Downtown Grand Rapids Condo Project Faces Foreclosure - News : MediaMouse Progressive Left News Blog - Grand Rapids, Michigan: "Yesterday, the Grand Rapids Press reported that the Icon on Bond condo project faces foreclosure. The bank that loaned the money for the project says that the father-son development team built the project, Joseph A. and Joseph W. Moch, owe more than $40 million--even after getting tax breaks from the city government.
The Mochs launched the project with hopes back in 2003, saying that it would bring critical a critical development. However, the project has largely failed to deliver and has been a source of controversy for years. According to the Grand Rapids Press, only four of the 118 units have been sold and 50 have been leased."
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Thanks to Shu Bartholomew for this link. There are so many of these stories now that you have to wonder when it will end.
1 comment:
When will it end? As the song says, "when there is nothing left to lose".
It would seem to me that the folks who want to see HOAs survive would be mollycoddling them along and trying to keep as many of them together as possible.
But then you have the folks who, for whatever reason, want to push people to the limit. In an April 3, 2009 newsletter put out by Carpenter Hazelwood Delgado and Wood of Arizona, they advocate increasing fines tenfold asking if a "$25 trashcan violation" is reasonable why can't a $250 fine be reasonable? By a "trashcan violation" I am assuming that the trashcan itself is visible to a neighbor who is hanging out of an upstairs window and straining to see between the branches of a huge tree.
And how about increasing the fines from $100 a day to $1,000 a day for an unkempt yard? What exactly is an "unkempt yard"? One that doesn't "konform" to the Kommunity Yard Police's notion of what is acceptable? A friend of mine was cited for having "too many potted plants" in her yard. It is, and was, the most beautiful yard in the entire neighborhood but a neighbor with a brown thumb, a mean green streak and a position of power chose to "do something about all those plants". Is that reasonable? Of course, the newsletter says the owner has a right to be heard. By whom? The same chap who didn't have a single flower growing in HIS yard and who sent the nasty gram? That's reasonable?
How many days of $1,000/day fines would it take to force her to lose her home? And how much of THAT money would go to pay the HOAs legal bills? Is THAT reasonable?
HOAs should NOT be allowed to fine or foreclose. There is nothing reasonable about that.
When will it end? Maybe when there is nothing left to lose or when the folks who think it is "reasonable" to fine people out of their homes dry up and blow away in the wind.
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