Orr: Protecting property values is in everyone's interest
By Steven W. Orr
Friday, September 22, 2006
A few months ago, someone created a new blog entitled, "This is Framingham." It was a very nice job of taking pictures and providing commentary.
That gave me an idea: to go around town looking for problems of the type that harm a neighborhood's property values.
We were looking for blight (whatever that is); specifically, we focused on signs of overcrowding and violations of the town's nuisance bylaw. We knew that if we wanted to catch signs of overcrowding, we'd have to get up pretty early in the morning - before the occupants of those overcrowded units all left home for work. Starting at 5 a.m., we drove around the south part of town (selected because the concentration of violations there would make it easier to find worthwhile pictures).
After taking only 30 photos, we "declared victory" and withdrew. The pictures, with descriptions, were sent only to the Framingham Building Department for action.
After a week went by with no response from Town officials, I contacted another good friend and we went out for second and third rounds, a week apart.
We looked for an excessive number of mailboxes, satellite dishes, cars, electric meters, and trashcans all belonging to a single house.
We looked for structural absurdities like collapsing porches and decaying concrete walls.
We looked for massively-overgrown vegetation and overflowing dumpsters.
We even scored abandoned television sets, couches, washing machines, and toilets in people's yards.
We saw roofs so badly decayed that we had to question whether the structures could even be safe for human habitation. We saw houses with so many people living in them that they had their own fire department call-boxes installed next to the doorbells. We saw four men beating up a fifth man on a public sidewalk at six o'clock in the morning.
Altogether, we snapped about 200 pictures and we placed them all on the Web, along with descriptions, so they could be distributed to about a thousand of my closest friends. Each time, we sent all this information to the Building Department.
Because all of the pictures were taken in the south part of town, some people criticized me for not turning a spotlight on problems in other neighborhoods. So, Rob and I went out again, focused this time on some houses in the Nobscot and Saxonville areas.
Plenty of problems exist there but it's harder to find them, because the problem houses are more spread apart. Still, after a few hours we had several gems, including one house that had collapsed in the back and been abandoned for (drum roll, please) 21 years and two other houses that we suspected were unsuitable for human habitation.
We did interact with neighborhood people while making our rounds. One woman was disturbed to see some stranger taking pictures from the street; she tried to report it as a crime.
She spoke no English but, eventually, her message was translated as a report that a terrorist was trying to kidnap her child. How did she know he was a terrorist? He had a beard!
We photographed another house from the street, which caused a 12 year-old to be scared. The girl's father called me and we ended up talking on the phone.
He may not like that we photographed his house and I was sorry to have scared his daughter, but he understands now why we were out there. Ironically, pictures of his house never made it onto the Web; the house just wasn't bad enough.
For the past 10 years, Framingham has been targeted by so-called non-profit social service agencies, which have been turning the town into a regional hub. People from all over flock to Framingham to receive these services - and, when they come here, they need housing.
One agency in particular has worked to create huge quantities of low-cost housing with a targeted bracket of just 30 percent of median income. The resulting blight is due in part to the increased percentage of non-resident landlords, substance abusers and violent criminals associated with poverty, as well as to permissiveness within the town's zoning and permitting processes.
Framingham was being quickly destroyed by the failures of its past leadership. Only within the last year has the rudder begun to turn in the right direction.
No one's house was photographed to shame them. To the contrary, it was all done for two reasons: to shame the town government out of its long state of inaction and to bring attention to the overwhelming need to correct these problems, and to stimulate others into taking action when they see a problem.
Did it work?
Time will tell, but last week the Board of Selectmen took a decisive step by ordering a review of the entire process by which complaints under the nuisance bylaw are handled.
People should try to work with their neighbors to resolve problems that hurt property values and the enjoyment of their homes - but they should also be able to count on timely action from Town Hall when it is called for.
Framingham is proud to have contributed as much as it has to the cause of social services. But when all is said and done, enough is enough.
Steven W. Orr lives in Framingham.
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