Property tax reform in Missouri, the future of Pope Leo’s childhood home, and Kim Jong Un’s beachfront resort. From the wild and wooly world of real estate, here are our Hits and Misses for the week of June 30-July 4.
Hit: Public Involvement in Property Tax Reform. A big thumbs up goes to Missouri House Speaker Jon Patterson, who launched a Special Interim Committee on Property Tax Reform along with a schedule for public meetings to discuss the topic. Six meetings will be held from mid-July to early September, and Patterson is asking Gov. Mike Kehoe to request a special legislative session in September to review the recommendations fielded from these meetings. Property tax reform has become a hot-button issue across the nation, and the Republican Patterson is taking the right approach by seeking input from voters in a manner that he says will “ensure fairness, transparency, and sustainability for taxpayers and municipalities across the state.” Hey, after all, Missouri is the “Show Me State.”
Hit: Doing the Right Thing. Another big thumbs up goes to the Village of Dolton, Illinois, for agreeing to purchase the childhood home of Pope Leo XIV. The modest 1,200-square-foot brick home, located near the South Side of Chicago, attracted little attention until the former Cardinal Robert Prevost became the first American-born pope in May. The property’s owner was planning to sell the house for $199,000 at the time of the papal elevation but then withdrew the listing and planned to have it sold through an auction. The village threatened to use eminent domain to gain control of the property, but mercifully that extreme route was averted. The sale price was not disclosed, and the village is seeking to set up a nonprofit to fundraise for the site’s preservation.
Miss: Fractured Priorities. A big thumbs down goes to Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, who signed the state’s two-year budget that includes a provision for $600 million in state funds to cover some of the construction costs on the Cleveland Browns’ $2.4 billion domed stadium development. The budget allocates $1.7 billion from the state’s unclaimed funds to establish the Ohio Cultural and Sports Facility Performance Grant Fund, with the Browns as the initial recipient of a grant from the fund. The new budget also rewrites the state’s “Art Modell Law” that will now prevent city leaders in Cleveland from suing to stop the Brown’s relocation to the suburb of Brook Park. Too bad DeWine and the Browns didn’t follow the lead of Ohio’s other NFL team, the Cincinnati Bengals, which opted to renovate their 25-year-old stadium rather spend billions on a new venue – Huntington Bank Field, the Browns’ home, is only 26 years old and should be restored, too.
Miss: Trashing Philadelphia. Another big thumbs down goes to Philadelphia sanitation workers who went on strike and left their city with piles of uncollected garbage in the streets. Striking workers have also been reported blocking access to municipal buildings and harassing resident trying to access trash drop-off facilities. Renee Garcia, the city solicitor, told 6ABC.com, “The kind of things that we are dealing with are jammed locks at health centers. We couldn’t get our doctors into the health center today. Opening fire hydrants. Yesterday, they were slashing tires on trucks, preventing trash drop-offs. We have residents going to drop off their trash and they’re getting harassed on their way.” The union representing the striking workers is trying to get public support – but who wants to support vandals and thugs ruining the residents’ quality of life?
Hit: A Sunshine State Refuge from Socialism. The surprise victory of self-proclaimed Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani as the Democrat candidate for mayor of New York City sparked a great deal of agitation across the Big Apple – especially among real estate professionals who are concerned about Mamdani’s pledge to freeze the rents in rent-stabilized apartments and to shoulder $70 billion in new debt to finance the construction of 200,000 new affordable housing units. In the event Mamdani wins the election in November, some prominent real estate figures are predicting an exodus of New Yorkers to Florida – a prospect that delights Gov. Ron DeSantis. In a Fox News interview this week, DeSantis found humor in the possibility of a new wave of inbound migration from New York City. “I’m telling you, I think I’m going to have to charge an entry tax or something because of this guy,” DeSantis joked. “Because I don’t know if we’re going to be able to absorb everyone that’s going to flee his poor rule if he gets in.” Somehow, we suspect Florida will be able to accommodate those who don’t want a socialist government.
Miss: Welcome to the Hotel North Korea. There is a highly unlikely new player in the Pacific Rim tourism industry – North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has inaugurated the Wonsan-Kalma coastal tourist zone, which encompasses hotels, restaurants and cafeterias, and recreational activities include an oceanfront beach. Kim hailed the project as “one of the greatest successes this year,” adding this would be “the proud first step” in building a tourism industry. But who would want to spend their vacation luxuriating in the most repressive nation on the planet? The first set of visitors will be arriving Russia’s Primorsky region next week – there is no word on whether Americans will be allowed to enjoy North Korea’s version of a beachfront resort.
Phil Hall is editor of Weekly Real Estate News. He can be reached at [email protected].
Photo: BlackJack3D / Getty Images
