidation play in Springfield's decline?  Or, did it help stabilize the neighborhood and keep it from declining even further? 

[Joe]

So, someone who worked their entire life in a lower paying service industry job that somehow made your life better, even if it was just a clean motel room, and finds themselves older and sick and on disability that doesn't allow for a normal rental is just incompetent?  Yes, many are in the position they are in through a mistake they made and never recovered from.  I guess you never made a mistake? Hopefully you never make one so bad as it destroys your life as you now know it.

Strider, I suggest you read my post again. I went out of my way to qualify the fact that someone forced into a boarding house situation could be there for a good or bad reason. Good reasons include being working-poor, infirm, legitimate life mistakes, and all the other things you tried to lecture me about. My post already references that. (By the way, "not competent" was accurately referencing their inability to sign a lease, not about their competence as a human being.)

My point is that it doesn't really matter whether a boarder is a good or bad person (which has needlessly taken up too much of the argument). The fact that they are in dire economic straits to being with is a huge problem for neighboring property values. It doesn't matter how noble or ignoble their past history is.

So everyone - feel free to get mad at me for pointing out a reality of real estate. Yes, BEING NEAR POOR PEOPLE REDUCES THE VALUE OF RESIDENTIAL REAL ESTATE. Again, BEING NEAR POOR PEOPLE REDUCES THE VALUE OF RESIDENTIAL REAL ESTATE. One more time, BEING NEAR POOR PEOPLE REDUCES THE VALUE OF RESIDENTIAL REAL ESTATE. I'm telling the truth and I'm answering the original question of the thread (unless someone wants to dispute my evil capitalist motives for assuming that a reduction in property values is "a problem")

Like I said, I believe in the free market, and I think this housing segment should exist. I'm just also willing to say it's a "per se" negative for surrounding property values. I can't help it if my matter-of-fact acknowledgment of reality interferes with peoples' social vision of the way things ought to be.

[Joe]

being near poor people reduces your real estate [values]?

Why, yes. Yes it does.

[sheclown]

Oh, honestly.  If that were the case, Springfield would not have enjoyed any improvement in real estate values.  I think 40% of the population still lives below the poverty level. (I'm not sure about that percentage).

But, to get back to the discussion at hand, I thought we were looking at a historical perspective...

[Karl_Pilkington]

Joe its not worth the time to argue with these boarding house proponents.  Their bottom line is they're good your bad, so why waste your time.

[Springfielder]

Posted by: stephendare

Have you ever seen a Hospitality Suites?  Its a corporate boarding house.  There are still plenty of people who need to travel to a city for business purposes and yet only want to stay for a week, or month or two months.  Staying in a hotel the entire time would be pretty expensive, and signing a lease would be ludicrous.

You're kidding of course. How do Hospitality Suites for corporates or boarding schools, even come into play here. These are in no way the same as boarding houses that are being discussed.

[Springfielder]

Joe its not worth the time to argue with these boarding house proponents.  Their bottom line is they're good your bad, so why waste your time.

Very true, and it's virtually impossible to have a reasonable discussion

[Joe]

Sheclown - Obviously it is the case, since the entire reason this thread exists is because Strider is responding to Springfield residents' complaints and concerns about more poor people moving into the neighborhood.

You do make a good point by referencing the fact that Springfield is a "poor" neighborhood with plenty of high property values. But again, I think people are assuming I mean things that I never said. Who said that a neighborhood can't have poor people AND rich people? What I'm saying is that poor people REDUCE ... again REDUCE ... the potential value of residential real estate.

Consequently, Springfield is a perfect example. What would happen if those 40% (Strider said 44%) of people below the poverty line were replaced by rich folks. Well, let's be honest with ourselves. Those $300,000 SRG homes would practically double in value.

Again (because I apparently need to be painfully clear), am I saying we need to kick all the poor people out of Springfield? Hell no. I'm not making any normative statement AT ALL.

[Joe]

Joe its not worth the time to argue with these boarding house proponents.  Their bottom line is they're good your bad, so why waste your time.

I see your point Karl. But, I love to argue, so It works out fine.

However, I am a bit taken aback by the irrational emotion associated with this topic. I actually consider myself to be a proponent of mixed-use, mixed income urban infill. Yet when I point out the completely obvious and utterly irrefutable reality that property values are reduced below their potential in a mixed-income environment, people have a hissy fit.

What should I say? "Why yes, most home owners wouldn't mind at all if rental property were constructed on their street, never mind a short term rental for indigents" Hell, most people practically burn down city hall if some proposes a building taller than 2 stories within a mile radius of them!!! For damn sure poverty has a negative impact on property values.

[ChriswUfGator]

Well again, is there a science to this?

For example, is there a safe distance in terms of yards or feet at which this value reduction property of the 'poor', begins to diminish?

