Brutus_buckeye

^ I had a renter on a property I owed at one time. SHe was new to the area from Florida and never held a real job before. She drove a brand new Lexus and a pedigree dog and expensive tastes in every area. She had a decent job at Medpace, but even with a masters and no experience, she easily spent everything she took in, plus her $1000 month rent. Just doing the math, I was like, you can afford the place fine, but your lifestyle wont leave you much room to move up to bigger, nicer places down the line. Of course I did not take into account she could be promoted and earn more which could change things, but I have always taken a cautious view on earnings potential through the years. Never know when a crash will come and you need to be ready.

I find it fascinating that young professionals under 30 can pay $600k for a townhome. I know east coast cities command those prices but how on earth do they generate any savings. I know I sound like jmecklenborg[/member] , but it fascinates me.

^ project did get approved. They say the project will start this year, but things always get pushed back or delayed so we shall see

He pretty much blast Simpson and Young in this as amateurish not ready for prime time here. He is very sympathetic to Avondale's concerns and very deferential to the concerns in the community weighing them against the benefit to the region. He almost appears to blast Simpson and Young not for holding up the deal, but more for doing such a poor job of trying to protect the interests of Avondale residents by not going about their concerns through the right channels to extract better benefits for Avondale.

Completely false. Children's sold/gave them the land for their most recent expansion back around 2007. Children's has owned the adjoining properties since 2008. Not quite completely false. I shouldn't have said unhappy, but slightly annoyed was probably better. I wont go into details since they are more insider comments and they would never make a public stink about it, but there were some people in leadership there slightly annoyed with Children's

I heard the people at Ronald McDonald house are not too happy with the expansion either because children's is encroaching on some of their planned expansion space.

I'm still frustrated that Mahogany's gets more attention than the far worse deal that was done with Toby Keith's I love this Scam (google the bar's name and you'll find a giant list of lawsuits all over the country), more city money was given to them than Mahogany's but their wasn't any kind of news stories about that... Btw A lot of these "social experiments" were trying out new ideas and seeing what stuck. IMO its something Cincinnati should try more, while some were poorly thought out, not all were - for instance Mallory pushed for the World Choir Games which IMO was a success and helped the city's morale, ditto with the 21C Hotel and even getting a Panera bread downtown. Also the artworks Murals he had a hand in getting started and when I took friends down to Cincinnati that was one of the first things they complimented. He was doing the kinds of experimentation that was sorely needed in Cincinnati. These days Cranley seems to only be interested in developing big box suburban style developments in peripheral neighborhoods. If the business community got angry at this - tough junk, they've been doing poor decisions for their hometown for too many years and saying no to everything. They should own up to their dysfunction. (See the whole Dennison mess for the latest chapter of what they think are good ideas). It is not the concept that is the problem with Mahogoney's it is that the city needs to be a shepherd of taxpayer money. WHen you give it to a bad credit risk, that is not doing your fiduciary duty. If the owner had a stronger credit history or had other deeper pocket investors it was a reasonable risk to take. The problem is the deal was bad because the diligence was ignored and the taxpayer money was wasted. That is not the job of the city to take such risks. Let the private sector finance her. Panera, Toby Keith's were class A Tenants who carried a much lower credit risk. That is the difference. 21C was a very strong credit and had a proven concept. I do not have a problem with the city taking a risk on new concepts, however, they should not treat taxpayer money as a venture capital firm would and should not be taking financial risks with marginal prospects.

No need to get into a pissing match folks. You both are right to an extent. 3CDC started in 2003 to help revitialize the core. They starting banking OTR property for later development at that time. Their first big project though was Ftn Sq in 2005/06. Luken was mayor at that time. Mallory came to office in 2006/07 and worked to get the banks project started. He said there was a hole in the front porch. The Banks was a long stalled project and he made it a priority to get it started. He led the way to getting Carter on board for the Banks project. Washington Park was set to be developed for years prior to 3CDC. It took a number of developments to get the key players to execute upon it but Mallory did play a role in helping get that moving. The rest of OTR was in motion prior to Mallory, but the great recession slowed a lot of it down. Mallory had some big wins but later in his career he alienated the business community some by doing more social engineering and boondoggle projects (Mahogoney's for example) and any Laure Quinliven idea. Part of Mallory's problem was Doheney as city manager was not very good to deal with.

I always thought Luken set up 3CDC with one of the key goals of fixing OTR. From the beginning they focused on buying up a huge part of the housing stock in OTR and banking it for future development.

^ I think it is a balancing act and sometimes you need to sacrifice for the sake of progress. Some people are willing to throw the entire baby out with the bathwater because they are not getting everything they want. Very shortsighted.

^ But the sale of the Row was probably negotiated separately in a separate transaction and the city was paid FMV. While it may have been essential to the overall project, if the land deal was a separate transaction, then the city cant come back and try and bundle it to the whole deal. Also, getting back to the earlier point. It is poor judgment to pick a fight with a children's hospital. Just bad optics

I do not have the exact specifics on that part of the deal, but in most cases no it will not be if Children's paid fair market value for it or above fair market value and the transaction was not tied to any other form of tax incentive.

