Post in Hennepin County to speed house demolitions

Jun 19 02:19 UTC

Joan is right- most of these houses are way beyond rehab. The
average foreclosed/abandoned house on the Northside is around a
century old, has a questionable foundation if any at all, has no
insulation, and no longer has plumbing or wiring. Rehab? You're
looking at gutting to the studs, then installing completely new
heating, plumbing, and electrical as well as insulation and energy
efficient windows and doors. And back to that questionable
foundation... if you have to fix that you may as well put a new house
on it. We're looking at around $100 a square foot for a rehab, and we
haven't even figured in a new roof or siding yet. So we're talking
$100,000 to rehab a typical 1000 square foot house... For half that
you can buy a new manufactured home (www.designhomes.com) and by the
time you get a foundation and utilities in you'll have a new home for
less than the price of a rehabbed century old one.

	Once you've got that house rehabbed or a new one plopped down on the
lot, you have to find a buyer for it. Good luck- North Minneapolis
has a justifiable reputation as the most dangerous community in the
state. That reputation will take years to live down even if crime
rates continue to drop, making North Minneapolis the least desireable
and last choice community for the foreseeable future. Even if gas
prices drive suburban commuters closer to their jobs, remember that a
lot of those jobs are no longer in the city, and commuters to
Minneapolis will fill in every last domicile in the inner ring
suburbs and the safer neighborhoods of Minneapolis and St.Paul before
they even look at the Northside. And new immigrants? ICE is deporting
500,000 undocumented immigrants a year at a cost of $5,000,000,000-
that's $10,000 a person. Your tax dollars at work... Not!

	So the reality is that North Minneapolis will have a lot of green
space for the next decade or three. Of course, our broke-but-doesn't-
know-it Park Board will make a grab for this turf, competing with dim
bulb social service agencies that build housing whether there's a
market for it or not. Whatever happens, we taxpayers are going to pay
through the nose to maintain this vast spread of tax forfeit
properties thanks to a mayor and governor that cut police positions
while adding to their own office staffs.

	from Hawthorne on the abandoned Northside,

		Dyna Sluyter