Incentives To Encourage People to Live in Youngstown

[AllanY2525]

About a month or so ago, the North Side Citizen's Coaliton and some other local entities
held a ground breaking ceremony for [what will be] ten new single family homes on
Baldwin Street, between Elm Street and Wick Avenue.

From what I have been told, these homes are earmarked for low to moderate income
families to purchase and occupy - with a clause that requires the new owners to
live in these houses for at least seven years before they can re-sell the new homes
or rent them out to other people.

FYI,

Allan

[Ted]

Some of the things the city should be/work toward doing is:

1. Provide down payment assistance that would be forgiven IF the homeowner remains in the city for say 7 years.
2. Provide contractor referral listing to assist homeowners with home repairs. Provide money up to a certain percentage of the home and again the money would revert to a grant if the homeowner remains for a stated period of time.
3. City need to have vigorous code enforcement to encourage property owners to keep things up.

These are 3 simple things that can be done at minimal risk to the city and it will help clean up neighborhoods.

[AllanY2525]

Jay,

One of the biggest problems I have seen regarding tax rates is that there is NO RYHME OR REASON
and NO CONSISTENCY with regard to property taxes in Youngstown.  I now own four (soon to be SIX)
properties on the North Side, ALL of which are literally within a few blocks of one another - and every
single property has a completely different amount of property taxes each year - EVEN THOUGH they
are all in the same neighborhood, roughly the same lot sizes, roughly the same size inside (ie: square
footage), similar in shape and size, and all built within the same time period (ie: between 1900 and 1920).

I mentioned this to someone in casual conversation several months ago when I was downtown, visiting
City Hall to conduct some business - I can't remember the person's name but they basically explained
all of the above by saying that the City of Youngstown has not had a comprehensive, city-wide property
tax assessment done in YEARS AND YEARS.

Here are some examples to demonstrate my point:

My apartment building (in YTown) is taxed at a rate of $1,200.00 per year - this is for a building
that is roughly 16,800 square feet - and has TWELVE APARTMENTS in it (although there
is NO  yard to speak of outside the building) 

Right across the street from my apartment building is a single family home that me and the crew
have been working on, which is currently taxed at a rate of about $400.00 per year (one THIRD
of the twelve unit, three-story apartment building across the street) even though the house is only
about one TENTH the size of the apartment building, and sits on even less land than the apartment
building.  Two blocks away, I own another property on a DOUBLE LOT, with a single family home
(converted into three apartments) standing on it - and it is taxed at a rate of about $196.00 per year.

My single family home here in Maryland is taxed at a rate of $4,200.00 per year - and it's a little, tiny,
pre-fabricated BOX of a house that is barely 1,500 square feet - and sits on less than .12 (twelve hundredths)
of an acre of land.

This poses multiple problems:

1) Some folks are paying next to NOTHING in property taxes on properties that are worth a considerable
amount of money.  These people are basically being allowed to SKATE , which means that the city/county
are screwing themselves (and the rest of us along with them) out of MUCH needed TAX revenues that
provide the financial means for so many of our public services, ie: Police and Fire Protection services,
schools, street and road repairs, etc, etc etc.

2) Some folks are paying WAYYYYYY MORE than they should be in property taxes, because their homes
have decreased in value (in declining neighborhoods) and have not been re-appraised/re-assessed at their
current, lower market values.

My suggestion to help address this set of problems is to do a complete re-assessment of ALL commercial
and residential properties - CITYWIDE -  as SOON as the City's demolition list gets caught up and the majority
of vacant structures that need to go ARE gone.

In many cases, cleaning out neighborhoods by demolishing these delapidated, derelict, and - in some
cases - outright dangerous structures SHOULD [ at least in theory...] have an effect on the property
values in that neighborhood.

I, for one, DO NOT MIND paying a reasonable amount of property taxes each year provided the money
is used wisely and the level of City and County services provided by that property tax revenue is
acceptable. 

The police, fire and rescue,  street maintanence, school systems, etc here in Montgomery County
MD are among the finest in the nation - we are definitely getting what we are paying for here.  I would
love to see the same thing happening in Youngstown and Mahoning County as well.


Thoughts, anyone?

[jay]

What should our city do to make people more willing to move into Youngstown?  Make your own comments as a reply to this message.

One of the gripes I often hear is the high tax rate.  We have the highest city income tax rate in the State of Ohio.
Property taxes are also high considering the value of the services rendered.