St. Louis' struggle with developmental red tape | St. Louis Real Estate Society

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If you have ever rehabbed a house, rented out an apartment, or even simply lived in the City of St. Louis for any period of time, you are well aware of the ridiculous amount of red tape that the City throws up around just about every issue. A lot of it is necessary, but the implementation has always been wanting.

The Post Dispatch featured a very interesting article on this topic in this morning’s paper. It involves a property at 3500 Missouri in Marine Villa that the City took from an owner. If you haven’t checked it out, its worth the five minute read.

St. Louis City takes 3500 Missouri away from owner

City occupancy police are on the prowl

UMSL’s Landlord Training Program

Matt Kastner

Matt Kastner is an Investment Real Estate Consultant at St. Louis Real Estate Society in St. Louis, Missouri. He is also develops properties on the side through Threshold Properties. When he isn't representing investors in the purchase or sale of multifamily properties, rehabs, foreclosures and other income producing properties, he is often taking on rehab projects himself. He lives in South St. Louis and has been in the real estate business since 2004.

2 thoughts on “St. Louis’ struggle with developmental red tape”

Angelo
February 16, 2010 5:29 pm
Would you like to pay higher taxes so the city can afford to hire enough people to keep track of thousands of property owners and their current addresses?

I don’t think keeping the city informed of change of address is unbelievable red-tape. That’s sort of standard in life. He also should have known about the law and the fees he would have to pay. Either this guy is negligent/absent minded or the Post Dispatch took his story with too much credulity.

Matt Kastner
February 16, 2010 5:44 pm
The guy isn’t totally blameless. No question there. There are two major issues I have with these kinds of situations: The first is the outdated newspaper notice system. City Hall loves to tout that they post official notices in the newspaper. The trouble is, many people don’t get the newspaper anymore. I don’t I read the Post online when I read from it. And their online notification system is pretty bad.

The second issue is how they handle situations when they do become aware of them. Intent is everything. Clearly this guy screwed up, but if he will make good on it now, the City should work something out with him. I’m not saying they should take a loss for the guy, just that rather than play their typical bully line, they should be reasonable. I have run into issues regarding supposed code violations in the past and had a horrible time working things out. I smell the same here.