There is a right way and wrong way to do this. Going after a children's hospital, let alone one of the top pediatric research hospitals in the world, will always be the wrong way just on the optics alone. It was a stupid battle to fight and if she loses because of this, she only has herself to blame. Secondly, this was something that had been in the works for years and those concerns should have been address long before a vote like this came to light, otherwise it looked like her and Young were just seeking to extort money. Again bad optics and poor judgment on her end. Third, since no public money was at stake, the only thing she had to try and get more money was to hold off Children's request for a zoning change. This is illegal under Ohio Law. So again you need to question her judgment. It would have been different if Children's was seeking TIF incentives or other tax breaks or kickbacks, but they were not for this project so the city did not have as much power to pushback. Again, as a lawyer, this shows poor judgment on her part because she did not have the legal leg to stand on for her pushback.

^ I was not a huge fan of Mallory, but he at least knew how to work with the corporate leaders in the city, at least on the surface.

^ Wonky issues can be boiled down to quick sound bites and have an impact. Imagine a commercial about Simpson putting the health of inner city children at risk to support cronies. This is an ad that will be created. It obviously does not tell the whole story but this is a commercial that will likely be cut. Thing is, trying to vote against a non-profit hospital serving children in the area is really never a good idea for your political ambitions. Wendall Young is different, he can do that because he wins by winning Avondale, Yvette needs to have broader appeal. Plus, you don't want to have the business community choose sides and actively throw money at your opponent.

^ This is definitely going to hurt her in the election. Cranley is gearing up the ad machine now about how she voted to hurt the health of children in the area.

That Is only part of the equation. All commercial properties use this deduction as well. If you get rid of the deduction, what it will do is cause the real estate market to tank. This will cause asset prices to be written down and the value of a $5 million piece of property is now going to be $3 million. While that may be too bad so sad for the property owner, he is now underwater on the mortgage and it will trigger a covenant from the bank to call the loan (because it is commercial and they have those covenants) or he cant refinance it when it comes due, thus sending the property in foreclosure. Now the bank has all these bad performing notes on their books because the tax deduction caused the rapid deflation of real estate and they can no longer meet their capital requirements by the fed. They cannot offer loans for other businesses looking to grow or even provide lines of credit to businesses to help them with their payroll. Banks will fail and take other non real estate businesses with them for the reasons cited above. It will create a downward spiral just like in 2009 which, if you don't remember, was led by the real estate market crashing. This is why the mortgage interest deduction will not go away Business interest deduction does not have to go away if personal mortgage interest deduction goes away. Commercial Real Estate Mortgages are tied to that deduction.

^ Politics X is not really the important article. The Fisher letter blasting Council especially Young and Simpson is a lot more significant.

http://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/politics/2017/08/08/childrens-ceo-fisher-puts-foot-down-new-avondale-demands/550985001/ Fisher is basically telling the dissenters to shut up and get in line and get the deal done. He has a point. Enquirer also saying Simpson overplayed her hand and could hurt her chances

That Is only part of the equation. All commercial properties use this deduction as well. If you get rid of the deduction, what it will do is cause the real estate market to tank. This will cause asset prices to be written down and the value of a $5 million piece of property is now going to be $3 million. While that may be too bad so sad for the property owner, he is now underwater on the mortgage and it will trigger a covenant from the bank to call the loan (because it is commercial and they have those covenants) or he cant refinance it when it comes due, thus sending the property in foreclosure. Now the bank has all these bad performing notes on their books because the tax deduction caused the rapid deflation of real estate and they can no longer meet their capital requirements by the fed. They cannot offer loans for other businesses looking to grow or even provide lines of credit to businesses to help them with their payroll. Banks will fail and take other non real estate businesses with them for the reasons cited above. It will create a downward spiral just like in 2009 which, if you don't remember, was led by the real estate market crashing. This is why the mortgage interest deduction will not go away

^ That is a deduction that will never go away because so much of the economy depends on it. It would crash the entire financial system if they got rid of it.

It's not unfounded, they lived on the street and didn't pay their taxes. People get butt hurt and can't handle it when people make statements about their political idols. If Trump, Pence or Ryan; hell anyone that isn't a democrat would've done this all hell would be breaking loose and it would be a much bigger story. That part you cannot argue! This is not quite the same as liberals not paying their taxes. This is a few hundred dollars. It was more just stupidity on their part for this oversight. I have no sympathy for them but, it is not quite the same as a liberal who has a $2 million tax bill and has been openly evading taxes.

Their political affiliation is irrelevant. However, as to the street matter and what they should know, They are all multi millionaires. They may not think to ask, however, when they contemplate a transaction such as a large estate house, they have a duty to hire professionals do be the experts when they do not want to do the work themselves. It is hard to feel sorry for them because they had the means to discover this. On top of all that, with any real estate transaction, any title search will uncover items such as tax liens that may be filed against a property or neighborhood which could affect the property. This includes HOA and streets. Claiming they were naïve in this situation just does not hold water.

It doesn't matter to people because jobs. Hospitals are the new factory work so they're able to get away with whatever just like factories used to. Of course that should be the key factor here. If you have something that will create a billion dollar impact on the entire region and allow for the city to create the type of development and reinvigorate urban areas, sometimes you need to break a few eggs. On top of this, you save children's lives Everyone should be for this.

Whether they did not know or remember is irrelevant, the fact is they should have known. When they did a title search, it would have been disclosed there. To get a bank loan for a mortgage, it would have been disclosed. They had every opportunity to know even if it was not overtly disclosed to them. It was their duty to find this out. The fact they chose to bury their heads in the sand is to their own detriment.