Badly Needed Competition

 356 College St.  From Pizza to Pizza

The number one reason Amherst has such a high property tax rate (well, besides the gold plated schools) is simple math:  half of all the property in town is owned by tax exempts and the other half is disproportionally make up of homeowners and rental units which shoulder 90% of the tax burden.

Commercial property makes up a desultory 10%.

So it's always sad to see commercial property become residential such as the old Watroba's General Store in North Amherst Center.  Which to be fair, happened a long time ago, well before the recent purchase by Jamie Cherewatti.

 

Watroba's General Store circa 1960s

From the book North Amherst and Cushman

But I find it telling that this 100 yard swap is taking place in East Amherst where Pioneer Valley Pizza is moving from 20 Belchertown Road, to 356 College Street.  Sure, maybe it's that they need less space than their previous 1,350 square feet spot, or maybe they got a better deal on rent.

10 Belchertown Road, former location Pioneer Valley Pizza

Or maybe it's because the building itself is in much better repair.

Yes it's the oldest saying in the evil book of capitalism: "When products compete they get better".  And what Amherst desperately needs is competition in the student rental business.  Because now, with such huge demand and a strangled limited supply, the competition is at best token.

If developments like The Gateway, now dead, or The Retreat, now under attack, were allowed to happen off-campus students would flock to them like swallows to Capistrano.   The Mom-and-Pop operations that do a despicable lousy job of upkeep would have to step up their game to compete, or sell out to a more responsible investors. 

Either way, increasing the supply of safe, quality and affordable housing is the answer.  And we need it now. 

Sunderland Barn Fire

AFD Engine 1 joined brethren fire departments from Hadley, South Deerfield and Montague assisting Sunderland FD put down a barn fire late this afternoon.  The barn was a total loss, but fortunately no injuries resulted.

 AFD Engine 1 on scene

South Deerfield FD Ladder truck

A Call For Back Up

Finally, a family oriented event for the rest of us at the UMass Mullins Center. 

Every day police, fire, and military personnel put their lives on the line for all of us civilians regardless of race, creed, color or social standing, allowing us to go about our daily routine without having to worry about outside intrusions, including catastrophic occurrences.

Or at least be comforted to know that should one of those events suddenly happen, trained individuals will run towards the disaster.

So it's only natural I guess for all those public servants to act like a big family when it comes to taking care of their own.  The Ice Stars For Wounded Warriors event at the Mullins Center this weekend is a prime example.

Even after an exhausting highly emotional week scouring the streets of Boston for cold blooded killers some of Boston's finest will make their way to Amherst on Friday for the hockey game portion (5:00 PM) of the benefit extravaganza. 

Yes police, fire, military and grateful talented members of the general public are all coming together to put on a show.  And I'm sure it will top anything Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland came up with back in the day.

All proceeds will be split equally between the Wounded Warrior Project and The One Fund Boston.

   Flyer for Ice Stars 2013

Hockey Teams Include:

Boston Police Department
    Belchertown Police and Fire Department
    Holyoke Firefighters
    Franklin County Deputy Sheriffs
    MAANG Red Legs
    Mass Fallen Heroes
    Worcester Fire Department
    Rhode Island State Police

In Lieu Of Experience: Education

 Trailer for sale or rent, rooms to let 50 cents ...

Perhaps the major problem with the highly lucrative rental industry in a college town like Amherst is an overabundance of rookie renters who flood the market.  Annually.

And just as carnivorous coyotes can smell fear, Amherst slumlords can smell naivete. 

Enter UMass/Amherst, like the Lone Ranger on his trusty white horse, doing what they do best:  education.

Now students can take an online course designed to enlighten them about taking up residence in a rental unit away from home and the university.  Probably for the first time.

And this innovative online program is not just for students moving into off campus housing, but also for the landlords who will rent to them.  A win win situation.

Now students can learn from experienced professionals rather than learning the hard way, and landlords can show off their Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval from UMass, thus creating trust that they will uphold minimum standards of quality control.

