#this can be found on your council tax bill! have a blessed day! :)

[mythrilskirt]

stg we need to find out who is responsible for the state of bureaucracy in local councils and literally put them to the sword

[misfireanon]

57

The next morning, Nihlus gets up early to prepare breakfast. The weather outside is still terrible. The storm had lessened during the night, but by the time he got back in bed, it had picked up again, accompanied by a fresh chorus of ferocious howls. Now, hard clumps of snow are smacking against the window like the wind’s percussive accompaniment. He swirls the leftover tequila and drains it in one gulp, setting the flask on the table with a loud thunk. There.

Right on schedule, Saren peeks out from the bedroom, his unblinking eyes pointing from the empty flask, to the plate of gnawed ribs in front of Nihlus, to the six small dishes (and one soup, all proper and shit) laid out for him. Nihlus doesn’t wait for him to begin an interrogation. He spears a cube of the hitherto untouched blue pudding on his talon and slurps it down, raising a browplate at Saren’s frown. “Why don’t you come sit and eat so my hard work doesn’t go to waste? I had to take all this from the deliverybot and put it in bowls all by myself, you know.”

Saren drops into his seat with a grunt. “You turned up the heating.”

“Yeah, because I was freezing my ass off last night. Don’t make that face, I know you can afford it. Heck, you can probably afford to burn this building down and build a new one, legal fees and all.” He looks out at the storm. “You’d be doing this place a favour. I can’t believe there are people who want to live on Noveria.”

“The volus, as a species, are well-suited for these conditions. Krogan, of course, thrive here as they would almost anywhere else. What remains of their culture drives them to extremes.”

Nihlus flicks a mandible. “I mean you, specifically.”

“Only here for business,” Saren says, carefully peeling off a single layer of the hundred-layer loaf and dipping it in an elaborate concoction of ground spices. Nihlus follows suit, except he grabs a good quarter of the thing and rolls it around in the spice, making sure to give the ends a thick coat. Saren begins to sift out conglomerated chunks from the powder, setting them with the bones. Nihlus shrugs. Hey, at least he’d used a fork this time. 

“Business requires you to live in a refrigerator?”

“The cold keeps me awake when the paperwork grows dull.” Saren offers him the soup; Nihlus refuses. “I should have changed the settings after you arrived.”

“Does it help you sleep, too?”

Saren looks at him over the rim of the bowl. A whiff of steam obscures his eye. “At times, yes.”

“How does that work, exactly?”

“It’s a habit. After I finally resolved the Virial’s heat dissipation issues, her HVAC system began to act up. Competent mechanics have eluded me.” Saren takes another long sip. “I know you don’t like satusan leaves, but this was a good choice. Thank you.”

It came as a set meal, but Nihlus had picked that particular set from a menu of dozens, so he feels justified to beam with pride before setting his mandibles at a more serious angle. “I think you might need medication more than a mechanic. Spirits know there are enough doctors on Noveria, crooked or not.”

“‘Crooked’ is euphemistic, extremely so, in ways I’d rather not discuss over breakfast.”

Or ever, really. But Nihlus shrugs and reaches for the loaf again. It’s mechanically prepared, has to be; they’d never turn a profit otherwise. It’s also the reason he’d picked this set over the others. Saren had cooked it for him once, cutting a small chunk of meat into dozens of paper-thin slices with a wicked silver knife. Not long after, Nihlus had bought the same trio of knives for himself, though it had ended up collecting dust at the bottom of a drawer, only opened on one memorable occasion for some impromptu surgery.

This restaurant’s offering pales in comparison to those he’d sampled on Tenebrae, and is not even in the same star system as what Saren had made. Still, he shortens the stack, five slices at a time.

Saren watches him eat, his expression blank. The soup bowl is empty, but the other dishes are practically untouched. The blue pudding wobbles as Nihlus takes a second cube. Saren seems fascinated by it, though he soon shakes his head and makes to stand. Nihlus pulls him down by the sleeve.

“I have messages at the console,” Saren snaps. “And need to find a matching shirt,” he adds more gently.

Nihlus raises his hands in mock surrender. “Nothing that can’t wait, right? Besides, all your shirts are grey.” Saren pointedly lays his wrist on his thigh to illustrate the difference, and Nihlus sighs. “It’s an expression. All cats are… Oh, never mind. I just want to talk for a bit longer.”

Saren scowls and the little voice inside his head, who can really be a fucking coward sometimes, mutters: this is how the hotshot Spectre’s life ends, with his mouth full of pudding. Nihlus swallows the food, stuffs the voice down the same pipe, and meets Saren’s eyes. The look is venomous, but it bears no fangs. 

“Have you heard about Avitus?”

“Avitus Rix?” 

Nihlus nods. 

“No. What about him?”

“He’s planning to retire. Gonna get out before he hits his limits, or so he says.”

Saren snorts. “He won’t.” 

Listen to those undertones, Kryik, and understand precisely why you should shut up and count your blessings. Won’t even consider it for someone else, never mind himself. In fact, when you wrangled him into civvies -- Nihlus frowns, his stomach fluttering. The voice is drowned, though it’s trying to claw its way back up. “Don’t be so sure. Look at you. You’re more of a businessman these days.”

