On the hook at the PDC
Here's a match made in heaven -- the Portland Development Commission and a private tow truck operator. The PDC is looking to hire one of these fine contractors to patrol the agency's vacant lots and tow away unauthorized cars. The bid notice is here.
According to this document, if you get towed from a PDC lot and you disagree with the tow truck operator's version of events, you can appeal to a staff member at the PDC. I can't imagine a worse day on the phone.
Be that as it may, scroll all the way down to the end of the notice and take a gander at the PDC's many vacant lots. Mmmm, no property taxes coming in from any of those! There ought to be a law that after three years of vacancy, the PDC has to sell any lot it had acquired to the highest taxpaying bidder, and take the sales proceeds (if not the resulting property taxes) and put it toward the police and fire pension debt before it bankrupts us.
| Posted at 1:02 PM | Permalink |
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Comments (9)
You meant sell it to the highest taxpaying bidder, right?
Posted by no one in particular | November 27, 2006 1:54 PM
Oops! Freudian slip. We'll fix that.
Posted by Jack Bog | November 27, 2006 2:19 PM
I'd say the highest bidder who's also a taxpayer. No resason the highest taxpayer should be able to buy at less than the highest bid. ;P
Posted by Allan L. | November 27, 2006 2:59 PM
You'd have to be high to want to own most of those lots.
Posted by Jack Bog | November 27, 2006 3:07 PM
Call me high, but even with the slump, those lots are real estate gold. It would pain me to see PDC get away with undervaluing or giving them away because they're perceived to be crap.
Posted by jim | November 27, 2006 3:53 PM
After six months on the market, if they haven't moved, they're overpriced. Long-term removal of property from the tax base is inconsistent with PDC's mission, isn't it?
Posted by Jack Bog | November 27, 2006 4:20 PM
Why does PDC care if some one parks on publicly owned land? Or is this just more of that “car is evil” stuff from the city?
Thanks
JK
Save energy - drive your small car instead of taking transit.
Posted by jim karlock | November 27, 2006 5:24 PM
"Mmmm, no property taxes coming in from any of those! There ought to be a law that after three years of vacancy..."
There are some people who think the PDC has killed neighborhoods by sucking up the empty property -- or worse, sometimes condemning rentals -- and then just sitting on them for years while the communities around the empty PDC property falls apart.
Like ferinstance on MLK where those gigantic monstrosity buildings are getting thrown up now all of a sudden near NE Fremont Street. Why now? And not eight years ago?
A three-year limit on PDC ownership of derelict property is an interesting proposal.
The whole way property ebbs and flows in this town is worthy of a closer look....I was in the county courthouse a couple months ago and got to watch a county guy actually auction off foreclosed properties on the courthouse steps --- a dozen white guys with cellphones and work clothes bought it all.
Fascinating....what IS the life span of a derelict building in P-town?
Posted by lisaloving | November 28, 2006 7:12 AM
what IS the life span of a derelict building in P-town?
Depends on how you define "derelict" I suppose, but the old Pendleton Woolen Mills building at 3rd and Columbia or so has been "vacant" at least a dozen years.
It's been 22 years we've been waiting for the building to go above the "new" underground parking garage next to the KOIN Tower.
Then again, the Zidell facilty next to the Ross Island that's been in business salvaging ships for a long time is "assessed" at well than less than half my 5,000 sq ft lot and SE home.
Ask too many questions, you'll be sleeping with the fishes. :-)
Posted by Frank Dufay | November 28, 2006 6:39 PM