Sort of like the Rental Registration & Permit Bylaw Amherst Town Meeting will enact next month.

The tide is changing. 

Party House of the Weekend?

 APD Mobile Command Center on Phillips Street around midnight Saturday

There wasn't one! How cool is that?

Yes, the Extravaganja festival that attracted a massive crowd of "college aged youth" to the heart of our most public Amherst Town Common for the entire day and a sold out techno concert at the Mullins Center that started packing them in around the same time Extravaganja shut down probably had a lot do do with it.

But the main factor was more than likely a very heavy police presence throughout the town with particular attention paid to the usual suspects.  For instance on Saturday APD simply stationed a black and white patrol car at the entrance to Hobart Lane and another at the intersection of Phillips and Alan Streets.

In addition to nearly a half dozen patrol cars they also mobilized the Personal Transport Vehicle (not to be confused with Paddy Wagon) and a Portable Command Center. UMass police were also out in force as they were last week helping to patrol town territory.

But the other new impressive presence was provided by Massachusetts State Police.  Lots of them.  While I heard a Hadley police officer report back to dispatch "a dozen MSP units" converge on a party house in Hadley, I only spotted a half dozen around Amherst over the course of Saturday night early Sunday morning.

But kind of like the Texas Ranger motto "one riot one ranger," a few state troopers go a l-o-n-g way. 

Mullins Center Rusko concert lets out just after midnight Saturday

And Another One Falls

 1190 North Pleasant Street, Amherst (taken from Meadow Street)

The man with more LLCs than M&Ms have colors just added another trophy to his growing collection of Amherst rental units, this one in the heart of North Amherst center on the corner of Meadow and North Pleasant, two street names synonymous with student rentals and the all too familiar aftermath:  Disruption.

Jamie Cherewatti, aka Eagle Crest Management, aka East Pleasant Street Partners LLC,  just purchased 1190 North Pleasant, formerly Watroba's General store before they moved down the street a short ways and indeed, a student rental for the past few years anyway.

This makes the second time in a row he has coughed up well over assessed value for a property, paying $3 million for Echo Village Apartments (valued at $2.1 million) back in January.  And now this property, paying $495,000 -- more than ten times what Watroba paid for it in 1972 -- and $113,400 over its current assessed value.

Of course the assessor does not instantly increase the valuation based on this selling price, so the taxes paid to Amherst will remain around the same:  $8,000 next year.  But if he should buy the property next door and overpay by 33%, then perhaps the assessed values would increase.  "A rising tide lifts all boats"

Or if he should do renovations, but since the property is already a "two family," highly unlikely.  For instance Cherewatti purchased 156 Sunset Avenue for $350,000 two years ago as a "one family" dwelling, but then subdivided the home, added a little landscaping and morphed it -- with ZBA permission -- into a two family home, where 8 unrelated residents can legally reside.

The valuation has since increased to $404,000 or $8,000 in taxes paid to the town annually -- but the rental income doubled.  And with average rents in Amherst almost $2,000 per month, that doubling adds up pretty quickly.

Meanwhile just down the road in the historic neighborhood of Cushman, also located in North Amherst, red stop signs are springing up everywhere opposing "The Retreat," a 170 unit high-end student housing development.

The Village of Cushman

But the real enemy is not large corporate owned, professionally managed dense developments like "The Retreat".  It is instead the steady sprinkling of Mom-and-Pop operations that have creeped in under the radar.  The enemy within.

Concert Consequences

Easthampton FD, one-half of "Mullins Center Command"

So yes, the Rusko concert at the Mullins Center went much better than it did last year when AFD was completely overwhelmed with a tsunami of ETOH calls.  

This year AFD had convinced Mullins Center management (not be confused with UMass management) to hire two ambulances from surrounding towns hand-picked by AFD, to handle the by-product of a combination of strobe lights, loud music, energetic dancing, alcohol and drugs ... usually dubbed, ETOH.

Click to enlarge/read

   Mullins Center Rusko Concert