Tax Bill/Land Values

I received many questions about our recent tax bills - particularly land values - at the Halloween parade. Here's what I know, courtesy of the county assessors office. You have until November 30th. to appeal. The green remarks are mine.

I did go and look at the maps. :)

Questions: egrossman@tippecanoe.in.gov

They would be happy to come to a neighborhood meeting.

Purdue housing area is loosely defined as the relatively small, platted lots (approx 50’x130’) east of Northwestern, west of N.River Rd and South of Meridian St. Previously eight scattered neighborhoods composed the majority of residential housing in this area. These patchwork neighborhoods consist of qualitatively similar houses but land pricing, even for identical lots, was erratic. Each of these eight neighborhoods valued land based on feet of street frontage. Price/front foot ranged from $340-$1250. Some neighborhoods had several front foot base rates. Since these dwellings were similar in age, grade, size and use, the various land pricings caused trending factors for very similar neighborhoods to also fluctuate drastically. For trending to work properly, land must be assessed equitably. Without any information from the previous Wabash Assessors Office or trending contractor GnA, the previous neighborhood distribution was impossible to comprehend and completely inequitable.

To work towards fair and equitable pricing around campus, a map of sales were created and three distinct property groups were defined. There is a group of small, comparatively new houses in the very north east part of campus. They were designated neighborhood 7501 and assigned a $450/FF base rate (Schilling addition). The multi-family dwellings, 520 and 530 classes were separated to their own neighborhood, 7502. The remaining residential parcels were put into another new neighborhood, 7500. Neighborhoods 7500 and 7502 were assigned an equitable $1000/FF land value. Similar use properties around Purdue University are now in coherent delineations with an equitable land pricing mechanism.

The change to $1000/FF created the land increase for many tax payers, previous base rates were as low as $340. The changes shifted a larger portion of the assessed value to land, but the total assessed values are unaffected. Since trending will equalize assessed values to a level determined by sales, the base rate determines the ratio of land to building assessed value. Purdue housing usually couples very desirable land locations with older, more depreciated structures. This explains why the land to building ratio is higher on campus than most of the County.

I am sorry that the answer to this is very technical. We have large maps that do a better job at explaining the situation. I would be happy to speak at a neighborhood association meeting (and bring these maps) and/or schedule meeting if questions persist.

112 E. Oak - Ecstacy Arrest

How did 112 E. Oak get rented to a fraternity? When Christopher Song was arrested Friday morning with $6000 worth of ecstasy, this Edward Cooke property was reportedly home to Lambda Phi Epsilon (Purdue's Asian American Fraternity). Don't you wonder whose names were on the rental certificate in this R-1U neighborhood?
Was the fraternity's name on the rent check? Would a reasonable and prudent owner have discovered he had rented to a fraternity before it became a local drugstore? Will anyone now be evicted? The proposed Good Neighbor Ordinance of 2007 defined "disorderly houses" and made provision for pulling the rental certificates of violators. Should that portion of the ordinance be revisited?

"Do Not Disturb"

Ordinance #28-09 ("Pay As You Throw"-PAYT) moved along last night, winning approval by a 4-3 vote of the West Lafayette City Council.

The ordinance was born in May of 2008, when at a meeting of the city Budget & Finance Committee the possibility of a trash fee increase was floated. Objections were raised to simply raising our "trash tax", and a search began for a better way to manage trash and trash revenue.

The hope was that we could find a program which was:
1) Economically Sustainable - there had been no trash fee increase since 1993.
2) Environmentally Sustainable - recycling was increasing at only 1% a year.
3) Equitable - "based on the simple principle that garbage collection should be based on the same billing system as other utilities, that is, pay for what you use." (IDEM)

The Go Greener Commission and the Boiler Green Initiative gained the help of the Purdue "Engineering Projects in Community Service" (EPICS) program in this search. The EPICS group, with funding from Shell Oil, began a study (2008/09) to determine if some sort of metered trash program (PAYT) could work in West Lafayette.

The EPICS team of students and faculty advisers final report recommended a multi-tiered trash scheme which resembled programs set in place in East Lansing and Bloomington in the early 1990's. (About the time we last raised fees, other communities moved to a different model.) The plan included a base rate, an additional bag/can charge, and "free" brush and recycling pick-up.

The Go Greener Commission received the report, endorsed the principle, and set several committees to work on the issues involved in the implementation of a metered trash program. Ordinance #28-09 reflects those efforts.

A month ago city officials, even some who opposed its construction as untimely and expensive, stood by our new energy producing waste digester under the salutatory banner provided by the Environmental Protection Agency. We felt wise. We felt good, standing there by the electric car charging station along with those California environmental engineers.

That same EPA thinks metered trash is a good idea. The Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) thinks its a good idea. 7000 cities believe it's a good idea. Several of our Big Ten peers use the system.

Many of our friends and neighbors are not so sure. It's too complicated. It's too expensive. It's inconvenient. It won't work.

Some of our divisions are familiar ones. Hoosiers and Boilermakers. Town and gown. Young and old. Even "Americans" vs "Foreigners" ( a leader of a local rental corporation regaled us, twice, with stories about foreign students flushing chicken bones, chicken breasts, down the toilet.) But the common thread in the opposition to PAYT was "leave me alone".

The current ordinance will be improved. I agree with Mayor Dennis who has noted the merits of the PAYT plan. The Mayor has also commented that PAYT can work here. He is committing city resources to create a sanitation department fiscal plan.

