When someone says they want to buy a house in the suburbs in an area that is reasonably assured it will hold its value, I point them to St Louis Park. Why? Because St Louis Park has full code compliance upon sale of a house. Not partial code compliance but full. It means that the housing stock really cannot deteriorate. Every time it is sold, it is inspected to make sure everything is all right. If it isn't, it is fixed. Because of this, St Louis Park has some of the best overall housing stock in the Twin Cities because it simply can't deteriorate.
Truth in Housing was suppose to be a step toward this same goal. The idea originally was to at least check for serious life safety issues. Not full code compliance but things that would make the building unsafe. Sale is really the only opportunity the City has to get into all of its housing stock so this was the one real opportunity that the City had to do some basic assurance that the housing stock was not deteriorating into unsafe conditions. There may be questions about whether or not this particular program was meeting these goals. There may be questions about the implementation of the program and whether the exactly right mix of things were being inspected for. But it seems that the goal of doing some basic inspecting to make sure the housing stock is safe it a good thing. And with this program gone, there is really no other time that the City routinely gets into people's houses to ensure that they are safe. Does anyone know if there is discussion of a replacement program? It seems that not having any program leaves a fairly significant void in the attempts to ensure the city's housing stock is maintained. I am also unclear how cutting this program was a budget cutting measure as it was initially intended to be self-supporting. Anyone have information on this? The question about repairs being too expensive for low income people brings a key point back to the affordable housing debate. Is substandard housing better than no housing? If making the house safer takes it out of the income range of some people, is it better that they not live in that substandard housing and have to find something else? Or is it better than they have that place to live even if it is not as safe as it could be? I am not putting forward an answer to this question, just noting that it seems to be one of those key kernels to this issue that people come back to over and over again. Carol Becker Longfellow _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
