19WCA Housing Committee
Meeting Notes
August, 25, 2011
7:00 PM

Location: Peter Evans’ home
14 in attendance: John Boutet, Henrene Brown, Rachelle Coley, Peter Evans, DeWain Feller, Lee Krist, Ken Maher, Ann Marshall, Toni Orlati, Dan Proper, June Rose, Dan Ross, Jinny Spencer, Louise Wu
6 others expressed interest and wanted to be kept informed.

DeWain Feller reviewed the following items that he brought from the Executive Committee.

• The Executive Committee wants the Housing Committee to identify process problems with how the NSC currently handles code violation reports. We need to make recommendations on improving the NSC’s code reporting and enforcement processes to make them more effective and efficient.
• The Executive Committee wants to see more of an emphasis on preserving and improving our existing housing stock and less of an emphasis on demolition. The City of Rochester needs to stabilize and maintain the homes that it has acquired, rather than to allow them to deteriorate and negatively impact the neighborhood. Historic and architecturally significant properties (such as 96 Chili) need to preserved rather than demolished. The Executive Committee would like to see the Housing Committee develop a housing policy for the 19th Ward.
• The 19th WCA is in the early stages of discussions with the Landmark Society on two projects. The first is a near-term project to conduct a survey of historic and architecturally significant properties in the 19th Ward. This survey would update an earlier survey that was conducted a number of years ago.
• The second project involving the Landmark Society is a long-term project to establish one or more historic districts in the 19th Ward. The survey is a prerequisite to creating the historic districts, but the survey will have value even if the districts are never created. If the historic districts are created, they will enable property owners to get tax credits and grants to improve their property. DeWain passed out flyers with information about the some of the tax credits.
• We are trying to set up a meeting between the Landmark Society and neighborhood residents to get more information about the survey and historic districts. We are trying to get neighborhood volunteer involvement and contributions toward these efforts.

Peter read from notes he had from being on the committee in the past, particularly the relationship with City Code Inspectors.

The main idea then, as now, is that we were interested in curb appeal and how it affects property values.

The idea of stepping back from your home and looking at how yours would affect the sale of the homes around you should they come up for sale and how those homes would affect yours.

For example, when we have gutters falling, steps disintegrating, paint peeling, etc., we would like to point out to the owner how it affects curb appeal and property values. A few maintenance problems can cause the whole area to look bad and future selling prices to be depressed.

The Committee would work with the City to point out the problems and offer some help to get items repaired. Many folks have no idea who to call. We talked about creating a list of contractors that others have had positive experiences with. Peter Evans offered to write up some "how to" guides to show homeowners the proper way to make repairs to their homes. This could be posted on the 19WCA website and in the 19th Ward Housing Committee group on Location19.org.

The meeting was opened up for everyone to describe problem properties around them. Many of these are falling garages, garbage totes being left at the curb days after pick up, and apartment contents dumped on the curb 20 minutes after the truck has passed by. Some of these issues can be made better by education, but some are harder to resolve. (Six properties that we reported for high grass and weeds were corrected in a few days.)

Ways of identifying and reporting problem properties and getting the NSC to take action were discussed. We discussed making an appointment with David Hawkes to discuss our concerns with the lack of code enforcement. We also wanted to know why the Health Department can access rear yards but not the city.

It was suggested that we talk to the Housing Council and other resources that may be less confrontational and more community building than focusing only on code violations.

It was also suggested that we coordinate our efforts with Joan Roby-Davison of the Sector 4 CDC and Colleen McCarthy who is Assistant Director, Office of Government and Community Relations at the University of Rochester.

A number of other factors that could affect property values were discussed. These included fighting foreclosure mills that evict home owners to make a fast profit at the expense of neighbors and property values. We also discussed working to bring "free" Wi-Fi to the 19th Ward to make living in the Ward more appealing. It was pointed out the 19WCA does not have the financial resources to do either of these but would welcome seeing proponents pursue these through other organizations. After we discussed these and other ideas, we returned to our primary focus being raising property values by improving the curb appeal of homes through code compliance. We also agreed to use a soft approach where possible to help this happen.

Update: September 8, 2011

At the last Delegates’ Council meeting on September 8, Housing Committee Co-chairs Peter Evans and Lee Krist were appointed.

We are planning the next meeting for the 4th Thursday, September 22, 2011. Watch for notification via e-mail.

Peter Evans, Lee Krist

(Minutes were recorded by Lee Krist and Peter Evans and typed by Marian Boutet and correction and additions made by attendees.)