Lights on for Safety, Off for the Earth
Stephanie invited us all to take part in her initiative “Lights on for Safety, Off for the Earth”
Do you have an outdoor light fixture that you leave switched on for
safety? If you do and are willing to take the following actions, you
will be provided, free of charge*, a light switch that will turn your
light on and off with the setting and rising of the sun.
- Participation in the Minnesota Energy Challenge
- A Pledge to put a Compact Flourescent Light blub (CFL), or LED light
in your outdoor fixture that will be controlled by the solar switch.
Please contact Steffanie Musich at 612-588-0666 or
steffanie.musich@gmail.com for more information.
Project funded in part from the City of Minneapolis Climate Change
Grants
* Supplies are limited, switches will be available for purchase after
grant supplied switches run out
Volunteers needed for Minneapolis-St. Paul Home Tour
We’ve had two individuals from our group respond.
Marketing our neighborhoods:
Robert presented the letter he wrote to the city officials and neighborhood orgs, etc. and invited discussion on the topic. No one responded. Discussed why we need to become marketers of our community - to entice buyers, promote positives, keep it clean, etc.
Suggestion of a sign campaign idea got mixed interest. Others suggestions brought forward to promote the community and be advocates.
-Keeping the community clean streets in front of houses etc.
-Be a presence be in the front yards, show our unity.
We should work on promoting the value these homes offer the assets we have, the parks, the parkway...
Larry & Denise Lees of Camden Homes Realty gave us a view from the real estate agent’s perspective On housing stock and homes for sale. – “Everybody thinks that all of the foreclosed homes are boarded up, etc”. They believe that “we are near the bottom and that we will see a turn around in about two years. Referring to foreclosures and property values. On absentee landlords not all are bad landlords. Larry thinks that we will have more rentals than we’ve had for the past ten years”. Reasons for a more severe disparity can be attributed to the credit issues of home ownership and those who owned being forced to rent.
Robert asked Larry what are people coming in to look at homes are saying about our community. Larry said that people buy what the media says about Northside. Larry commented he sees a decline in interest in property in our community after a shooting or other negative image reporting for about 3 to 5 weeks. After that time things begin to pick up. On the subject of home foreclosures he noted that most people don’t know that people can stay in their homes for a six-month period of time after the sheriff’s sale, rent-free.
Robert recapped the Advantage program and his proposal to the city. Discussion ensued regarding what the possibilities for the boarded homes that aren’t sold. Robert expressed the concern that this is the impetus for marketing our community, and actually getting homeowners here. The concern is that the opportunity will be taken to other communities and not be used here because of image and lack of homeowner neighbors per block. Who wants to live on a block with a bunch of rentals? It should be noted that during the discussion one person commented that one of two homeowners on his block.
• We had a discussion about turning the abandoned (razed) lots in community gardens and open public green spaces.
• Another discussion was about how the city tears down condemned properties. It was suggested that instead of bulldozing the houses, they should dismantle and salvage as much as possible
Steffanie made note that the 4th precinct needs people to volunteer to do data entry.
Robert asked for suggestions for possible solutions to livability issues that developed into more questions than answers.
“The city penalized the people who try to maintain their properties and let the bad ones slide by”
“Litter clean-up”
“More people need to be outside”
“How do we know if anything has been done about nuisance calls?”
“People are buying a home for $60k and being taxed on $190,000…” The question has been raised is why and when these market values will begin to be applied.
market value should be what it would sell for - lower taxes would make the area more attractive.
“Who’s responsible for cleaning the foreclosed properties?”
How do we attract people to live here?
Connecting among neighbors: acting as resources for one another on projects, i.e. needing a hand on a home project or looking for a tool to borrow, etc. The group gave a positive response to this idea.
Vote for language /position on several issues pertaining to community
City is not doing enough to encourage existing homeowners to stay
Police responses are less than acceptable…
We feel if the city expects us to continue to live here that the police treat us the way we would be treated in other parts of the city.
This item was more or less tabled – Robert & Steffanie volunteered to develop language to send out to the group for feedback.
Open discussion
• Anissa announced a plan that she would like to develop - to hold a Northside wide open house on the weekend after Mother’s day and asked that the homeowners be available to talk to potential buyers. Anissa will develop text to provide NHA that we can then promote.
• Anissa also suggested that we take our meetings outdoors into the neighborhood and have a real visible presence. The group agreed that it would be a great idea so our next meeting will be at a NHA member’s house.
Next meeting: May 12, 2008, location to be sent out via email.