“I have found my limits.”

“You have? And what’re you going to tell me next, that your plan is to become a broker? A venture capitalist, even?” He chuckles. “Or that you really like Noveria’s weather, and that the alpine regions aren’t so bad during the summer. That you want to settle down here, adopt a couple of baby krogan. Don’t lie to me.”

“That’s a vast misinterpretation.”

“Enlighten me, then. What’s the retirement plan?”

Saren looks at him like he’s a modern sculpture, the one in that Thessian gallery that’s just a solid block of granite. Very dense granite. “The Council and related authorities decide when--”

“The Council,” Nihlus interrupts, “spent three days on an agricultural tax bill for some asari colony, added hundreds of amendments, and just left it on the table for next month. Pardon me when I say that they shouldn’t be the arbiters of our lives.”

“I see you’ve acquired an interest in Citadel governance. Recent?”

“Reluctant. Has its own charms, but best appreciated when I’m no longer slogging through Omega on their behalf, I’m sure.”

“Politics won’t suit you. Perhaps you should revisit the works of those elcor poets you praised not long ago. Your voice brings them to life.”

“Are you saying that I should do poetry readings at local dives for a living? Do they even have those on Noveria? I didn’t think so. It’s all so… modern. Clean and corporate. It stinks here, Saren.” Saren hums his assent. “If you’re trying to correct things, if you think they’re better than the slavers in the Traverse -- well, that may be, but the roots of all evil are the same, aren’t they? It seems futile. And besides, every adoption agency’s going to take one look at your face and hide their babies, krogan or no.”

“I’m only here for business,” Saren repeats irritably. “If you want to announce your own retirement, stop avoiding the topic.”

“Like how you’re avoiding yours?”

Saren glares at him then, and he’s pretty sure the delicate display case behind his skull now sports a couple of cracks. The little voice trapped in his gizzard lets out a squeak, which he quashes by helping himself to a generous serving of the bevelled cake. It’s cold now, but meaty enough. As he drops it into his mouth, he glares right back into those cybernetic eyes. Nihlus won’t be the first to look away. “Yeah, I mean it. Call me cocky, but don’t call me wrong. I worry, you know.”

Saren flexes the fingers of his prosthetic, and clenches them into a fist. Shards of ice are beating relentlessly against the windowpanes. “We can put those worries to rest.”

“Gladly, after you finish,” Nihlus makes a sweeping gesture over the remaining food. “Not sparring when you’re hungry.”

Saren impales some cake with vehemence. “Your remarks on the Council can be interpreted as treasonous.” Nihlus opens his mouth to speak, but Saren holds up his hand, the ugly mechanical hand he’d earned in their service. “It’s important to maintain our reputation of loyalty, especially in these times. We must keep other powers in check.” 

Nihlus works his jaw. Need to divert that combustible train of thought to safer tracks. “I get it, Noveria is a bad fit. You could settle in the Traverse instead; that’s a better idea. I’m sure they’d be grateful if you just shot down some pirates from time to time, retired or not. And then you can tinker with the Virial all day long, no distractions, no dockworkers. Plenty of unclaimed planets out there. How’s that for personal space?”

“Nihlus,” Saren whispers, and Nihlus suddenly gets the impression that he is speaking from a great distance, from the future, perhaps, where Nihlus’s earnest pleas can find no echo. From the distant past, back when Nihlus had believed himself beneath the notice of that famous Spectre, the youngest turian ever inducted, and now the longest to hold that post. Those ageless eyes are still mesmerising, though they no longer reflect his face. 

But then, then -- he realises that he’s tired. He slinks out from that gaze and gently shakes his head. 

“I’ve heard it all before,” he says. You believe you were forged, not born. Saren blinks, and Nihlus smiles. Feels like he spent hours getting Saren into that shirt last night. Under the sterile lights of the dining room, its narrow stripes clash horribly with his differently-striped pants. “I know, it’s okay. But it only means you’ll have time to find the perfect LZ with your Spectre privileges. I’m counting on you, because I’m not making hundreds of decision charts to find a place to call home. Tropical climates only, please. And preferably not like Invictus.”

The shared memory is enough to lift Saren’s mandibles by a precious few degrees. “And if the search is fruitless?”

Nihlus looks outside. What were once icy flakes had turned into dice-sized hailstones, and the window’s noise-cancellation function had automatically engaged itself. So much for the Noverian summer. The gravy around the meat, too, had cooled to an unappetising jelly. He shoves it around with his fork, making a little pile atop the last remaining slice. 

“This isn’t half bad,” he replies.

[unkindness313]

Home sweat home

The Irish Times Sat, Nov 2, 1996, 00:00 By Dylan Moran

THROUGH the stupendous High Street we walked on the path conveniently adjacent to the unique road and turned into the superb, naturally lit estate agents office.

Somebody sneezed, and when we turned around from saying "bless you" all the roulette wheels had become desks. Above everyone there hovered a smile as reassuring as a Jack `o' Lantern. When 12 people salivate together, it sounds like the tide coming in.

