How Can North Minneapolis Turn Around? (Waconia, Grant: apartment, renter, condos)

[DrpepperPHD]

It seemed like things were improving. Well at least with murder rates last year. I love the homes, I LOVE the prices. And there seem to be some great neighborhoods. But would I consider walking anywhere late at night?
(doubtful) What can be done and done effectively and quickly?

[Cruz Azul Guy]

Every time somebody invests in a home in the area and converts it from vacant or renter occupied to owner occupied it improves the neighborhood. If you buy a house on a block and invest in the home and maintain your lawn people will take notice, it'll make the block more attractive and stimulate further investment and people will take more pride in the neighborhood.

People are going to argue with me on this but the majority of renters I know aren't overly concerned about the long-term health and appearance of the neighborhood. In my experience, the more owner-occupied units in the area the better.

I would also make the very general argument that areas with higher owner occupancy and occupancy in general tend to have lower crime. The northside has too many vacant and condemned properties right now, I think increased investment in the area will improve it more quickly than anything else.

[west336]

That's probably because owning is an "investment" (was, anyways) vs. renting is a cost. At the end of the day a homeowner may need to sell his/her home and anything that'll boost the value of the home becomes an incentive to the homeowner, and it starts with taking care of the property and the interior.

[City eYes]

I think north Minneapolis needs an attraction that draws people to it. Maybe a college or a lake or something like eat street. We need something. I will say things continue to change for the better. It might take a while before you walk around at night, but 5 years ago you might of never believed you live in north Minneapolis.

[uptown_urbanist]

OK, Slig, I'll argue with you. Well, not too much of an argument, because I agree with part of your statement. I do think north Minneapolis does need more owner-occupied housing. I don't think renters are the problem, though, at least not as a group: the problem is the absentee landlords. I think problem landlords lead to problem tenants, or in the case of good tenants who have no financial choice but to stay put, unhappy tenants who are at the whim of slumlord landlords.

[Cruz Azul Guy]

Originally Posted by uptown_urbanist

OK, Slig, I'll argue with you. Well, not too much of an argument, because I agree with part of your statement. I do think north Minneapolis does need more owner-occupied housing. I don't think renters are the problem, though, at least not as a group: the problem is the absentee landlords. I think problem landlords lead to problem tenants, or in the case of good tenants who have no financial choice but to stay put, unhappy tenants who are at the whim of slumlord landlords.

If you want to use Uptown as an example I will agree that the Uptown area has alot of exceptions to my renter generalization. I think the fact that it is a more expensive and highly occupied area leads to more responsible landlords who have more to lose if their property falls below standard. Also, Uptown has a lot of strange long-term residents who have been renting the same apartment for 10+ years (honestly, why wouldn't you just buy at that point?) Yes, as all generalizations go there are exceptions.

However, take a block like mine (which is much more comparable to a block in a North Minneapolis neighborhood than a block in a place like Uptown in my opinion). There are 24 homes on my block, of which maybe 8 are rented out and the rest are owner occupied. We have been here for nearly 2 years and any time there is an issue it is ALWAYS with one of the duplex rentals, whether the owner fails to follow an ordinance or make a necessary repair or one of the renters is committing some type of chenadigans or tomfoolery. Has anyone else had similar experiences? I'm a relatively new homeowner so I can't draw from a very large sample.

[uptown_urbanist]

I think it's a subtle difference, but in the case of an owner not making a repair it's still the owner, not the renter, who is to blame. I'd also fault landlords who rent to bad tenants. Granted, one can't always know who is going to cause problems, but I think in the cheapest rentals there are too many owners willing to just rent out to anyone who comes along. I guess in some ways that means that the fact that the place is a rental is part of the problem, but it's not necessarily the renter himself (herself) that's the issue.

North Minneapolis is a different issue, but in general I think the introduction of condos into Minneapolis will be a good thing. Ten years ago there weren't many around; now they're everywhere. It does give people who want to own a potentially more affordable, non-single family home option.

On the block I grew up in Uptown it was the renters who were the problems (with one exception, but thank goodness he's moved on - watch out East Harriet residents!). But in part because like you say, Uptown has been more expensive, those problem renters also got kicked out as soon as they started causing problems.

