Rochester City-Wide Housing Market Study: 7 months later
On August 6, 2007 Mayor Duffy and The Department of Community Development invited the public to participate in their City-Wide Housing Market Study in order to better understand housing needs and trends in our city in light of Rochester’s ongoing foreclosure problems.
People can fill out the survey online and participate in the study via this link.
Seven months have passed and a recession is seemingly upon us, so I’m wondering what this study has produced so far.
When will the city release its current findings?
The overview of the study states that Rochester is primarily a rental community and that, as we all know, more and more people are moving to the suburbs and/or moving out-of-state. Update: Here is a passage from page 8 of the Housing Survey pdf that I think encapsulates the issue (bold mine):
Rochester is firmly planted in a slow-growth region. Upstate New York exhibited the third lowest growth rate nationally at 1.1% between1990 and 2000. Yet, from 1982-1997, 425,000 acres were urbanized. Out-migration from the City—a continuing stream of people moving to the suburbs—is contributing to the increasing City vacancy rate and inhibiting an already undervalued housing market.
Now that the housing bubble has burst nationally, places like Rochester weren’t hit as hard as a result of this undervalued housing market, but the persistent economic woes of upstate New York can hardly take much comfort in this. With New York State’s budget in lacklustre condition, the hardship of upstate New York could be compounded by reductions of promised aid from Governor Spitzer (as reported yesterday on this blog).
Are there any plans for a group of area leaders to visit with Governor Spitzer to ensure the promises to Upstate aren’t broken?
You touch on a lot of points, but I am left with the feeling that I haven’t grasped the thrust of this particular article.
Specifically, when you say “Are there any plans for a group of area leaders to visit with Governor Spitzer to ensure the promises to Upstate aren’t broken?”, what promises to Upstate are you referring to? Specifically, what .pdf file are you quoting from?
Oh, thanks for pointing that out Paige. The pdf file is from the City-Wide Housing Study link I provided. Sorry, I’ll go in and clarify that. I thought it was obvious.
The upstate promises are the ones I touched on in yesterday’s posts. I’ll go in and link that too.
Good grab.
Also, Paige, the thrust of this particular article as I intended it was to find out if our area leaders are doing anything (study results, for example) to help ensure the recession is not going to further compound our housing crisis locally.
It’s one thing to conduct a study, to outline problems and goals, but it is another thing to follow through.
Thanks for the clarification and links. I think I get it now!