My girlfriend is a wise and beautiful human being - that is why they all looked at me. I give out a visible aura of financial cretinism. I felt the way a chicken must feel when he gets drunk and falls down the fox hole. We had come to speak about buying a house. More precisely, we had come to ask about the possibility of us ever being eligible to enter the market, if we could prove we owned our underwear and everything.

All of the desks came forward. A man with no whites in his eyes said: "Hello, children. My name is Michael. I can help you."

V. explained our situation. "We'd like to get somewhere with a garden, or near the river." "Yes," said Michael looking at me as I rocked back and forth murmuring "Home, home, home".

"Take a look at these," Michael purred.

There are several basic types of dwelling.

1. Mews - a mews is an extremely small space in which you sit and mews as to why you let the man with the shiny face walk away with £110,000 that you never had.

2. New development - a ware house with a buzzer.

3. Old development - a warehouse with a knocker. And no roof.

4. Lower Ground Floor - this means a basement.

5. Basement - you are now living in a well.

THEN there are the much more expensive kinds. Such as:

1. Studios - they have big windows, stripped floors and Americans standing around discussing the political implications of ballet.

2. Lofts - these have been converted meaning they took out the sewing machines when child labour became illegal. People then fill these large spaces with interesting conversation pieces found in markets, such as old sewing machines.

3. Semi detached - luckily you are connected to only one set of neighbours. But these people are always hired by the council to argue at stadium decibel level from midnight to 7 a.m.

THE kind of place you live in pulses a huge current into your sea of consciousness; what I'm saying is that, statistically, you are far more likely to shout at the nine o'clock news if you cook and pee in the same room.

I've done the bedsit thing. It was a very poetic chapter of my youth. I didn't die, but I nearly did, which gives me the edge if I want to talk about it. I ran out of money and came up with the quite brilliant survival plan of eating raw carrots for four days.

I couldn't call my family since that would mean leaving the room and meeting the landlady. The landlady, a striking white haired woman, had beguiling eccentricities, such as scraping kitchen knives against your door at 3 a.m. I didn't need or want for anything else anyway, the hallucinations produced by my stomach digesting itself kept me entertained for hours on end. When I did finally get home, I wasn't let out for a year.

I did the flat share thing, which is fine, if you like four hour conversations about who should get the milk. Knowing you can't walk around naked and sing along with Val Doonican on the radio gets to you eventually.

Buying somewhere, you may be offered a freehold or a leasehold. A leasehold means a time limit - you may own it for as long as 100 years or only 15 minutes, depending on the age and scruples of the vendor. Freehold usually runs to about 1,000 years, by which time you should have paid off a good part of the interest on the original borrowing.

House prices, like temperature settings on showers, have only tow bands: (a) too much, and (b) Ojesusstopitnow.

SOMETIMES a building is under council protection, meaning there is a limit to the number of lozenge shaped windows and roof toilets you can install. The buildings are preserved for historical reasons. "Tobias Burlington Smyth (1801-1899) patented the electric winnowing spool here ... the colonnades in the hall were erected by Jessop Chingley (1801-1923). The inscriptions at the base, a farrago of Latin and Cornish, state that over the course of 40 years of cohabitation Burlington Smythe always, chewed with his mouth open.

These types of places tend to be a bit out of your price range. Trying to find a figure to impress the banks means accounting. Our accounts always look like this:

Nov-April 96

IN: £6,000 (less tax, insurance, rates and other charges) - £18.00 two florins, one earring, a book of Medieval herbal cures (bequeathed).

OUT: Rent £2,000, bills £1,500, food/clothes etc £1,300, misc. living expenses £314,000.

If we sold everything we have, and didn't spend any money over the next year, we might have enough money to bribe debt collectors so they wouldn't re break our broken bones provided they would accept payment in the form of a few packets of Rancheros.

Now before us we have a small forest's worth of paper proclaiming the superiority of every bolt hole, dive and funked out fourth floor closet in London. If you rent, you spoon feed your future to an insatiable landlord; if you buy, you spend all day rehearsing pleas to the bailiffs. You have to pay lawyers, life insurers, the council, service charges and the wandering minstrel house buyers triangle band. There's rent, street tax and all the money you need for Windowlene. It's all impossible, but you have to do it. Us? We re going to a hotel.

(source)

[mastcomm]

Impeachment, China Virus, France: Your Tuesday Briefing

(Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the sign-up.)

Good morning.

We’re covering the start of President Trump’s impeachment trial, the spread of a deadly virus in Asia and a study of fish oil’s effects on sperm quality.

Trump heads to Davos as impeachment trial starts

President Trump is expected to speak today at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, just as his impeachment trial begins in earnest in Washington.

U.S. senators are bracing for a rancorous debate over the trial’s ground rules, which will determine how Democrats prosecute Mr. Trump on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress linked to his Ukraine pressure campaign.

Senator Mitch McConnell, the chamber’s top Republican, angered Democrats on Monday by unveiling trial rules that would limit each side’s arguments to 24 hours over two days, and require a separate vote to admit evidence unearthed in the fall by the House of Representatives.