For example,
if X = The power of riff raff to diminish real estate [value]
and Y = the Real Estate whose [value] is affected by the presence of riff raff
and D = the distance of Riff Raff from Y.

Riff Raff = A
Real Estate Value = B

Is there some kind of basic algebra we can do to accurately forecast the effect of riff raff and plan appropriately?

Also is the ratio of X a constant?  Or if we increase the actual amount of Riff Raff do we then have to double the amount of distance to equal the real estate [value] diminishment?

For example:

B = 100%
unless A is < 100 meters.

If A is < 100 Meters, then  Y = 75% of B?

Would X be inversely proportional to the distance?

And if the value of A is increased by 2  (in case there is a mother father and child)

Would there be a corresponding value of the X factor?

Does 3A mean 3X?

For Example:
If A is < 100 Meters  and Y = 75% of B, then
does it follow that
If 3A is < 100 Meters, then Y = 25% of B??


Perhaps you can enlighten us on this social mathematics?

BWHAAHAHAHAHHAHAHAAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHHAAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!

LMFAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Stephen, that's a C-L-A-S-S-I-C! I throw in my nomination for Best Post of 2009...

[ChriswUfGator]

So, someone who worked their entire life in a lower paying service industry job that somehow made your life better, even if it was just a clean motel room, and finds themselves older and sick and on disability that doesn't allow for a normal rental is just incompetent?  Yes, many are in the position they are in through a mistake they made and never recovered from.  I guess you never made a mistake? Hopefully you never make one so bad as it destroys your life as you now know it.

Strider, I suggest you read my post again. I went out of my way to qualify the fact that someone forced into a boarding house situation could be there for a good or bad reason. Good reasons include being working-poor, infirm, legitimate life mistakes, and all the other things you tried to lecture me about. My post already references that. (By the way, "not competent" was accurately referencing their inability to sign a lease, not about their competence as a human being.)

My point is that it doesn't really matter whether a boarder is a good or bad person (which has needlessly taken up too much of the argument). The fact that they are in dire economic straits to being with is a huge problem for neighboring property values. It doesn't matter how noble or ignoble their past history is.

So everyone - feel free to get mad at me for pointing out a reality of real estate. Yes, BEING NEAR POOR PEOPLE REDUCES THE VALUE OF RESIDENTIAL REAL ESTATE. Again, BEING NEAR POOR PEOPLE REDUCES THE VALUE OF RESIDENTIAL REAL ESTATE. One more time, BEING NEAR POOR PEOPLE REDUCES THE VALUE OF RESIDENTIAL REAL ESTATE. I'm telling the truth and I'm answering the original question of the thread (unless someone wants to dispute my evil capitalist motives for assuming that a reduction in property values is "a problem")

Like I said, I believe in the free market, and I think this housing segment should exist. I'm just also willing to say it's a "per se" negative for surrounding property values. I can't help it if my matter-of-fact acknowledgment of reality interferes with peoples' social vision of the way things ought to be.

Yes, despite Stephen's excellent post that had me LMFAO for 10 minutes, the truth is that being visibly surrounded with poor people certainly does lower property values. I don't think anyone will argue that.

The problem, and the Titanic-sized hole in your argument, is that the poor are already well settled in Springfield and aren't going anywhere. You can get rid of the rooming houses, and they'll just be sleeping on the sidewalk, or behind your house. So which would you prefer? Because either way, they aren't going to just disappear.

People keep on blaming the symptoms, rather than the disease.

[Joe]

Yes ... the truth is that being visibly surrounded with poor people certainly does lower property values. I don't think anyone will argue that.

Yes, that is my entire point. Thank you.

And Stephen is indeed vociferously arguing that point.

The problem, and the Titanic-sized hole in your argument, is that the poor are already well settled in Springfield and aren't going anywhere. You can get rid of the rooming houses, and they'll just be sleeping on the sidewalk, or behind your house. So which would you prefer? Because either way, they aren't going to just disappear.

That's not a hole in my argument because I don't prefer a damn thing. I've made no normative policy statements at all. (Except maybe when I said that boarding houses have a right to exist, btw) The only thing I've been defending is the completely reasonable statement that you also made in the first quotation above.

However, for what it's worth, the poor in Springfield are not "well settled" at all. There was a landmark study done on gentrification (just google gentrification and "not bad" or something similar) which analyzed years of census data over tens of thousands of communities. The results indicated that people in distressed neighborhoods are constantly moving around, and at much higher rates than other segments of the population. Ironically enough, this is because of monthly leases and .. ahem ... boarding houses. So even though "poor" communities might have been poor for decades, it's often with a revolving door of different poor people. Of course, you can always find the 90 year old lady who was born in her house, but over the entire population it's a revolving door.