Stephanie invited us all to take part in her initiative “Lights on for Safety, Off for the Earth”
Do you have an outdoor light fixture that you leave switched on for
safety? If you do and are willing to take the following actions, you
will be provided, free of charge*, a light switch that will turn your
light on and off with the setting and rising of the sun.
- Participation in the Minnesota Energy Challenge
- A Pledge to put a Compact Flourescent Light blub (CFL), or LED light
in your outdoor fixture that will be controlled by the solar switch.
Please contact Steffanie Musich at 612-588-0666 or
steffanie.musich@gmail.com for more information.
Project funded in part from the City of Minneapolis Climate Change
Grants
* Supplies are limited, switches will be available for purchase after
grant supplied switches run out
Volunteers needed for Minneapolis-St. Paul Home Tour
We’ve had two individuals from our group respond.
Marketing our neighborhoods:
Robert presented the letter he wrote to the city officials and neighborhood orgs, etc. and invited discussion on the topic. No one responded. Discussed why we need to become marketers of our community - to entice buyers, promote positives, keep it clean, etc.
Suggestion of a sign campaign idea got mixed interest. Others suggestions brought forward to promote the community and be advocates.
-Keeping the community clean streets in front of houses etc.
-Be a presence be in the front yards, show our unity.
We should work on promoting the value these homes offer the assets we have, the parks, the parkway...
Larry & Denise Lees of Camden Homes Realty gave us a view from the real estate agent’s perspective On housing stock and homes for sale. – “Everybody thinks that all of the foreclosed homes are boarded up, etc”. They believe that “we are near the bottom and that we will see a turn around in about two years. Referring to foreclosures and property values. On absentee landlords not all are bad landlords. Larry thinks that we will have more rentals than we’ve had for the past ten years”. Reasons for a more severe disparity can be attributed to the credit issues of home ownership and those who owned being forced to rent.
Robert asked Larry what are people coming in to look at homes are saying about our community. Larry said that people buy what the media says about Northside. Larry commented he sees a decline in interest in property in our community after a shooting or other negative image reporting for about 3 to 5 weeks. After that time things begin to pick up. On the subject of home foreclosures he noted that most people don’t know that people can stay in their homes for a six-month period of time after the sheriff’s sale, rent-free.
Robert recapped the Advantage program and his proposal to the city. Discussion ensued regarding what the possibilities for the boarded homes that aren’t sold. Robert expressed the concern that this is the impetus for marketing our community, and actually getting homeowners here. The concern is that the opportunity will be taken to other communities and not be used here because of image and lack of homeowner neighbors per block. Who wants to live on a block with a bunch of rentals? It should be noted that during the discussion one person commented that one of two homeowners on his block.
• We had a discussion about turning the abandoned (razed) lots in community gardens and open public green spaces.
• Another discussion was about how the city tears down condemned properties. It was suggested that instead of bulldozing the houses, they should dismantle and salvage as much as possible
Steffanie made note that the 4th precinct needs people to volunteer to do data entry.
Robert asked for suggestions for possible solutions to livability issues that developed into more questions than answers.
“The city penalized the people who try to maintain their properties and let the bad ones slide by”
“Litter clean-up”
“More people need to be outside”
“How do we know if anything has been done about nuisance calls?”
“People are buying a home for $60k and being taxed on $190,000…” The question has been raised is why and when these market values will begin to be applied.
market value should be what it would sell for - lower taxes would make the area more attractive.
“Who’s responsible for cleaning the foreclosed properties?”
How do we attract people to live here?
Connecting among neighbors: acting as resources for one another on projects, i.e. needing a hand on a home project or looking for a tool to borrow, etc. The group gave a positive response to this idea.
Vote for language /position on several issues pertaining to community
City is not doing enough to encourage existing homeowners to stay
Police responses are less than acceptable…
We feel if the city expects us to continue to live here that the police treat us the way we would be treated in other parts of the city.
This item was more or less tabled – Robert & Steffanie volunteered to develop language to send out to the group for feedback.
Open discussion
• Anissa announced a plan that she would like to develop - to hold a Northside wide open house on the weekend after Mother’s day and asked that the homeowners be available to talk to potential buyers. Anissa will develop text to provide NHA that we can then promote.
• Anissa also suggested that we take our meetings outdoors into the neighborhood and have a real visible presence. The group agreed that it would be a great idea so our next meeting will be at a NHA member’s house.
Next meeting: May 12, 2008, location to be sent out via email.
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