activists make Montrose house symbol of fight against decay
Over the past month, community activists claiming rights as homesteaders have been fixing up 2913 Montrose Avenue, a property that they describe as having been vacant for 3 years. Given 24 hours on Monday to stop work and leave by the property owner, the notorious Oliver Lawrence, the protest/confrontation should play out during the day on Tuesday.
From a press release issued Monday evening:
COMMUNITY ACTIVISTS FACE ARREST TOMORROW FOR FIXING UP A BLIGHTED HOUSE
In the midst of record foreclosures and houses left empty all over the country, community activists in Richmond have been trying to clean up a blighted house and make it into a home. Now, they face threats of eviction and arrest from Oliver Lawrence, a notorious property speculator and slumlord.
The activists contest Lawrence’s right to the property, pointing to years of unpaid taxes and failure to do basic maintenance. “Mr. Lawrence would prefer this house to be an empty blight on the community rather than a home for someone who needs it. We feel that he has no legitimate claim to the property. At a time when people face eviction and foreclosure daily, we must take a stand against speculators and banks who want to keep perfectly good homes standing empty.”
Oliver Lawrence owns almost 200 properties in Richmond, most of them left empty. He has earned a reputation as a slumlord for his failure to perform even basic maintenance on the homes and buildings he owns.
Tired of speculators like Lawrence buying up pieces of the neighborhood and turning them into unoccupied blight, these activists in Battery Park are fighting back. Over the past month, they’ve worked as homesteaders on the property at 2913 Montrose, clearing out weeds, painting, cleaning up glass, and securing the building against possums and rats. The house was well on its way to becoming habitable when Oliver Lawrence ordered the activists to stop work and leave immediately.
Residents of the Battery Park neighborhood have complained about Lawrence’s properties before, citing “open vacant buildings” which can attract drug activity and other crime, as well as generally dilapidated appearance. In 2008 Lawrence received over 600 citations for upkeep-related code violations. He is also entangled in a controversy involving City Councilman Hilbert, in which Lawrence allegedly tried to cut a deal to avoid paying fines for his code violations.
Mo Karn
(804) 300-0023
marlon{at)riseup.net
[...] North Richmond News: activists make Montrose house symbol of fight [...]
If the owner, Oliver Lawrence, really owns 200 (mostly vacant) properties in Richmond, then support-for/attention-on this bit of civil disobedience could light a fire under him and benefit neighborhoods all over town.
I emailed with the radical home make-over crew. They need public witnesses starting at 10am to add scrutiny to the “slumlord” and reduce their chance of arrest.
[...] Lawrence, long-time owner of much vacant property in the neighborhood, is being challenged [...]
Oliver Lawrence is a well-known real estate speculator and slumlord who loves to play the victim when challenged. He basically buys properties for a pittance from distressed owners and then holds them while doing as little maintenance as possible. If he does renovate, which he does only rarely, the quality is shoddy. His properties have amassed hundreds of code violations, yet he will only sell if offered a king’s ransom. Few people have done more harm to the City of Richmond than Oliver Lawrence. He is no better than a common criminal and and should be put in jail.
While Mr. Lawrence’s record may be less than stellar, I do not understand why this allows people to take away his property rights without due process.
I’d hardly say the squatters were taking away Mr. Lawrence’s property rights. He isn’t exercising any rights over his properties since their almost all vacant and completely unmaintained. I see this as a very reasonable act of civil disobedience designed to bring attention from the City, media and the public to demand action against this horrible property owner. Ownership of property comes with rights and responsibilities. Mr. Lawrence has failed in his responsibility to reasonably maintain his properties. His failure is negatively affecting the neighborhoods in which he owns property. Ergo neighbors and the City have a reasonable right to demand action to correct his failures. The City actions have been ineffective so neighbors must do something. I hope more people start squatting on Mr. Lawrence’s properties and improve them. Perhaps it will shame Mr. Lawrence into doing something.
I give them A for effort, but this is nothing more that vigilante justice. It did bring a little light to Mr. Oliver again…any publicity for him is bad publicity.
I would love to know how Oliver Lawrence makes money off of these vacant and blighted properties. Maybe he watched an episode of “The Sopranos” a little too closely… now, if a reporter were to uncover that story, that might shake up his property rights.
http://www.wtvr.com/Global/story.asp?S=9860648
Apparently this was on the news last night.
But as for my personal opinion, I think property right are derived from use. If you aren’t using your property then you don’t have any rights to it.
