Be sure
not to miss the listings of “Unintended
consequences” or the surprise of “Who
is not affected” at the end of this article. These categories help define the collateral damage risk of this
unnecessary and overreaching moratorium.
Note
that residential sales are often time specific and delays can hurt anyone and
everyone. I know from experience that no
one with school aged children likes to move, in or out, when school is in
session. The moving season often runs
from end of May through early September.
The peak of this moratorium will cover this entire period. Let’s hope
people will not be required to put off a move for an entire year. That will affect the sales price. A rise or fall in sales pricing is only good
or bad depending upon whether you are a buyer of a seller.
A list of who is at risk for feeling the pain
of a moratorium:
* Home
sellers who need to pull a permit to “open and close” outstanding open permits
in order to sell their home (there are many of these open permit landmines
sitting out there, far too often not discovered until a buyer does his or her
due diligence)
* Home
buyers who want to be able to close on their new home, but can’t because of the
open permits situation listed above.
*
Realty companies, their principals and employees dependent upon the home sales
market.
* Real
Estate lawyers and/or Title Companies and their employees.
* Home
inspection companies, dependent upon the home sales market.
* Banks
and its employees who want to close on loans and both provide for home
ownership as well as employee its employees.
*
Present owners of existing homes who find that they want to enlarge their home
to:
1. Provide for a new arrival such as
a:
A. New baby; or
B. An elderly or
disabled family member who required family attendant support.
C. Need to add room for
an attendant for a family member.
2. Would simply like more room such
as a den, pool deck, pool, enlarged kitchen or additional bedroom (situations
not requiring a variance).
* Area
contractors who do make their money on resident work and who refuse to work
without permits.
*
Employees of the above mentioned area contractors.
*
Homeowners who may fall victim to unscrupulous contractors who convince them
that the work can and should be done without going through Palmetto Bay’s
Building and Permitting Department.
*
Homeowners who live next door to homeowners who fall prey to the above,
especially when the next storm comes and who knows whether things were properly
fastened down or what is holding up that roof.
*
Architects and their firms who make their living on residential construction.
*
Engineers and their firms who make their living on residential construction.
*
Employees (not the principals or partners, I am talking the staffers) of
Architect and engineering firms who make their living on residential
construction (staff is always first to get pink slipped before owners).
^
Vendors and other business owners who serve the above listed business.
* Local
businesses that provide meals to people working in the area.
*Area
non-residential users such as Westminster school who have their zoning in
place, their plans complete based upon the existing codes and are just getting
ready to pull its permits.
*
Resident and business taxpayers who will be called upon to subsidize the loss
of revenue to the building department.
As far
as the above, this is not a matter of simply pushing off business for a few
months and then making it up. Payroll is
due each period. Bills are due each
period. Many businesses, especially
those teetering on the brink now, simply won’t survive the delay caused by a
moratorium.
Who “profits” from this moratorium?
* Unscrupulous or desperate construction
contractors who will or will be forced to work without pulling permits. This weeds out the honest business and home
owners.
*
Palmetto Bay council who will “rake in” significant fine money from all the
code enforcement proceedings resulting from the needed crackdown on people
having to go underground to make moratorium affected improvements.
Unintended consequences:
* May
teach some that they can get away without the expense of permits and hindrance
of inspection, thus leading to a culture of avoidance of permits in the future
even when the moratorium is lifted.
The Unaffected:
The
“targeted” land presently owned by non-residential entities that presently have
no plans or the ability to throw plans together in the next four months or even
the next year. They will remain status
quo while those known as ‘collateral damage’ suffer the pains of moratorium.’
Collateral Damage:
Taken
from Business Dictionary.com, collateral damage has been defined as a:
Euphemism used by the US military during the
second Persian Gulf War (August 2, 1990 - March 3, 1991) as a casual
description of civilian deaths caused by the Allied forces bombings. It was
widely quoted as an example of insensitive doublespeak because of the
underlying callous assumption that a killing called by another name is not a
killing. It gained greater notoriety when the US terrorist Timothy McVeigh used
it to brush aside the death of 19 young children by his bomb on April 19, 1995
in Oklahoma City in which 149 adults were also killed. In common usage, it
means unexpected, unintentional, and/or unavoidable loss(es) accompanying or
following an accident or failure.
Palmetto Bay Council is creating a localized
recession:
Why, is
this council even considering a moratorium just when the local economy,
particularly the residential housing market, is just starting to see an
uptick? The timing could not be any
worse.
A
recession is generally defined as a period of general economic decline, usually
marked by a contraction in the GDP for two consecutive quarters (6 month).
Governments
usually work hard to prevent economic recessions on any level.
The
Palmetto Bay is unique as it is actually working to create a defined
recession. The question is whether they
are intentionally doing this or fail to see the big picture that their actions
have on the community.
Also at risk of pain: those kids who thought they would be attending Westminster after the expansion; they have to wait at least another year.
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