ALOC NEWS
| March 5 , 2001 | Associated
Landlords of the Cumberland Area ALOC Phone (301) 759-0530 P.O. Box 1867 |
Vol. 7, Issue 3 |
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March Speaker Joyce Sine and Ken Johnson with the Cumberland Housing Office will be our speakers for the next meeting. Joyce administers the HUD program for the City of Cumberland and Ken is the HUD inspector. With the rising costs of utilities and changes in the program it is timely that they attend one of our meetings and provide us updates on the program. TWR Purchases Buchanan Property This past summer Buchanan Lumber closed down after being in operation for over 100 years. Three brothers owned the business and the decision was made to liquidate the business and sell off the assets. Numerous sales and auctions were held and their stock of lumber and other building supplies were disposed of by November. The real estate centered around 549 North Centre Street was a bit harder to market and there were no serious offers received until late November when TWR Communications tendered an offer that was accepted by Wills Creek Lumber and Land, which is the owner ofBuchanan Lumber. The real estate consist of the lumber yard, showroom, offices, warehouse, three residential rental properties with 6 tenants, woodshop and a large tract of land adjacent to the csx railroad between Valley and Pear Sts. The closing was held on February 28th and TWR will soon start renovations to get the property ready to house its expanding operations. TWR was not planning on getting into the residential rental business, but that was part of the deal so they are now one of ALOC's newest members. Allegany College Lead Paint Courses The MDE has established a one time half price deal on lead paint training and Allegany College is jumping on the bandwagon with classes being scheduled for March 12th and 13th. We assume that the nonnal $ 215 price will be cut in half. The MDE has finally recognized that if they do not make it easier for us to get training it will be difficult to comply with the law. We hope that this may lead to other programs or changes to their policies that make the Lead Paint Program easier to live with. Contact
Jon Lot! at Allegany College for details.
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Cumberland Mayor and Changes As you probably read in the newspaper recently, Mayor lee Fiedler has proposed some possible changes to the way property taxes are assesses. One plan calls for the elimination of the garbage collection charges from the tax base and treating them as utility bills that would be added on to the quarterly water bills. This would be consistent with what other municipalities are doing and would be revenue neutral. The problem faced by the City of Cumberland is the high property tax rate we have which is pumped up by the inclusion of the garbage costs within the tax rate. This change could reduce the property tax rate by approximately $ 0.29 per 1000. This would move us in the correct direction and clearing up ambiguities that make Cumberland look bad. We as landlords will be faced with some decisions about how we handle this cost with our tenants. If the garbage fee is added to the water bill as a separate line item, obviously our tenants that pay their own water bills would be paying the fee. For those ofus including water with the rent we would see our property tax decrease and the utility cost rise correspondingly. The Mayor may look at other areas for changes and if members have any other ideas they can contact the mayor at his office in City Ball. Permit Committee ALOC president JeffHutter has been active on the Cumberland pennit committee and changes will soon be showing up. The committee has been primarily focusing on new construction pennits and housing will be tackled next. Some of the proposed plans are to go to a complaint-based system assuming that landlords will be having the Lead Paint Visual Inspection performed at turnover. Landlords
or tenants wishing to have additional inspections performed
throughout the year would have to pay a nominal inspection
fee. We are trying to see if annual registration can be done
by sending in a copy of the MDE registration papers, eliminating
some redundancy. |
Maryland Property
Owners Notes
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We are working on lining up speakers for our future meetings and we tentatively plan to have Bonnie Friend from the District Court back, the Cumberland Fire Department, someone from the banking industry who can fill us in on various matters including foreclosures, Cumberland Water Department and the Cumberland Police Department. We will be talking to these people in the next few weeks to see what we can line up for our meetings. At our
last meeting there was a great deal of discussion regarding
the cost of natural gas and what if anything can be done. ALOC
will shortly draft a letter to Cas Taylor and others in government
regarding this problem, however letters from individual members
will have much more impact. There appears to be little difference
in the price of gas among the various suppliers but we have
listed them if you wish to call them: Interstate Gas 1-877-327-9427
Energy USA 1-888-223-1944 Speaking
ofwriting letters, now may be the time to write the governor,
and other state leaders concerning the escalating over- regulation
we are experiencing in the Housing industry. When you combine
the lead paint program with the EP A and HUD requirements, long
time periods for depreciation, local housing regulations and
increasing costs of utilities you have to wonder how long we
can stay in this business. Letters sent to these various officials
should include copies to Senators Sarbanes and Mikulski as well
as Congressman Roscoe Bartlett. The only way we can hope to
influence these people is by keeping them informed about our
difficulties.
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Leases and other Documents The Leases and other forms have been upgraded to reflect Law changes made in recent years and are available now.ALOC has
available leases, rental applications and tenant checklists
for sale, at cost, to members. The cost for each item is as
follows: These forms are kept at Jeff Hutter's office, TWR Comm. at 117-119 Valley Street. Any paid member can stop by and pick up whatever they need, however we ask that you call first with your order so that the forms can be ready and waiting for you. Please
call at least 24 hours in advance as these are made to order. |
ALOC
Officers
J. Jeffrey Hutter President Rose
Selby Vice President J. Jeffrey Hutter Treasurer Board of Directors
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