Analysis: Mr. Trump’s lawyers have not contested the basic facts of the case, and scholars say their central argument — that the impeachment charges are invalid because the president has not been accused of committing an ordinary crime — defies a long-established legal consensus.

Go deeper: The trial will include some of the same faces that animated President Bill Clinton’s impeachment trial 21 years ago. But Mr. Clinton did not command his own party the way Mr. Trump does now.

Related: The business and political elites who gather each year at Davos appear to be warming to Mr. Trump, even if some may roll their eyes behind his back, writes our DealBook columnist, Andrew Ross Sorkin. (One reason? He may be in office for another four years.)

China says deadly virus spreads from humans to humans

A new pneumonialike illness that has killed four people in China and infected more than 200 others in the country and elsewhere in Asia is now capable of spreading from person to person, a leading Chinese scientist said on Monday.

The fear is that the virus — which has spread to Japan, South Korea and Thailand — could set off a broader pandemic as millions of Chinese travel for the seven-day Lunar New Year holiday, which begins on Friday.

Experts say the severity of the outbreak will now depend on how many people, on average, a person with the virus could infect. The World Health Organization will hold a meeting on Wednesday to determine whether the virus is a “public health emergency of international concern,” a designation it has given to previous outbreaks of Ebola and other diseases.

Background: The illness, which started in the Chinese city of Wuhan, is a coronavirus, a family of viruses that affect the respiratory tract and range from the common cold to severe diseases like SARS. Animals are thought to be the most likely primary source, and complications can include pneumonia, kidney failure or death.

Go deeper: The current outbreak has echoes of the deadly SARS outbreak of 2002 and 2003 that infected more than 8,000 people — one that China initially tried to cover up. Experts say the authorities are trying to be more transparent this time, but many in China are skeptical.

France declares tax truce (for now) with U.S.

President Emmanuel Macron of France said on Monday that he and President Trump would work together on a deal to avoid an escalation of tariffs linked to a French proposal to tax digital services provided by American tech giants.

Mr. Macron wants to avoid retaliatory U.S. tariffs on French products like wine, cheese, handbags and other luxury goods. We have a timely profile of Brune Poirson, above, France’s de facto fashion minister and a negotiator in the so-called handbag war.

Details: Mr. Macron and Mr. Trump agreed on Monday to hold off on any tariffs until the end of the year, while negotiators at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development continue talks on developing a broader framework for digital taxes.

Domestic politics: Philippe Martinez, the leader of France’s most militant union, has emerged as the face of the country’s longest-ever transport strike — and as a foil to Mr. Macron’s business-friendly vision.

‘We do not want her kind in Norway’

A woman from a Norwegian-Pakistani family moved to Syria in 2013, marrying twice in Islamic State territory and having two children. Now she’s back in Norway, and her mere presence threatens to bring down the country’s government.

Prime Minister Erna Solberg has said that the woman, 29, who returned over the weekend after being plucked out of a Kurdish-controlled detention camp in Syria, was allowed to re-enter Norway so her 5-year-old could receive medical treatment. The police have not raised the terrorism threat level as a result.

But many Norwegians say the woman poses a security threat. And in a gesture of protest, the anti-immigrant Progress Party resigned on Monday from the four-party, center-right coalition that has governed since 2013.

Quotable: “We do not want her kind in Norway, and we certainly don’t want Norwegian authorities spending enormous resources getting them to Norway,” a Progress Party spokesman, Jon Engen-Helgheim, said last week.

What’s next: The Progress Party said it would continue to support the governing coalition. The woman has been charged with “participation in a terrorist organization” and faces up to six years in prison.

If you have 5 minutes, this is worth it

A path to redemption in Afghanistan

An American airstrike in Afghanistan killed the poet Zaheer Ahmad Zindani’s father, and one of his three sisters burned to death when a Taliban roadside bomb hit a bus he was traveling in.

The bomb also robbed Mr. Zindani, above, of his eyesight, prompting the family of his teenage love to reject him. But his mother, a polio vaccinator, was determined to find him a match.

A correspondent in our Kabul bureau traveled to Kandahar to hear Mr. Zindani’s story.

Here’s what else is happening

Boeing crash: A Times review of evidence from the deadly 2009 crash of a 737 in the Netherlands reveals striking parallels with two recent crashes of a newer model of the aircraft — the 737 Max — and similar pushback, from the company and American safety officials, against criticism of Boeing.

Russia: President Vladimir Putin prompted new speculation about his future role when he proposed constitutional amendments on Monday that would empower a previously toothless advisory council that he now leads.

Serbia-Kosovo flights: The two Balkan countries agreed to resume flights between their capitals for the first time in more than two decades, a step toward reconciliation.

How warm was your town? Scientists said 2019 was the second-warmest year on record, and an AccuWeather database of 3,500 cities showed that more than 80 percent experienced average temperatures that were higher than normal last year. See how your city compares.

Snapshot: Above, Elaine Lau at her noodle shop in Hong Kong. It’s one of many so-called yellow shops in the restive Chinese territory that openly support the city’s democracy movement. (“Blue” ones, by contrast, support the police.)