Would it be vigilante justice if all of Lawrence’s properties were simultaneously occupied by people who wanted to live in the homes, maintain them, and contribute to the neighborhoods? He wouldn’t be able to evict everyone and the police wouldn’t likely be happy to act as his henchmen when his vacant houses are serving as drug dens and serving as a backdrop for criminal behavior. I don’t think Lawrence’s negligence means he gives up “any” right to his property, just many rights. If he wanted to show that he was reasonable, then he should have negotiated some minimal form of rent with the squatters. Let’s hope he deals with these kinds of headaches for as long as he continues to conduct his business this way.
Now in no way am I taking up for Mr. Lawrence, but let’s face it. He owns those properties just like you all own your property. It may not be right, but this still is America and right or wrong, it is still his property to do with as he sees fit. I agree with David’s comments on Feb. 18.
Yes, it is Mr. Lawrences property, but he cannot do as he sees fit with it. None of us can do as we see fit with out property. We have rights, but we also have responsibilities and restrictions. What one person does with their property can have a significant affect on adjacent property owners. That’s why we have zoning ordinances, so Mr. Lawrence couldn’t put an industrial smelter on Montrose, because it would so negatively affect the surrounding property owners. Likewise we have building codes, property maintenance requirements, noise ordinances and nuisance complaint options under common law. Yes we have much more in the way or private property rights in the US than most anywhere else, but we still have responsibilities. Mr. Lawrence has willfully neglected his properties in clear defiance of those responsibilities. I certainly cannot say that what these protesters did was legal, but under the circumstances I applaud their acts of civil disobedience and would consider them much more on the side of right than Mr. Lawrence or the law in this instance.
Lawrence may be “innocent until proven guilty” but his negligent behavior is criminal, otherwise there would be no discussion on any of this.
It is time for lax government and cronyism to end, and law enforcement to begin. Three years of back taxes on this one property alone? How much does he owe for all of them?
Property rights absolutism (owners have the right to do with their property as they see fit) is always popular until you live next to someone who is living out that creed by creating a nuisance and dragging down the value of your own property. Then the rhetoric is no longer so compelling.
It’s a red herring anyway. It’s well established that use of property can be regulated in the interest of public health, safety, and welfare (see zoning codes, building codes, nuisance laws, etc.). There have been laws to that effect since colonial times, particularly in cities and towns.
The City does what it can to make Lawrence shape up by citing his properties for code violations, but it can’t directly make him do the right thing and either renovate his vacant buildings or sell them to someone who will. If these neighbors’ actions help push him in that direction, then more power to them. He is being a nuisance to them; let them return the favor.
Re: post 14, I do. I live across the street from someone who..well…let’s just say that we have a difference of opinion when it comes to lawn care. When his lawn exceeds 12 inches, I report him. However, high grass does not give me the right to torch it, mow it, or let loose a herd of sheep.
I’m not defending Mr. Lawrence. I’m questioning the legality of the actions of the people involved who want a nice neighborhood but are doing so by appropriating the powers of the city as their own.
With the changes to Eminent Domain law around the country over the past several years, rulings that essentially denied a home owner’s rights to their own properties, surely there is enough legal precedent to examine the laws that protect Lawrence, and enable him to own properties that are economically detrimental to the surrounding community.
There will be no easy fix for this, that is obvious. And we will continue to have to suffer with idiots of Lawrence’s caliber for a very long time.
I wonder how tolerated this would be if the homes were across the street from Mr. Hilbert or Doug Wilder.
Mr. Lawrence commits property wrongs, and does not take responsibility for his so called property rights. City Council is not doing everything within its power to stop him and others from hurting Richmond communities. The city could be a lot more pro-active in taking properties such as Lawrence. What we, the folks who started this, would like to see, is a program where homes that are taken by the city due to blight and abandonment are made available to low income people with an agreement that the people fix the code violations and live in the home for a designated period of time. Having properties go to Tax Auctions just means that for the most part they will end up in the hands of land speculators like Lawrence again. Especially in this economy we need available housing for low income people.
Getting too hung up on the legal/illegal issue about the action is somewhat mute of a point. If we had done something completely by the books we would likely have gotten little to no media coverage. Now that there is attention to this issue we need to keep pushing the city to change its policies and stop slumlords and starting taking care of homeless and working poor folks.
I live in Battery Park. Mr. Lawrence generate alot issues not just here but throughout the City.
Someone can’t just simply take someone’s else property. The house over on Montrose is vacant but hardly is the worst house over here or the worst that Mr. Lawrence owns. Mr. Lawrence has worked the system in his favor. Which is unfair for the people that have to next door.
Your group still doesn’t have the right to take someone else property.
