What if Detroit Neighborhoods (or block clubs) issue residency requirements.

Today most Detroit neighborhoods are turned into instant ghetto hoods. There are thousand of vacant and abandon homes and buildings block by block. This is due to slumlords renting homes to welfare and food stamp folks, restrictive covenants or another race other your own, other street crimes and failure investments.

What if Detroit neighborhoods or block clubs issue residence requirements to people who are about to move into that area.

For example: A neighbor just move into 16885 Ardmore St. in Detroit's Northwest Side. This resident has pass a resident requirement list. It has a steady job that makes over 25,000 a year and have good credit. Landlords will have to do the same.

Will these residency requirements help maintain property values in excellent condition in Detroit neighborhoods or will it keep out other folks [[like the poor and gov't supportive welfare recipients and food stamp eaters.)

Any thoughts?

It won't work, not even in theory.

Back in the past, real estate agents, mortgage companies, and insurance companies worked very hard to keep out the "poor" from moving into "stable" neighborhoods in Detroit, a practice which has been thoroughly denounced here on DetroitYes.

Sounds like Grosse Pointe's point system except instead of based on race, it's based on class.

However, could an inner city neighborhood like Ravendale or Corktown or Russell Woods organize and implement a neighborhood association with bylaws and maintanence rules? If the subdivisions of Canton or Rochester Hills can do it, what prevents city neighborhoods from doing it? The only problem I see is the number of residents. A suburban subdivision has a lot less people and less area than a city neighborhood.

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Originally Posted by dtowncitylover

Sounds like Grosse Pointe's point system except instead of based on race, it's based on class.

However, could an inner city neighborhood like Ravendale or Corktown or Russell Woods organize and implement a neighborhood association with bylaws and maintanence rules? If the subdivisions of Canton or Rochester Hills can do it, what prevents city neighborhoods from doing it? The only problem I see is the number of residents. A suburban subdivision has a lot less people and less area than a city neighborhood.

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One of the reasons that homeowners associations work in the burbs is that the developers create the HOA when they subdivide so that all of the land is bound to the HOA in perpetuity and is included in the covenants of the transfer deeds.

To set up a legally enforceable HOA in the city, 100% of the affected property owners would have to agree to encumber their property with the HOA covenants. Good luck on making that happen.

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Originally Posted by dtowncitylover

Sounds like Grosse Pointe's point system except instead of based on race, it's based on class.

However, could an inner city neighborhood like Ravendale or Corktown or Russell Woods organize and implement a neighborhood association with bylaws and maintanence rules? If the subdivisions of Canton or Rochester Hills can do it, what prevents city neighborhoods from doing it? The only problem I see is the number of residents. A suburban subdivision has a lot less people and less area than a city neighborhood.

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What you are referring to are covenants and these must be in place when they neighborhood is developed. The subs that you are referring to operate almost like a hybrid of condos and private ownerships.

That's actually what housing cooperatives do, and it's legal. The cooperative board gets to vote on who moves in. Lafayette/Elmwood area of Detroit has a number of examples of successful cooperatives. This couldn't be implemented in a traditional neighborhood of single family homes unless someone first bought up all the houses and then converted the whole thing to a cooperative.

Once, in New York City, a cooperative board rejected Richard Nixon.

We once had a system like that. They were known as restrictive covenants, and were struck down by the Supreme Court.

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Originally Posted by EastsideAl

We once had a system like that. They were known as restrictive covenants, and were struck down by the Supreme Court.

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Only if they are discriminatory.

Cooperatives are not like what is being described in the least.
http://homeguides.sfgate.com/definit...sing-6754.html

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Originally Posted by EastsideAl

We once had a system like that. They were known as restrictive covenants, and were struck down by the Supreme Court.

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Covenants that are still legal encumber the property by decreeing that you are a part of the homeowners association, that you will pay dues and assessment to the association, and that you will be bound by architectural standards, appearance requirements, and conduct requirements established by the association.

Me, I'm in favor of freedom.

I am nearly absolutist when it comes to private property rights. If you aren't directly harming your neighbors, you life, property, family and finances should be none of their damn business. Especially retroactively. If you want to build a community from the ground up and have rules to join, that's your business, and that of the lemmings that would want to live there. But you can't take existing homes and residences and declare rules for them.

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Originally Posted by MikeyinBrooklyn

I am nearly absolutist when it comes to private property rights. If you aren't directly harming your neighbors, you life, property, family and finances should be none of their damn business. Especially retroactively. If you want to build a community from the ground up and have rules to join, that's your business, and that of the lemmings that would want to live there. But you can't take existing homes and residences and declare rules for them.

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You can if 100% of the property owners agree and sign the legal papers. One holdout will kill it. You can also dissolve restrictive covenants if all of the owners agree to the dissolution.

No one is going to agree to restrictive covenants on property they already own and is already developed. Maybe not no one, but very few. If one were naive enough to consider a broad application of this philosophy to be a good idea, your best bet would be to buy an entirely abandoned block and build Shangri-La on that block. But one of the things that makes an urban setting urban is the juxtaposition of different elements. Differing types of people, professions, architecture, and activity give a vibrant city it's sense of life. Restrictive covenants block out, by definition, some of the variation of city life. Income stability and good credit requirements would rule out every artist and musician I've ever known.

