The problem in cases like this is that the landlords are charging way more than the going market rate, to the point that the storefronts will likely stay empty for two or more years because no-one (including banks, coffee shops, and branded apparel chains) is willing to pay the kind of rents being demanded. Eventually, a luxury boutique chain or high-end restaurant may move in but a street of empty storefronts doesn’t hold a lot of appeal.
As @Raoul notes, the landlords may also be gaming the tax system, but for anyone who actually cares about a healthy capitalist system (including “riches”) the phenomenon of storefronts kept deliberately empty to claim tax deductions until a sucker comes along (behaviour L.A. landlords exhibit at an unusually high rate) is not a good thing.
It’s a particular shame in this case. I’ve been on that retail stretch before precisely because the mix of shops made it a destination not only for the locals but for tourists. The kinds of businesses that might pay rents to greedpig landlords 2-3 years from now are not the kinds of businesses people outside the neighbourhood (and, given the destroyed goodwill, locals) will go out of their way to patronise.
“a big reason my family and I moved to town three years ago: a walkable, shady, tree-lined street whose merchants are a quirky (and legendary) mix”
and
“So naturally, greedy asshole landlords have started doubling and tripling the rents.”
Could these two things possibly be connected in any way? I mean not you personally, but people like you, moving into the community? You know, those people.
Yes I know this - it’s happened and still happening in London.
Which I know you know about, Cory cos you used to live here, and rather than fight it and help us, you just left. Like a lot of people…more understandable now cf. Brexit, but it’s been a lot of braindrain to Berlin and other places…bye artists! I won’t forget your lack of fight when you come back after it all fails and is closed down and slums, and you suddenly want to ‘vanguard’ the next upturn. Uhuh.
The sad thing is the artists, the promoters, the queers (I am several of those), the hipsters, the media types never really face up to the complicity they are in making these areas ‘hip’. At the moment it’s Tooting…nice to see it side by side with locals, but I hope like Brixton they fight a complete takeover. People have to live somewhere and that local flavour doesn’t come from beard oil or retro record stores, it comes from the WHOLE community. The immigrant communities and lower-paid people who actually make an area what it is, rather it being swept away for expensive comic shops and such trinket nerdery.
So Cory - are you going to fight this gentrification this time? Or just move again?
In the case of Burbank, gentrification really isn’t really a factor. The city is economically and fairly racially diverse and hasn’t been blighted or distressed since the Depression ended. White creatives and professionals have been living there since the end of WWII to the aerospace and entertainment industries. The rents these businesses were being charged were not cheap, so no-one was suffering (including the landlords).
While gentrification isn’t the issue Cory has to deal with in Burbank, in general you’re correct. Richard Florida’s “Rise of the Creative Class” was first published over 15 years ago, so none of those groups can pretend they don’t know how the process works.
Yeah, this is actually pretty common in the real estate rental business, even for faceless investment firms. A lot of people don’t seem to get that for property owners, there are many expenses (taxes, mortgages, insurance, depreciation, utilities, maintenance, repairs, legal fees, inspections, etc. etc. etc.) and typically only one income (rent). Vacancy = loss, and many owners operate on very thin margins. We certainly do.
I’m not defending greedos that raise rent just for profit’s sake, but I do think that for many (especially smaller) landlords, it’s not like that.
@Raoul Sounds to me like you’re talking about New York City and the real estate people there. New York real estate people kind of define general assholery, don’t they? There’s one sitting in the White House in Washington DC, that’s the example I have to offer.
What I’ve seen quite often in my neighbourhood is smaller landlords, often ones who inherited the property, get it into their heads that they would rather run the successful business that is in their property. They don’t renew the lease, or raise the rent beyond reasonable, so that they can live out their dream (usually a bar or restaurant) that quickly fails, because it doesn’t have the character that endeared the previous tenant to the locals. Often they count on the foot traffic generated by the previous interesting shops. The more this happens, the less foot traffic there is.
Actually mate, we did. We tried bloody hard to have some impact on the community. I know because I happened to be neighbours with Cory and wrote the numerous letters, organised objections and tried my outmost to get some sanity and local input into the system. Supported by neighbours with more resources than most London communities could dream of to absolutely f***ing no avail. The system is corrupt as hell and people who pretend otherwise are not helping.
It is so rigged that in spite of our resources, clout and access we had absolutely no chance and no impact. Just as all the local communities in London which I have seen destroyed in the past decade, be it in Sommers Town / King’s Cross / Golden Lane etc…
We lived in a Labour Council, one wich was (and probably is) so corrupt that Belize might be held up as a beckon of shining morality next to it.
So how about not lecturing people on what they should have done and instead recognising that people who like you pretend that this is normal and that just with a bit more effort we could re-create f***ing paradise on earth in the East of London. In the bit of London where an filthy outhouse is worth more than a nurse’s annual salary.
How about getting off that high horse and instead accepting that this corrupt system has catapulted the OrangeMenace via the racial cleansing of Queen’s and Aberdeen into the White House while his mates have rigged the Brexit referendum while sunning on some shady Belize goldmine.
So no, doing a bit more is not the answer. Changing the rules is and that starts with recognising the problem. Which in the first in stance is: anyone who hasn’t dedicated their life to property speculation is screwed–big time.
sadly shootings and smelly panhandlers are two of the best ways to slow gentrification (live in a once vibrant, hip neighborhood in Atlanta that is now all 100 year old 3/2 cottages being torn down and replaced by 5/4 mcmansions). I miss the old days.
And what I’ve seen is smaller landlords who have inherited property from their parents, who are all full of entitlement (in the form of, Gimme that check every month, and with increasing amounts!). They tend to have opinions of their tenants which include adjectives such as lazy, sloppy, dirty, careless, apathetic.
Nothing like inheritance/getting-stuff-for-free to make one entitled.
Nah. Burbank is 10% more white than LA county as a whole. The Burbank Hills have long been an enclave of entertainment industry, and Burbank has had the same struggles to upzone and keep up with housing demand.
In 2010 it was 58% non-Hispanic white, 25% Hispanic or Latino, 11% Asian. That counts as fairly diverse in the context of the country as a whole, although so is L.A. county. The point is that this is not a minority-majority neighbourhood with distressed rental rates that’s recently been invaded by white hipsters and is now being colonised by white yuppies.
True, but that’s not the same thing as gentrification.