Sperm health: Young men who took fish oil supplements had higher sperm counts, greater sperm volume and larger average testicular size, a study in Denmark found.

What we’re reading: This piece in Taste about a food specialty known to few outside a small subset of Italian-Americans. “It has come to my attention that some of you do not know the first blessed thing about lard bread,” tweeted our food critic Pete Wells. “Max [Falkowitz] is here to guide you into the light of lardy knowledge.”

Now, a break from the news

And now for the Back Story on …

Cocktails

A hundred years ago this month, the U.S. embarked on a 13-year official prohibition on the “manufacture, sale or transportation of intoxicating liquors” anywhere within the country.

It didn’t go well.

Bootlegging liquor operations proliferated, as did the illicit bars known as speakeasies. And the drink of choice: the cocktail, which spread out the hooch or disguised its sometimes bad flavors. The boom far outlasted Prohibition. Sidecar, anyone?

Dave Wondrich, a drinks historian, tracked down the source of the word “cocktail.” In the second edition of his landmark reconstruction of mixed drinks, “Imbibe!,” he notes that prospective horse sellers in England would give old or droopy specimens a rectal dose of ginger to make them cock their tails for a younger, zippier appearance.

From there it was just a short jump to the zingy drinks that made humans perk up, at least at the start of their alcoholic forays.

That’s it for this briefing. Bottoms up.

— Mike

Thank you To Mark Josephson and Eleanor Stanford for the break from the news. Andrea Kannapell, the Briefings editor, wrote today’s Back Story. You can reach the team at briefing@nytimes.com.

P.S. “The Daily” is off for the Martin Luther King holiday in the U.S. Try listening to the latest “Modern Love” podcast, in which the actress Rebecca Hall reads an essay about dating while bipolar. • Here’s today’s Mini Crossword puzzle, and a clue: Overhead (five letters). You can find all our puzzles here. • The Times is always looking for talent. Check out our international and U.S. job postings.

from WordPress https://mastcomm.com/event/impeachment-china-virus-france-your-tuesday-briefing/

[deniscollins]

Is Your Rent Through the Roof? Oregon Wants to Fix That

In the 1980s and 1990s, many states began banning cities from setting local limits on rent increases to limit government regulation and boost free markets. In Portland, the median rent has increased by more than 14 percent statewide in recent years, challenging affordability. Should landlords: (1) be able to increase rents as they determine, charge whatever rent the market permits, or (2) be limited to rent increases of 7 percent annually plus the change in the Consumer Price Index, which is currently rising about 3 percent a year? Why? What are the ethics underlying your decision?

Andy Mangels had been living in his modest apartment near downtown Portland, Ore., for three decades when the news arrived a few days before Christmas: His rent was being raised by 113 percent.

Now Mr. Mangels, 52, has a little more than a month to find a new place in the city’s supercharged rental housing market, where median rents have risen 30 percent since 2011, adjusted for inflation, and the sight of people living out of cars or in tents pitched alongside highways has become common.

In an effort to halt runaway housing costs and curtail evictions, Oregon is expected this week to become the first state in the nation to cap how much landlords can raise rents. On Tuesday, the State House of Representatives is likely to pass rent control legislation that has already been approved by the State Senate. Gov. Kate Brown, a Democrat, has said she will sign it.

The legislation comes as states and cities around the nation search desperately for answers to a growing crisis in which rising rents have outstripped wages. Nationwide, median rents have surpassed $1,000 since 2006. In states with capitals controlled by Democrats, like Oregon, leaders are pushing laws that would limit rent increases, over the objections of landlords who say the rules would threaten their livelihoods.

In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, has called for $1 billion in tax credits and new home construction to aid middle-class home buyers, and the State Legislature is mulling its own plans to stabilize the state’s overheated rental housing market.

Illinois is contemplating ending a statewide ban on local rent control laws, and in New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, has said he intends to strengthen existing rent regulations to keep apartment prices stable.

Three-quarters of the nation’s mayors say that a lack of affordable housing is a significant concern in their cities. Boston is proposing steep taxes on developers. Denver is studying proposals to allow more carriage houses — detached separate living units on the same lot as a house — which are far cheaper to build than typical single-family residences.

In the 1980s and 1990s, many states began banning cities from setting local limits on rent increases, encouraged in part by the American Legislative Exchange Council, which advocates laws that limit government and boost free markets. Oregon would become the first state to impose a statewide rent control policy, but such rules have been common for decades in large American cities, including New York, Washington, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

In the Portland metropolitan area, which is growing by more than 30,000 people a year, the housing problem is especially acute. But the problem has spread beyond Portland, the state’s largest city with 650,000 residents, as the median rent has increased by more than 14 percent statewide in recent years.

In Talent, a city of 6,500 in southern Oregon, one in three residents spends more than half of his or her income on housing. Rents in Bend, one of the 10 fastest growing metropolitan areas in the nation, have climbed by more than 21 percent in the last three years. In Medford, the rental vacancy rate is less than 2 percent. And students at the University of Oregon in Eugene say pricey apartments have forced them to live in towns as far as an hour’s drive from campus.

