Impact and Importance of Property Maintenance

Last week we talked about that state of housing in Elizabethton and took a brief look at future demands for housing. There is one element of housing that I did not discuss which is home values or property values.

The city and other local governments have a responsibility to help reduce and even deter the effects of one property owners choice on another property owner. Enter property maintenance regulations.
Property maintenance – this word is almost just as bad as any four letter word for a person who believes in strong property rights. I have heard many times that an owner can do whatever they wish with their property. For the most part, they are correct! However, because cities have high densities of homes, what one property owner does with their property often times directly affect the value of their neighboring property owner.

Now, don't get me wrong, I most certainly believe that by owning a piece of property entitles you to a great many rights and privileges that other citizens may not have. We must recognize, though, that what we do on our property has a much greater impact on our neighborhood and our community at large.

By simply making small repairs to guttering or slapping some fresh paint on your shutters has a positive impact on your property, your neighbor's property, and the community's property values as a whole. Conversely, a broken window left unrepaired has a negative impact on your property, your neighborhood, and your community and will eventually lead to lowering the value of neighboring properties. I don't think this is something your neighbors would appreciate!

The impact and importance of property maintenance are essential to protect neighbors from negatively impacting other’s property values. In Elizabethton, we have adopted a minimum standard for property

maintenance which still allows property owners to do as they wish with their property, but not to the point of negatively impacting their neighbor's property value.

The next time you consider making a change to your property, ask how would I feel if my neighbors did this to their property? What else can we do in our neighborhood to encourage better property maintenance? Let's talk about it!

Finding a Place to Call Home – The State of Housing in Elizabethton

As I discussing in my first column part of my job is to look into the future of Elizabethton and prepare the city to handle any issues that might arise. This week I would like to look at Housing in Elizabethton. Often housing is one of the more difficult areas for a city to prepare for simply because cities do not build houses!

When urban planners look to into the future, there are a few indicators we consider to determine what direction housing needs to be moving in. Vacancy rate and housing mix are two of the big ones that give us a sense of what cities will need in the future.

In Elizabethton, our housing vacancy rate gives us a good indication if we need new or additional housing. We have a vacant housing rate of just over 12 percent currently. This number typically is close to 10 percent, so 12 percent would indicate that there is not necessarily a high demand for new housing units.

To determine our future housing mix we look to current vacancy rates in owner-occupied and rental-occupied units. Elizabethton has a vacancy rate of 0.9 percent for owner-occupied homes, while the rental vacancy rate is around 9 percent. These vacancy rates should typically be around 2.5 to 3 percent for homeowner units and 5 to 6 percent for rental units. This gives us an indication that we need more owner-occupied units and less rental units.

But wait, we just said we did not need any new housing! Well, this is correct. The existing housing in Elizabethton is enough, but it needs to be transferred to owner-occupied rather than rental property.
These statistics show that there is definitely some work to be done to prepare Elizabethton’s housing for the future. What do you think? Do we need more housing or not? Do we need to provide more housing that can be rented or purchased? Let’s talk about it!

(The data used in this article comes from the US Census Bureau’s 2012 American Community Survey.)

To Plan or To Be Planned, That is the Question

Think about the last time you decided to take a road trip. How did you know where you wanted to go? How did you figure out how to get there? How would that road trip have turned out if you didn’t know how to get to your destination, or worse yet, if you did not even know what your destination was! My guess is you would have had a very unsuccessful road trip.

Just like planning a road trip, urban planners sit in the navigation seat of our cities and help its residents determine what their destination is and on what roads to turn to get the community there.

During my time here I have heard a variety of destinations for Elizabethton. From a tourist destination, to the best place in the Tri-Cities to live, to the most business friendly city in the state. All of these are great destinations, but just like your road trip, everyone in the car has to agree to go in the same direction and to the same destination.

One of my favorite quotes as a planner is from Mahatma Gandhi. He says, “the future depends on what we do in the present.” This is wonderfully applicable to cities! The policies, ordinances, the agreements we make today in our community will shape and create what the future of Elizabethton will be. Without a collective destination, we don’t know on which road to turn or what policies or ordinances we should be making today. We have to know where we want to go.

No matter what decisions we make today Elizabethton will continue to move forward, but are we going to plan our own destination, our own future? Or will the community be planned for us by the decisions and unknown outcomes we choose today?

“Some communities allow the future to happen to them. Successful communities decide the future is something they can create.” one National Civic League saying states. It takes work, it takes time, and it takes energy. We have the power today to make our community what we want it to be in twenty years, so what’s our destination… let’s talk about it!

Introductions

I want to take a few moments in this first column to introduce myself and what I do at the City. I was born and raised in rural northern Ohio. I moved from Ohio to Northeast Tennessee to attend Milligan College where I received my Bachelors of Science in Business Administration and Legal Studies in 2009. I had started working for the City of Elizabethton as an Intern in the City Manager’s Office during my tenure at Milligan and shortly after my graduation I applied for and was offered a position working under Mr. David Ornduff as a Community Planner. I had worked for Mr. Ornduff for two years when he announced his retirement. I applied for the Directorship and was appointed to the full Directorship the following January of 2011.

In my position as the Planning and Development Director for the City I am involved in, well, just about everything! The core of my position is to plan for the future of Elizabethton, to see where the citizens of Elizabethton want to be in ten or twenty years and guide them on a path to get there. I work closely with developers in order to ensure that the type and look of developments is what this community desires. I work with surveyors and property owners to create new lots of land and decide where new roads will go. I work with the Parks and Recreation Board to help them choose new locations for parks and recreational activities within the community. I work with Carter County Tomorrow to ensure that the city has available industrial and commercial property as well as a viable workforce to meet the needs of existing and future businesses. I could go on and on, but I think you get the picture.

In this column, I will be touching on these various aspects of Elizabethton. Most importantly, I hope that this column can be a conversation between you and me on what you want to see in Elizabethton whether it’s housing, transportation, economic development, utilities, education, or any other aspect of the community… let’s talk about it!