Friday, January 25, 2013

Gov wants to buy up waterfront property

From the Daily News:

Gov. Cuomo wants Hurricane Sandy victims who live along the coast to consider rebuilding their homes on stilts or selling their houses to the state and relocating.

“At one point, you have to say maybe Mother Nature doesn’t want you here. Maybe she’s trying to tell you something,” Cuomo said in a phone interview with the Daily News Editorial Board.

Cuomo said he hopes more Sandy victims will choose to have the state buy them out rather than rebuild in areas that are at risk of future storm damage.

It would relieve the government of having to pay to rebuild the same houses multiple times.

The state will offer “fair market” appraisals of people’s properties that he expects will be “on the generous side.”

“We give you a check and you move on,” he said. “We take the property.”

'Under Cuomo’s plan, the properties would stay “fallow” — with nothing built on it.

Under Cuomo’s plan, the state would have to decide what to do with the bought-out properties. One possibility is giving them to the city or state parks departments.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Even if folks wanted to do this, the problem is a lot of these houses were "under water" before the floods. The state will want to pay current (depressed) FMV while under NY law, their owners will remain liable for the unpaid balances of the mortgages on these properties, taken out when the houses were worth much more.

Anonymous said...

Will the state be buying up NYC's waterfront properties, like "Queens West", etc. in LIC?

Will they pay for demolishing these flood zone fiascos?

Will they pay for replacing it with a waterfront parkland esplanade, or whatever?

OR will NYC taxpayers get screwed over and over and over again?

Anonymous said...

If the homeowners get a GOOD price it looks like it makes sense.

Anonymous said...

Think anyone will share this program to the Vallones and Hallet's Pt or the assorted shills at Queens West?

Anonymous said...

Yay, we all get to pay for it!!!

Anonymous said...

When you understand one alternative is for the city or state to condemn the property and tell the owner to sue to recover the financial loss, this doesn't look so bad.

Why should taxpayers have a repeating and perpetual obligation to rebuild waterfront properties that private owners have an irrational attachment to?

Anonymous said...

And how are the lost property taxes going to be made up ?

Queens Crapper said...

Why do we have to pay to rebuild OR buy people's property. Let them sell their property to some other fool and pass a provision that says flood insurance will not cover homes in Zone A.

Anonymous said...

No one even heard of the term Zone A until the hurricane. Not having Flood Insurance for a flood zone? Great Idea unless you happen to live in one. This storm has been a reminder that all of NYC is surrounded by water. It could be you next who gets flooded. Then you will be crying for Flood Insurance.

Anonymous said...

The point is that home insurance is supposed to cover the risk of unanticipated events like a fire or an aircraft flying into it.

If a house in a particular location was expected to spontaneously combust every 10 years regularly, there would be no sense to call that an insurable risk, or price an insurance policy for it anything like the price for a house that has no extraordinary risk for a total loss due to fire.

Anonymous said...

QC - the key is to get government out of the low cost flood insurance business. The cost of private flood insurance will take care of the rest.

Anonymous said...

I heard on TV that insurance rates are now up to a whopping $35,000 a year in one particular flood zone.

Mr. Noah said...

172 Street and 35th Avenue is the highest point in Queens. I made sure to check out the topographical maps before I bought my home. I also looked at the zoning maps for the area.

Buyer beware!
DON'T TRUST your real estate broker's sweet talk!

I live 2 blocks away from those coordinates, up on a high hill...and I don't plan on building an ark anywhere in the near future.

Joe said...

Make it no more building or insurance unless they build on pylons.
I remember as a kid the old small houses down the streets from the original hotels like the Mt.Royal, Dennis, Claridge and Convention Hall in Atlantic city were on pylons.
Cars shouldn't be covered also because the people do get plenty warning to move them.

There are over 25,000 insurance totaled flood cars out on the old Grumman Runway in Calverton (Riverhead township).
Most look really nice you would never know what happened from the outside, even some Hummers
Car dealerships are buying them 8 at a time. Watch for an epidemic of used lemons with electrical and rust problems come spring !! The wiseguys somehow can clean-up and re-register them with "wiped" titles in loophole states like Tennessee, W Va then auction them back to dealers here.
Take a real-close look when you see a car carrier traveling WEST on the LIE.