I believe the goal was not for the activists to take Mr. Lawrence’s property, but to draw attention to the illegal activity that he has been engaging in (building violations, unpaid taxes) at the cost to others, and to initiate positive change on behalf of the residents of the neighborhoods where blighted houses like this one are standing empty and crumbling, and could/should be put to much better use.
Let me preface this by saying: DO NOT take this message the wrong way, as I can already see it happening. I know that Oliver Lawrence is a detriment to Richmond housing, and I know he’s a lazy piece of crap (to put it nicely) who’s letting a bunch of great houses go to waste by holding onto them and letting them rot.
STILL, however:
I believe this group of self-proclaimed anarchists has every right to be arrested. You cannot just take matters into your own hands and paint rails, paint the kitchen, paint the library, fence the backyard, etc. when YOU DO NOT OWN THE PROPERTY. What if the OWNER of the property doesn’t like your changes? I know it sucks having to deal with such negligence on his part, but how did you think it would be OK to just walk in and do it all yourself?
Richmond radicals have their hearts in the right place, but as a whole, they are totally unknowledgable in all areas and tend to follow a bunch of cliche anarchist politics. This action doesn’t exactly change my beliefs in that regard.
What ended up happening with this, in legal terms?
In this case I would argue that the ends justify the means. Lawrence has been doing this for years all over the city and the conventional deterrents don’t seem to have any impact on him. Maybe media scrutiny and embarrassment will.
Eminent domain isn’t going to work against Lawrence. Popular misconceptions aside, the only way to apply it in Battery Park is to use the spot blight abatement law, which requires the city to first cite all the code violations and blighting factors (vacancy in and of itself isn’t one) and give the owner an opportunity to correct them. At some point in the process, I guarantee you that Lawrence will fix up the property enough to satisfy the letter of the law but nothing more, and that will be enough to disqualify the use of eminent domain. It will end up being just another variant of the code enforcement process. It won’t necessarily result in him renovating or selling the house.
I think civil disobedience is an apt term for what these folks are doing. Sometimes you have to break the rules in order to obtain justice. However, the goal of handing such vacant houses over to low-income people to live in isn’t workable or sustainable on a large scale. Every homeowner knows that it takes a lot of money to fix up and maintain an old house. Single-family houses such as the one on Montrose were built for middle-class people with the resources to maintain them. Low-income occupancy of such houses is a recipe for deferred maintenance and deterioration, and there are thousands of examples of this all over the Northside. Lots of programs have been tried to aid low-income homeowners in the Northside, but in the end the dynamic remains the same. Rental apartments are a better way to house low-income people.
To keep up with what is going on with this movement you can check out our blog- http://www.takingbackrva.wordpress.com
It has been over a week since Lawrence discovered that we had been fixing up his property. On 2 occasions the police were at the house. None of us were arrested or threatened with arrest by the police. Lawrence did threaten getting warrants against us, but so far nothing has come of that. He was too cheap to pay the pop a lock guy to remove our locks from the house (the doors previously had no locks and were simply screwed shut from the outside), so we have our doubts that he will go through the trouble and expense of getting a lawyer to try to charge us with anything.
We are not naive, we are idealistic and we stand up for the things we believe in and take action accordingly. Without breaking the law this discussion wouldn’t be happening.
You guys are killing me. I live in Northside, and there are way worse houses then 2913 Montrose ave. You would not even know that house was vacant from looking at it from the street.You and channel 6 news claim there are “over grown weeds and broken windows” yet when I drove by there I saw new siding, new replacement windows ,and a bush next to the front porch.As far as the Ivy on the Garage, Who care’s!!! It is not visible from the street nor is it illegal to have ivy growing on you brick in the first place.Before you guys so around claiming to be “fixing up the neighborhood”, you should at least clean up the house you are living in .(2915 Montrose ave)Which is more of a blight the Mr.Lawrence’s. Your front porch looks more like a junk yard then anything else. If you really want to clean up the neighborhood, then why don’t you go out… Get a job…Obtain a loan…and buy your own house to fix up! Until then you and your group are nothing more the XXX scenester wannabes, who try so hard to be different and unique that you that you end up blending in with all of the other posers out there. Enjoy this publicity for now, cause your fifteen minutes of fame is just about up!
Battery Tracks: Story of a Richmond Squat from Kontra on Vimeo.
There are PLENTY of low income residences available in Richmond. It’s one of the most price competitive places in the country. I used to rent a whole house for 800 bucks on Idlewood, split three ways, it doesn’t get any more low income than that. THAT’S WHY THERE’S VACANT HOUSING IN THE FIRST PLACE BECAUSE THE MARKET IS SATURATED THEREFORE LOW PRICES