In the weeks and months ahead the "Do Not Disturb" sign will come down. The city is not flush. Most of our city officials draw parts of their salaries from the wastewater utility. We do not all have money. The Albrecht brothers built an "Aldi's" here, not one of their other chains; "Trader Joe's". Our environment is suffering. Forbes ranked Indiana 49th in environmental quality. The "Do Not Disturb" sign should stay down.

Ordinance #03-09 - Landlord Certification Program

Yesterday evening, after six months of sometimes heated discussion and a five-hour City Council meeting, Ordinance #03-09 passed. Your City Council Democrats resisted intense pressure from Indianapolis led Indiana Apartment Association lobbyists (representing apartment industry professionals), to pass an ordinance revision which enumerates, for the sake of clarity, what has been case law in this state since 1998 when the Court of Appeals found for the City in West Lafayette v. Benjamin. The Appellate Court vindicated the city’s housing and rental ordinance again in December of 2008 in its judgment against Dr. Jerry and Patti Weida.

Addressing the Court’s concern that the ordinance might be “ambiguous”, we moved into the ordinance those particulars which Superior Court Judge Thomas Busch noted ought to “put on inquiry” rental corporations regarding the over-occupancy of their premises. Despite the “sturm und drang” of yesterday evening there is nothing new here. The level of orchestrated outrage by the deep-pocketed rental corporations once again makes clear the need for the neighborhood to remain organized and attentive to the workings of city government.

The new thing, and for this we should thank Councilor Paul Roales and his committee, is the creation of the “Landlord Certification Program”. Our criterion for who is a “good” landlord is usually limited to those who have not been fined or sued. We obviously know who is a “bad” landlord. We have no standard for assessing who is a “good” or “better” landlord. (Councilor Roales proposal also extends a “carrot” to those who participate in this exercise; a small reduction in fees.)

Cities like Eau Claire, Wisconsin have such a program. My recent experience with this approach came while my daughter, who will be studying at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow, Scotland, was researching housing. We don’t know anybody in Glasgow. How do we figure out, at this distance, whom it might be safe to rent from?

Not to worry. The five universities in the Glasgow area maintain a PAD :) or “Private Accommodation Database”, a centralized database of private sector accommodation available for rent to students attending all five institutions. In the interest of student safety, accommodation is not registered with PAD unless the landlord has confirmed that it conforms to the standards required to meet the PAD policy. Furthermore, the partner institutions have the right to verify the information provided and have sole discretion in advertising properties or including their details on the database and reserve the right to refuse to do so.

As Purdue changes leadership in its housing division, this may be the perfect time for Purdue (which once maintained an off-campus housing office) and the city to work together on a landlord certification program. So when some father, say, in Glasgow looks over the shoulder of his dear daughter, already concerned that she is coming to a scary place where they have guns but not health care, he can at least take comfort that somebody has taken the time to evaluate Purdue area rental properties.

We look forward to working with the Mayor and his staff on this project.

Not all news events are treated equally . . .

An editorial in the Sunday Journal and Courier reminds us that "not all news events are treated equally."

Can you imagine a Jan Mills auto accident? On the front page of the Local Section above the fold would have appeared a diagram of the crash scene, a scanned copy of the ticket issued, an interview with the driver involved and with the driver of the car headed in the opposite direction, along with comments from Republican city councilors who would have been asked if Mayor Mill's repeated major car crashes were impacting city government. Her comments on the scene would be part of the public record. No apology would have been made to the Fountain County sheriff for press tenacity.

Some of the most trying weeks in my ministry were spent at the bedside and with the family of a young man seriously injured in a Northwestern Ave. motorcycle accident. I do not minimize the fear and pain involved in such an accident, nor the difficulty of the rehabilitation. I also understand that we will always meet people in the course of our jobs whom we find more affable or attractive than others, and that we will struggle with our moral obligation to treat all honorably.

AND that not all news events are treated equally . . .

Neighborhood Resource Team

We’ve had a pretty good week.

The Westside Urban Fitness Trail (thanks to funding from District #2 resident Larry Oates and the West Lafayette Redevelopment Commission) will link a refurbished and accessible High School track with the Morton Center and the West Lafayette Public Library.

The route – Salisbury to Lutz to Vine to Centennial (“Froggie”) Park to Lawn to Grant – will improve two streets (Lutz and Vine) that need care.

The Neighborhood Resource Team’s “Walk Through the Neighborhood” (8/19/09), led by Mayor John Dennis, introduced Code Enforcement Supervisor Rick Walker to the community and highlighted problems with which we are all too familiar. The WLFI video was taken during a walk down the alley south of Stadium between Salisbury and Vine. I couldn’t have staged a better mix of couches, mattresses, tossed trash cans, and weeds if I had tried!

This new energy is much appreciated. For example, thanks to the efforts of the resource team – and with thanks to New Chauncey Housing and its emergency abatement fund – a dumpster has been brought
in to Crum Ct. to clear trash from a long troublesome property.

We lost two streets this year; East Lutz and West Oak. Work on over-occupancy and trash must continue. But for a moment every media outlet in the community was looking at what we look at daily. John Dennis, Lt. Gary Sparger, Joe Payne, deserve our thanks.

We had a pretty good week.

Fireworks !

Things we love about Indiana:

Histoplasmosis
Out-of-State Trash
Fireworks

As the City Attorney's memo (page right) makes clear, we are doing all we can within state law to limit the use of fireworks. Testosterone, beer, and black powder turn our neighborhood into a playground each Fourth
of July as Purdue students - and sometimes their parents - return to their party houses near campus to do in our neighborhood what they would be ashamed, embarrassed, or arrested for in theirs. It is illegal for you to have fireworks in Illinois.

Let me refer you to our State Representatives:

h27@in.gov - Sheila Klinger
h26@in.gov - Randy Truitt