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Affordable housing is a tough enough nut to crack as is, but events hundreds of miles removed from the Adirondacks can precipitate unexpected headwinds.
In 2015, Hennepin County in Minnesota seized a condominium for $15,000 worth of back taxes and associated costs. The county then sold the property at a tax sale for $40,000.
The previous owner sued, arguing that the county’s $25,000 profit constituted an illegal taking, and that the money rightfully belonged to her.
The case bounced along through the judicial system until on May 25, when in Tyler v. Hennepin County, the Supreme Court agreed that the profits indeed belonged to the former owner.
It was, said Nicole Justice Green, a heart-stopping moment for the Essex County Land Bank, which is counting on tax foreclosures to power a promising avenue of affordable housing.
The Federal Reserve’s year-long trend on raising interest rates seemed to finally be having an effect on the national real estate market. An 11-year span of increasing home prices finally came to an end, according to data released in March by the National Association of Realtors.
The forecast was for a few inches of snow overnight and bright skies in the morning, so the idea was to ski the remote and scenic Trout Pond Road in Chesterfield before the sand trucks hit it with abrasives. Sure enough, it was sunny in the morning but — no snow. Best laid plans of mice and men, and all that.
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Spring hikes for older legs
For decades editors have told me not to use the word “elderly,” because it is both subjective and derogatory, an edict that I have afforded the same bland indifference with which I semi-acknowledge a dental hygienist who has just pressured me to floss.
But at a public hearing over a Ticonderoga public works project this week, a young woman was decrying new curbing that had facilitated the formation of ice and caused her to fall. She was OK because she was young, she said, but — and here she pointed to her neighbor, not much older than me — “this elderly gentleman” might not be as lucky.
He gave her a look, but didn’t say anything. I got to admit, though, that kind of stung. Still, the Adirondacks is filled with little hikes suitable for us elderly folk.
I used to think some of these short but interesting jaunts like Essex Quarry or Cathedral Pines as beneath my dignity, but now that I’m elderly I revel in these, and other perks of the infirm.
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