Yup. I don't understand why the city has to be so dickish about this. It's no wonder we keep losing businesses in that spot.
Not that I have any great love for commercial landlords in Davis Square, but it's easy to see why the owner of this building would be all "screw it, what's the point in maintaining this building?" The city collects pretty high property taxes, based on how "valuable" this location is, and then makes it hard for any business to move in there and actually pay the rent that supposedly makes it so valuable.
I'm not even convinced that the city should be allowed to pull this kind of thing, where they say "you gotta pay more". You pay taxes, and you get city services. Unless there's some egregious violation of the law, making someone pay more doesn't seem right. If you have violated the law, then, that's what fines (spelled out in the city bylaws ahead of time, so everyone knows what the rules are, beforehand) are for. Sometimes you pay more in taxes than you get in services, and sometimes you pay less. That's just the way it works. Waiting until the last minute and telling the property owner "pony up another $138K or we're going to sabotage your deal", seems really, really scummy.
ETA: maybe I should send the city a bill for the "labor", and the cost of the snowblower I bought in frustration after I dutifully shoveled the 6 inches of snow off of our sidewalk, only to have a city plow come by 2 times in the next 6 hours, going 30 miles an hour and throw 8-10 inches of dense, slushy crap onto it, that I then had to go shovel yet again. I'm not joking about the 30MPH, either - I literally had to leap out of the way when they did it the first time, convinced I was going to get run down.
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Date: 2016-04-07 07:13 am (UTC)Not that I have any great love for commercial landlords in Davis Square, but it's easy to see why the owner of this building would be all "screw it, what's the point in maintaining this building?" The city collects pretty high property taxes, based on how "valuable" this location is, and then makes it hard for any business to move in there and actually pay the rent that supposedly makes it so valuable.
I'm not even convinced that the city should be allowed to pull this kind of thing, where they say "you gotta pay more". You pay taxes, and you get city services. Unless there's some egregious violation of the law, making someone pay more doesn't seem right. If you have violated the law, then, that's what fines (spelled out in the city bylaws ahead of time, so everyone knows what the rules are, beforehand) are for. Sometimes you pay more in taxes than you get in services, and sometimes you pay less. That's just the way it works. Waiting until the last minute and telling the property owner "pony up another $138K or we're going to sabotage your deal", seems really, really scummy.
ETA: maybe I should send the city a bill for the "labor", and the cost of the snowblower I bought in frustration after I dutifully shoveled the 6 inches of snow off of our sidewalk, only to have a city plow come by 2 times in the next 6 hours, going 30 miles an hour and throw 8-10 inches of dense, slushy crap onto it, that I then had to go shovel yet again. I'm not joking about the 30MPH, either - I literally had to leap out of the way when they did it the first time, convinced I was going to get run down.