Mark Gamba, mayor of Milwaukie, a suburb of Portland, said the desperation among tenants there was palpable.

“Tourniquets like this are needed to stop the bleeding,” he said of the state rent control legislation.

Still, some landlords say that the legislation will compel owners to take their properties off the rental market because they will no longer be able to earn enough rent from them — deepening the housing crisis rather than easing it.

“Rent control is not going to work over the long haul,” said John DiLorenzo, who owns about 240 apartment units and is a lobbyist for landlords.

Mr. DiLorenzo said his primary fear was that lawmakers would ultimately bar rents from rising more than a bare minimum, which would prevent landlords from meeting their expenses and eventually drive them out of business. The real solution to rising rents, he said, is to make it easier to build decent and affordable housing in Oregon by eliminating a multitude of fees and regulations.

Even so, some of the state’s largest property owners’ groups have chosen not to oppose the bill, and are remaining neutral instead, saying that they recognize the scope of the housing problem.

“I do not believe it will be catastrophic to our livelihood,” said Jim Straub, legislative director of the Oregon Rental Housing Association.

The legislation would limit rent increases to 7 percent annually plus the change in the Consumer Price Index, which is currently rising about 3 percent a year.

Apartment buildings with fewer than five units would be exempt, as would housing complexes that are less than 15 years old. The bill would also sharply reduce the circumstances in which tenants can be evicted.

Even as the state’s economy hums along, with unemployment at only 4 percent, Oregon has been unable to significantly chip away at its stubbornly high 16.5 percent poverty rate. Wages have not kept pace with housing costs.

In an interview, Governor Brown said the popularity of the state with newcomers, many of whom earn high wages, has been a mixed blessing.

“The rental market is extremely tight,” she said. “We have a lot of families that are vulnerable, and landlords want to evict them and bring in higher-paying tenants.”

Portland, the epicenter of the state’s crisis, has independently enacted some of the nation’s strongest tenant protections. One law requireslandlords to pay moving costs of up to $4,500 if they evict people without providing a reason, or if they raise rents more than 10 percent.’

Portland has been short of affordable housing for a long time.

hemia Fagan, a state senator who is one of the bill’s chief sponsors, told colleagues this month during a public hearing that when she was 15 in 1997, her mother invited her to what she told her daughter was her new house. Her mother had struggled for years with drug addiction and homelessness.

At the house — a grand Victorian with a wraparound porch — Ms. Fagan and her brother were greeted joyfully by their mother. But instead of going in the front door, her mother got down on her knees and crawled under the porch, gesturing for her children to follow.

Her mother, Ms. Fagan said, was living under the porch.

She spread out a sleeping bag there, and the three of them spent the afternoon on it, talking.

After years of wandering, Ms. Fagan said, her mother was proud to have found somewhere safe and relatively secure to live, even if it was beneath someone else’s house.

“I come from a place of deep empathy for people experiencing homelessness,” Ms. Fagan said. “It’s not theoretical. It’s not data and statistics to me, but my own family.”

Tenants’ advocacy groups point out that the potential rent increases allowed under the state bill — which could be 10 percent or more each year — are far more generous to landlords than those allowed in New York or San Francisco.

“There are a lot of folks on the ground who believe it doesn’t go far enough, but we agree it is a necessary first step,” said Katrina Holland, executive director of the Community Alliance of Tenants, a statewide tenants’ rights organization.

Explanations for the state’s housing crunch are numerous: a dearth of new home construction over the last decade; limited protections for tenants; a lack of investment in affordable housing; and restrictive land use policies in Oregon that are intended to prevent urban sprawl, but also prohibit new housing in wide swaths of the state.

Still, those land use laws are held so dear by Oregonians that they are unlikely to be challenged any time soon.

“A lot of people blame the state’s land-use laws, but if we didn’t have land-use planning, we would not have a wine industry, because houses would have been built on those southern-facing slopes” where there are now vineyards, said Ms. Brown, who has been governor since 2015.

In the Goose Hollow neighborhood of Portland, Mr. Mangels, the man whose landlord announced a huge rent increase, and his husband, Don Hood, 61, are desperately searching for a new place to live. Mr. Mangels described his situation in hearings before lawmakers as they weighed Oregon’s legislation.

After their nine-unit building was bought for $2.6 million in December (up from about $1 million when it changed hands in 2006, according to property records), the new owner raised their rent to $1,600 a month from $750. A representative for the owner did not respond to numerous calls and email messages requesting comment.

The rent control bill in the legislature would take effect too late to help Mr. Mangels and Mr. Hood.

The couple’s apartment has not been renovated in years. Red duct tape keeps the freezer door closed. The floor around the toilet is rotting. The carpet, in place since the early 1980s, is missing sections.

Mr. Mangels earns about $35,000 a year working for the state as a caregiver. His husband, a veteran, is disabled. Both men are in poor health. Mr. Mangels said the stress from what may be impending homelessness has raised his blood pressure to dangerous levels.

They must be out by April 12.

[rebeccahpedersen]

What Is The City Doing About Basement Apartments?