[ChriswUfGator]

Yes ... the truth is that being visibly surrounded with poor people certainly does lower property values. I don't think anyone will argue that.

Yes, that is my entire point. Thank you.

And Stephen is indeed vociferously arguing that point.

The problem, and the Titanic-sized hole in your argument, is that the poor are already well settled in Springfield and aren't going anywhere. You can get rid of the rooming houses, and they'll just be sleeping on the sidewalk, or behind your house. So which would you prefer? Because either way, they aren't going to just disappear.

That's not a hole in my argument because I don't prefer a damn thing. I've made no normative policy statements at all. (Except maybe when I said that boarding houses have a right to exist, btw) The only thing I've been defending is the completely reasonable statement that you also made in the first quotation above.

However, for what it's worth, the poor in Springfield are not "well settled" at all. There was a landmark study done on gentrification (just google gentrification and "not bad" or something similar) which analyzed years of census data over tens of thousands of communities. The results indicated that people in distressed neighborhoods are constantly moving around, and at much higher rates than other segments of the population. Ironically enough, this is because of monthly leases and .. ahem ... boarding houses. So even though "poor" communities might have been poor for decades, it's often with a revolving door of different poor people. Of course, you can always find the 90 year old lady who was born in her house, but over the entire population it's a revolving door.

In Springfield, I'd venture to guess 90% of the poor are either long-term tenants, or they're actually homeowners. I should know, I rented to many of them. Some were "working poor", taking a bus for 2 hours each way to earn $6/hr at a call center, and others were on SSI, welfare, etc.

So what do you plan on doing with all the 4, 6, 8, etc., plexes who rent to poor people? Unlike rooming houses, those landlords have constitutionally guaranteed property rights. Get rid of the 15 rooming houses, and keep the 1,000 multifamily low-income dwellings, and you really think you're going to see some huge improvement?

Come on, man. It is what it is. It's not going to improve until property values do, and it becomes more profitable to devote a property to some other use vs. collecting Section 8. If you just shut all the rooming houses, those people aren't going away...they'll still be around, many of them will just be homeless. Forcing the issue before the area is demographically ready for it will just make the neighborhood worse.

[strider]

Just to prove that I actual read this forum before I post:

Their (legitimate) purpose is to provide housing for people who (for whatever good or bad reason) aren't competent enough to rent a normal apartment on a normal lease. Especially once you factor in roommates, it is NOT hard for a person to rent a regular room somewhere - at similar cost to the boarding house anyway. Boarding houses are for people who (again for whatever reason) are so transient/unreliable/whatever that a lease simply isn't an option.

Just to remind you, JOE, of what you said....I did get it the first time.  The fact that you said it isn't hard to rent a regular room and at the similar costs says you never had to try and really don't know what things really cost and how hard it is.

Their bottom line is they're good your bad, so why waste your time.

Karl, you need to go back to school if you are doing the math and coming up that a rooming house is a great way to get rich. In a way, any talk about money and rooming houses is a lose-lose for us.  If we are making money, we are scum and if we aren't, we are terrible businessmen. 

BEING NEAR POOR PEOPLE REDUCES THE VALUE OF RESIDENTIAL REAL ESTATE. One more time, BEING NEAR POOR PEOPLE REDUCES THE VALUE OF RESIDENTIAL REAL ESTATE

While there is a small amount of truth in this, it is also why many of the newer residents of say, Springfield, came here.  Low realestate prices equals good values.  The Metro Edge study says 44% at under 15K per year.  And values in Springfield went up substantially even though they were here. Now that the market has crashed all over, it's let's blame the poor for it all. Common sense says otherwise. Afterall, the poor were here and you bought here, didnt you?

Lets remember that the discussion is about NEW special uses, not existing once. Nobody is driven out of their house, and no veterans are kicked out on the street. That's what the welfare barons want you to believe. The agreement reached last year was no more NEW special uses.

No, this discussion is about a comment made in a thread on the SPAR Forum ... "I completely understand that we are all striving to make Springfield a vibrant family community and boarding houses are what is standing in the way of that. "   ... and the history of the decline of Springfield years ago and how it refutes that claim.  Not to open old wounds, but the "agreement reached last year was no more NEW special uses" is also incorrect.  The overlay already had defined and prevented new "special uses".  The issue was over a correction of an error and certain factions at SPAR Council and within the community tried to use that as a way to truly drive people out of their homes.  They used the tactics of spreading mis-information and even withholding information to help them accomblish that. The end result was that the existing special uses were indeed grandfathered in as originally intended.   Nothing more, nothing less.

Even I am not proposing new rooming houses, but by understandfing the past, we can perhaps find a way to a better future.  It is not by blaming the boarding houses, discriminating against a group because you do not like them or spreading mis-information to further your version of Spiringfield.