The desire to make sure that landlords keep their property maintained and occupied can be achieved through building code enforcement. We generally haven't done that in Detroit, probably due to issues of scale. But it's doable, especially if you are talking about the one or two houses that could set a neighborhood back. Already decimated blocks would not be assisted by either covenants or codes.

Restrictive covenants on properties are inherently racist.

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Originally Posted by sumas

Restrictive covenants on properties are inherently racist.

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Why? I have lived in a couple of homeowners associations. One was pretty loose and the association pretty much limited itself to maintaining the entrance sign and mini-park, having an annual picnic, and prohibiting homeowners from parking commercial or recreational vehicles in the driveways or on the streets overnight. Another that I lived in was being built one house at a time [[no prime builder) and had stiff architectural standards on setbacks, building heights, extent of decks, width of driveways, etc. They also had to maintain the two roads in the sub and the coded entrance gates. Both subdivisions were interracial.

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Originally Posted by Danny

Today most Detroit neighborhoods are turned into instant ghetto hoods. There are thousand of vacant and abandon homes and buildings block by block. This is due to slumlords renting homes to welfare and food stamp folks, restrictive covenants or another race other your own, other street crimes and failure investments.

What if Detroit neighborhoods or block clubs issue residence requirements to people who are about to move into that area.

For example: A neighbor just move into 16885 Ardmore St. in Detroit's Northwest Side. This resident has pass a resident requirement list. It has a steady job that makes over 25,000 a year and have good credit. Landlords will have to do the same.

Will these residency requirements help maintain property values in excellent condition in Detroit neighborhoods or will it keep out other folks [[like the poor and gov't supportive welfare recipients and food stamp eaters.)

Any thoughts?

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There are two ways this would work: a) the block "owns" the houses that rent. So the block would have to form some type of cooperative, buy the vacant homes fix them up and rent them out. or b) you had a strong HOA. Detroit is not known for HOA's.

Neighborhood HOAs are coming...

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Another issue was the Downtown Business Improvement Zone, a special assessment fund that raises $4 million for clean-up, landscaping and hospitality ambassadors.Jones called it a “great thing to happen” but wants it to expand to city neighborhoods. The council is working on a plan for residents to tax themselves for special services.

“We’ve seen a lot of great improvements in the downtown area,” Jones said. “We’re now working on a special assessment district for all of the neighborhoods. Not only will there be a clean and safe downtown, we’ll have a clean and safe neighborhoods as well.”


From The Detroit News: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/2...#ixzz2z8wE62o6

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Originally Posted by corktownyuppie

Neighborhood HOAs are coming...

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A BID is not the same as an HOA. Besides the original topic of this thread is to screen people from neighborhoods. It has nothing to do with paying for clean-up; landscaping or ambassadors. What this article tells me is that Penske has grown tired of doing this work for either free or at a big discount; particularly when you look at the number of people Penske employs downtown in comparison to Compuware, Quicken, GM, Little Caesars, Blue Cross, Meridian.....

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Originally Posted by sumas

Restrictive covenants on properties are inherently racist.

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I don't agree. At one time there were racial bias written into covenants but those are unenforceable in a court of law.

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Originally Posted by DetroitPlanner

A BID is not the same as an HOA. Besides the original topic of this thread is to screen people from neighborhoods. It has nothing to do with paying for clean-up; landscaping or ambassadors. What this article tells me is that Penske has grown tired of doing this work for either free or at a big discount; particularly when you look at the number of people Penske employs downtown in comparison to Compuware, Quicken, GM, Little Caesars, Blue Cross, Meridian.....

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My apologies. I prematurely jumped to the conclusion that we were shifting the conversation toward pooling resources for maintenance and local services.

Back to Danny's OP...I disagree with the notion that it would be good [[or even possible) to restrict certain people [[whether by race or by income class) from residency ownership.

That said, I do put forth the idea that it would be helpful if we had more local control on behavior. If I'm in Grandmont/Rosedale living on a home of beautiful historic homes, I would take issue with someone who let his/her weeds grow up to 4-feet tall while they also decided to paint their house orange with lime green trim.

Not sure if an HOA or a BID is the answer to that.

My point is that there will be something coming that will allow for more localized control and pooling of resources.

I think you could form an HOA without every resident signing on. If you can get at least a large minority of the homeowners to sign on it would keep property values up, when the houses of the ones who wouldn't sign are sold they will probably then go to people who would be interested in maintaining the value of their investment, and hopefully the new owners would sign on. The trick would be to keep the power mad control freaks from making the covenant too restrictive.

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Originally Posted by corktownyuppie

My point is that there will be something coming that will allow for more localized control and pooling of resources.

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Only in the areas where there owner-occupied residences are the norm. Much of the City has landlorded properties. I doubt landlords would want something like this. It means less profits and higher costs to be passed onto the renters.

I enjoy my neighborhood. Everyone is related to everyone. Someone gets out of line and Grandma, Mother, Aunt or Godmother takes care of it.

We have a strong block club and street association. We all work hard at improving our homes. We share names of plumbers, electricians, painters etc. that do good work and aren't afraid of the city.

We work diligently with police to keep crime away. It happens but then stuff just happens.

Sumas, I am opposed to restrictive covenants for a variety of reasons. And they can [[and have been) used with racial motivation, but they are not inherently racist. It is possible to have a covenant that has no intent or bearing on race or racial issues. But they are still an awful idea, in my opinion. I like neighborhoods like yours sounds. That's what makes it more than a collection of homes.