TorontoRealtyBlog

Are my blog posts too long?

Be honest.  I promise, I won’t be offended.

When I started TRB in 2007, I was told by our expert web developer, who we found on Craigslist and met at Starbucks at Yonge & Wellesley, that a blog post should be about 200 words.

I said, “That’s insane.”

I was told not to reinvent the wheel, and that people have a very, very short attention span, and might not be able to get past 200 or even 300 words.

Ha!

That was 2007!  If that’s true, then imagine what’s happened to attention spans since then?  Frankly, I’m at word #104 right now, and I’m surprised most of you are still reading!

Eleven years later, I average over 2,000 words per post, and that’s honestly increased about 100 words per year, over the last five years.  I’m not sure whether this is a blessing, or a curse, to be perfectly honest.

Ever since the newspaper went online, it feels like articles are getting smaller and smaller.  Tell me if perhaps I’m just forgetting how much easier it is to scroll, than to read in print, but it feels oh-so-often like I’m only getting my feet wet in a given article, and then it ends, leaving me wanting more.

I feel this way even more when I’m reading an article about a topic in which I’m genuinely interested.  It often feels like the surface has barely been scratched, or the piece lacked a response or a viewpoint from the other side, or there was just no depth to the article; merely a basic recap of a given event.

On Wednesday, I read a great article by Lauren Pelley of CBC News, titled, “Landlords, Housing Advocates Hope Council Loosens ‘Arbitrary’ Rules On Secondary Suites.”

Have a read if you’ve got an extra three minutes.

It’s girthy – almost 1,400 words!  Yes, I counted the words, but as I said, I’m impressed by anything longer than 600 words these days.

In the article, we’re learning not only how the outdated, unaddressed rules on secondary housing affect homeowners (ie. the “colour” for the story – an actual person, with a name and a photo), the existing problem, the proposed solutions, and then the only thing that makes an article like this complete: the contrarian viewpoint.

Here’s the colour:

When Shelley Kanitz bought a small Toronto bungalow in 2016, she had two big plans for it: A massive renovation and a legal basement rental suite.

After spending nearly two years rebuilding the house from the ground up, Kanitz’s family — including her husband and young daughter — finally moved into their new five-bedroom, six-bathroom Danforth-area home this March.

But getting city backing for the rental apartment proved a bigger challenge.

Kanitz had gutted the basement and transformed it into a separate suite with large windows, high ceilings, and two entrances, ensuring it met the city’s criteria for a legal rental.

But she hit a major snag: The redesigned house was considered brand new, so it didn’t meet a time-based zoning condition that only allows homes older than five years to have secondary suites.

“In the meantime, there’s one less one bedroom apartment out there for someone who’s looking right now,” Kanitz said.

The mom and property manager is among those hoping the incoming city council will loosen current zoning regulations — which prohibit secondary suites in a certain types of dwellings in different areas of the city — to help both homeowners and tenants.

And there’s growing hope for change: Throughout November, the city is holding public consultations across the city to share proposed plans to “simplify” the process, while hearing feedback from the public. 

“I think that we need to begin to address the housing crisis in our city, and I think that loosening zoning in Toronto is going to hit it two ways,” Kanitz said. “More affordable rentals for tenants, and the ability to qualify for mortgages for homeowners.”

Call me a cynic here folks (it wouldn’t be the first time), but I see the words “legal rental,” and I laugh.

In the world of real estate, that’s simply an oxymoron.

We could never actually find accurate, quantifiable data on this, but as an agent, I would estimate that over 90% of all basement apartments in Toronto are illegal.

Maybe more.

It’s conceivable that 19 out of 20 basement “units” in the City of Toronto, no matter how you define them, whether basement apartment, auxiliary unit, nanny suite, granny suite, et al, are illegal.

Why the units are illegal, is a whole other story.  It’s a whole other level of insanity!

To be quite honest, and at the risk of admitting naivety, I will say that I always knew basement apartments were difficult to legalize, not to mention expensive, but I didn’t know how expensive until I read a Toronto Star article by renowned Toronto lawyer, Bob Aaron, a few years back.

That was quite easy to find, here:

“Extravagant Fees Crush Legal Basement Apartments”

Mr. Aaron regularly writes for the Toronto Star about all things real estate, but it’s his columns on basement apartments that have really stuck with me over the years.  I’ll put together a list at the bottom of the post.

In the article above, written in 2016, Mr. Aaron wrote:

In the face of a serious housing shortage in the GTA, the City of Toronto is actively discouraging homeowners from legally adding one or two units to their houses by making it financially unfeasible.

Last week I received an email from Ben, who explained his dilemma.

He wrote, “I bought a house with my son with the intent of living in it with my wife (both retired) on the ground floor and my son and his family on the second floor. My son is carrying a huge mortgage on his half of the house. We thought two basement apartments would help him with his mortgage.”

They hired an architect at considerable expense to prepare plans to add a rear addition so that the house would have four dwelling units with two side walkouts, a rear deck and a new detached garage.

