Why the attack on rental property?

There has always been a discussion about rental property's in Duluth. The discussion over the last few years however has been more an attack instead of a discussion of ideas. The attack many times has come about in the wrong way I feel as well.

By the way I have lived in the district mostly affected most of my live. I have seen areas of town go from family's to rentals and I have seen many positives and negatives with the changes. As some one who grew up living in the East Hillside and then moving to the Central Hillside and back to the area I grew up I understand the events that have happened.

The discussion many years ago was how to integrate the students in to the city, now the discussion seems to be how do we get the students out of here. You hear every politician that runs for Mayor or council say we need to keep the students here, yet they don't practice what they say. When it comes to rentals and students that rent the property's.

Now the discussion has changed to an attack on both rental property and students. Today the talk revolves around what can we do to make our areas less friendly to those tiring to make a living and those going to school. Not only that but those that are on fixed incomes and those looking to start a family.

Duluth has put a limit on how many rentals can be in an area one per every 300 feet. That is about one every block or so. The thing is it does not affect the exciting rentals. There for it is a worth-less ordinance and needs to be repealed. The council also wanted to a moratorium on rentals for one year in an area of town so they could discuss what to do about the problem.

The discussion is all negative about students, party's, noise ect.... the fact is with out collage students Duluth would be in worse shape then we are. I will give you there are bad students however there are bad adults, kids and family's. I have seen more issues with families then I have students. We have focused on the student accept way to long, we need to move passed it. We need to look for real ways to solve this issue. Passing the buck is not the way to do it.

Fact is we all use rentals, Students, single mom's or dad's, seniors, middle-aged. It does not matter.

I will post some ideas I have on how to work on this issue soon. In the mean time if you want to offer your thoughts on the rental property issue go for it.