The other issue that I've seen in Uptown (more in the Lyndale neighborhood than in core Uptown) has been gentrification; there have been renters who have worked hard to improve their neighborhood only to see their rents rise as a result of the area's improvements. I don't know the ins and outs of the politics and the issues in north Minneapolis, but in an ideal world there would be an opportunity to give BOTH owners and renters the motivation to work hard to improve their neighborhood, and not penalize those who don't own if their efforts are successful. I think a neighborhood needs a mix of renters and owners, but ideally the mix isn't exclusively renters. Owners do have a different stake in the outcome, and they do need to be present in the mix. That's why for neighborhoods with a large number of duplexes or multi-family homes I think it's the best of both worlds when the owner lives in one unit. It's the perfect incentive to maintain a property AND rent to good tenants. I'm not sure what the answer is in neighborhoods that have a greater percentage of single family homes; get buyers in there, of course, but there's still always going to be renters. In an ideal world (easier said than done) the people who are buying and renting out houses will themselves live in the community, and will have a greater personal stake in maintaining the homes and selecting good tenants.

As far as problem renters, will they turn into good neighbors if they're owners? Sure, they'll have some added incentives to change their ways, but is it enough? (I'm sure there's been vast quantities of literature written about the topic, although I'm not familiar with it) Each individual neighborhood can tackle the local problems all they want (as they should), but ultimately at the broader level society has to figure out how to handle these problems otherwise the truly undesirable problem neighbors are just going to keep shuffling around from one place to another.

[Camden Northsider]

Originally Posted by DrpepperPHD

It seemed like things were improving. Well at least with murder rates last year. I love the homes, I LOVE the prices. And there seem to be some great neighborhoods. But would I consider walking anywhere late at night?
(doubtful) What can be done and done effectively and quickly?

Seriously? Another one of these threads? North Minneapolis might really turn around if people without familiarity of the area quit making these types of threads. It's funny, in another thread about crime/homicide, when the murder rate in Mpls in 2010 was primarily comprised of the triple homicide that took place early this year in the Seward neighborhood, the thread somehow took a turn to focus on the northside (granted, more recent homicides have taken place in North, but at that time it had the lesser of the rates). It's always a "freak" phenomenon in neighborhoods with a higher preponderance of white professionals and college students like Seward, but on the northside it's of course just a perpetual plague.

And for those that do live and work on the northside- it's already changing, and for the better in many areas. Drive down West Broadway and compare it to a few years ago, then drive down it a year or two from now and see the continued changes that are happening. Even driving down Emerson and Fremont south of Broadway you will see a number of homes being lovingly restored, and these are the busiest north-south thoroughfare in the heart of the northside. Yes that are still a lot of vacant homes and a high proponderance of investment properties, which aren't doing a whole lot for community health/viability.

But the Get to NOMI organization has been pretty successful IMO at drawing folks to the Northside and highlighting the great amenities/attributes of the area. This has a lot of momentum right now and, IMO, will just continue to grow/snowball (a year or two ago there was even been some concern voiced in some areas about gentrification happening, which really is not a concern at all, but did show that people were sensing change happening).

Regarding my own personal experience with the landlord/tenant issue. On my block, fully comprised of SFHs, there is only one rental home which there have been some issues with over the years (was a former TJ Waconia house). I agree that landlords need to be fully responsible for properly screening their tenants and ensuring that their tenants are abiding by the terms of the lease (which should always have a crime-free addendum). It's also the responsibility of the neighbors surrounding problem properties to report those problems to the police and/or city (individually or as a block club) so that they can try and get them addressed. We've had some pretty responsive police personnel when we/our block reports an issue, which has been good.

I also agree that, especially in a less-dense residential neighborhood comprised primarily of SFHs, a higher owner-occupancy rate generally translates to a much better quality of life/ viable neighborhood. My Northside neighborhood (Victory), had about a 90% owner occupancy rate as of 2000, and from what I can tell that's either stayed pretty similar if not increased in recent years.

[City eYes]

I tried to create a thread about shingle creek lake. I know that plan could mean some people losing their houses, but is that the kind of ideas you are asking? We know slow change is coming, but is there any serious development that will attract people from across town. Basically the way I go to south Minneapolis for its attractions.

[uptown_urbanist]

What's the feeling in North Minneapolis about names? My impression of North Minneapolis is that it highly varies by neighborhood, but that because in the eyes of the Twin Cities it's all "north" it's all bad. And given human nature, instead of looking at the good, it's too easy for too many people to focus on the neighborhoods with the bigger problems and assume that, say, Jordan is interchangeable with Shingle Creek.

There definitely seems to be a lot of energy in North Minneapolis now, though. Lots of willingness for community members to get things done, to take creative risks, or otherwise really get down to the business of making a community. Not to go off on a tangent, but when I read all these other threads about how difficult it is to make friends I think that one of the easiest things people who want to meet people could do is to move to a neighborhood that is actively engaging its residents in real issues. It doesn't have to be a "bad" neighborhood, but just a neighborhood where people are concerned about more than just planning the annual block party.