That’s when the trouble began. After spending a great deal of money on architectural drawings, and another $5,000 to the city to apply for building permits, Ben was told that his application triggered four additional fees:

A development charge of $80,000 (that is not a misprint).

An education development charge of $4,500 which goes to the Toronto Catholic District School Board.

A parkland fee of $72,000 based on property value. and

A road damage deposit of $2,400.

Ben calculated the total fees payable to the city, including the $5,000 permit fee, at $161,684 just to add two units, all of which is payable before a shovel goes into the ground or any interior work begins.

He wrote, “I bought a house with my son with the intent of living in it with my wife (both retired) on the ground floor and my son and his family on the second floor. My son is carrying a huge mortgage on his half of the house. We thought two basement apartments would help him with his mortgage.”

They hired an architect at considerable expense to prepare plans to add a rear addition so that the house would have four dwelling units with two side walkouts, a rear deck and a new detached garage.

That’s when the trouble began. After spending a great deal of money on architectural drawings, and another $5,000 to the city to apply for building permits, Ben was told that his application triggered four additional fees:

A development charge of $80,000 (that is not a misprint).

An education development charge of $4,500 which goes to the Toronto Catholic District School Board.

A parkland fee of $72,000 based on property value. and

A road damage deposit of $2,400.

Ben calculated the total fees payable to the city, including the $5,000 permit fee, at $161,684 just to add two units, all of which is payable before a shovel goes into the ground or any interior work begins.

There are those that will argue, “Hey, if you want something of value, you have to pay for it!  Nothing in life is free!”

I hear that argument.

Except that, in my opinion, the applicant already owns the house, and has already paid land transfer tax, and continues to pay property tax.

An $80,000 development charge?  A nonsense, made-up $72,000 “parkland fee?”

Don’t get me started on the fee to the Toronto Catholic District School Board.  I wonder how the Buddhists, Jews, Muslims, Atheists, and Anarchists feel…

This is why most people don’t apply for that “holy grail” certificate that tells an owner of a Toronto home that their basement apartment is legal.

That, and because I’m sure that the certificate itself would come with charge.

And that charge would probably come with a fee in order to pay it, much like the $75 feet that the City of Toronto administers when somebody pays their hefty land transfer tax bill, but I digress…

I suppose I’m opening up the argument that, “If people don’t want to pay for something, then they should just do it illegally,” and we can see where that gets us.  This applies to just about everything we do and see on a daily basis, and you can imagine where it would lead.  Don’t want to pay to get your car past the legal standards?  Just drive it and hope you don’t kill somebody.  Don’t like the workers safety requirements?  Just hope they don’t fall off the scaffolding and die!  And on, and on, and on.

But even my opponents here would have to concede that when you look at that list above, they are simply fees, and nothing more.  Development charge, education charge, parkland fee, road damage deposit, and a permit.

And as Mr. Aaron noted, that’s before ANY work has started.

So why would anybody build a legal basement apartment?

That was rhetorical, or at least meant to be.  Because they answer is, “They wouldn’t.”

And that’s the problem that exists in Toronto today, one that the City of Toronto is looking to address.

Of course, my cynical side will point to the fact that as always, the government is acting slowly and, as the CBC article explains, “Holding public consultations.”

My issue is not the fact that the government is consulting the public, in fact, I wish the government did more of that.

My issue is that, all too often, the government develops a committee, to put a panel in place, to commission a study, to advise consultants to make recommendations to create reports, to blah, and blah, and blah.  And they spend tens of millions of dollars, often creating new government jobs, and probably awarding contracts in the world of favour-trading.

Soooo…….will the topic of basement apartments in Toronto be any different?

The example in the CBC article above is just so ironic!  Because the Ontario Liberals last year sought to end “short term” rentals, in that it removes a full-time, long-term rental from the market, and yet this example shows us a woman who can’t legally rent her basement unit out, so she’s AirBnB’ing it instead.

Oh the irony!

Kudos to Ms. Kanitz for undertaking this “legal apartment” venture, although here she sits, having played by the rules, and learning that the rules in place don’t allow her to gain what she sought.

I understand the rule in place to “maintain neighbourhood character,” but if you can tear down a bungalow, which undoubtedly is adorned by two other bungalows (or two other McMansions), then are you really maintaining any character?  How does an unseen basement apartment in a 3,000 square foot house trump the 3,000 square foot house in place of the bungalow?

Unfortunately, this whole situation screams “grey area,” and that’s a problem unto itself.

We can’t expect the City of Toronto to step in and make a hands-on decision for every application, based on a thorough investigation of the property, the neighbourhood, and the request.  That’s why we have “rules,” after all.

So will this come down to a battle?  “Housing crisis vs. character and integrity of community?”

Or is there a happy medium?

  –

  Bob Aaron articles on basement apartments:

July 10th, 2010: “RECO Decision Heralds New Rules About Basement Apartments”

March 16th, 2012: “Basement Apartments Must Comply With Zoning, Fire, Building, and Electric Codes”

March 30th, 2012: “Basement Apartments Are A Minefield For The Uninformed”

October 3rd, 2014: “Agents On The Hook For Illegal In-Law Suite”

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