Jury says Philly eviction illegal; city may appeal

[JoeBob]

Did I miss the part where the article mentioned that the BSA initially owned the building and gave it to the city in consideration for the favorable lease terms?

Without that critical piece of information, it looks like the city gave the BSA a sweetheart deal.

 

The omission of crititcal data is either ignorance or bias. Whadaya' think?

[CalicoPenn]

The Boy Scouts never "owned" the building. They built the building. The Boy Scouts got a favorable deal on a ground lease through ordinance and as with any other ground lease, any improvements on the land become tied to the land and therefore become the property of the landowner - in this case the City of Philadephia. The City of Philadelphia has owned the building since the day it was completed (though technically, had the Boy Scouts just put in a foundation and never built the building, the City of Philadelphia would own the foundation.

 

Many ground leases give the landowner the option of requiring the removal of improvements upon the termination of the lease. Most alsor equire the holder of the ground lease to fully maintain the building and pay all taxes on the building, for the term of the ground lease (though since the land and building is property of a government, there is no taxes).

 

I suspected that Philadelphia would have a problem with the attempt to modify the lease to allow the BSA to pay $200,000 per year to stay. I don't believe the city had the option to change the terms of the deal, only the option to terminate. On this point, the City should have lost.

 

I suspect the City will appeal.

 

I'm afraid if the victory for the COL council stands, it will be a pyrhhic victory that will affect every organization that wishes to lease land or buildings from a municipal government. If I'm a municipality, I think I would think thrice before ever leasing to an organization if I can't maintain control over the municipal property.

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

As far as I can tell, the $200,000/year lease wouldn't be a modification of the original arrangement. It would just be:

1) end the lease, city owns building

2) offer building to public for $200,000/year

[skeptic]

And if the last ML post happened, I would wager the building would sit vacant and become run down, as the economy is so bad, and the city has no money to keep it up. On the other hand, there may be some truth to the rumor the city wants the land to offer as part of a larger deal that benefits political cronies.

 

I admit that I am now pretty much skeptical of anything to do with government, as I see them mostly as self serving, egocentric, individuals only looking out for their jobs and selves, rather than being the servant they are supposed to be. The real irony here is that any uneven benefit the BSA gets here is far less than the myriad other questionable uses of tax money in our various levels of government.

 

JMHO

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

skeptic writes:

And if the last ML post happened, I would wager the building would sit vacant and become run down, as the economy is so bad, and the city has no money to keep it up.

 

I would wager that the city would, like any other landlord, reduce the rent until a buyer was found. In fact, they essentially did this because they had recently re-evaluated it at $160,000/year, even though the $200,000 figure is what is still used in most newspaper stories.

[evmori]

And it is entirely possible that if the city required th3 $200,000, the new renter could sublet to the BSA at no charge!

[LIBob]

EagleDad wrote:

My opinion is the BSA is loosing scouts from its own weight. Any volunteer with a few years experience in managing a Cub program will tell you its nearly a full time job. The number of Cub families that drop in the first year is pretty high.

 

My first reaction is "good riddance."

I am concerened about the overall numbers of cub scouts as anyone but ya gotta figure

1.

The number of kids/parents dropping afer the first year of anything is going to be pretty high. A LOT of parents are going to want to try things out. Aftera a while leaving work early and going through the rigors of two deep leadership so their kid can "carve ivory soap" and "do arts and crafts." is going to take a toll.

[Cubmaster Mike]

This is great news!

 

Putting the discussion in this string aside, I cheer the 12 men and women who stood up and said that what the City of Philadelphia was trying to do was wrong.

 

We won today. Another battle will take its place tomorrow.

 

I'm sending a note of support to C of L congratulating them for standing strong. Anyone else?

 

CMM

[JoeBob]

CalicoPA:

Split hairs often?

 

What if I said that the BSA owned the materials and paid for the labor to contruct the building?

 

Would omission of that fact color the reportage?

[Horizon]

Am I the only who noticed that the Cradle of Liberty Council tried to go against National policies regarding hiring policies, and only backed off when National said that they would take away their charter?

 

One could look at this a couple of ways. Either their belief in the 3Gs can be bought for $200k per year, or they want to walk regardless (or more likely somewhere in-between).

[CalicoPenn]

Not hair-splitting at all. The Boy Scouts built the building - they paid for all the material (or at least what wasn't donated) and all the labor (at least what wasn't donated) in order to construct the building. No one denies this.

 

However, none of that denotes ownership, which is an entirely different thing. To claim the Boy Scouts owned the building is making a very powerful, incendiary, and inaccurate statement. I merely explained why the statement was inaccurate. It's one thing to be partisan, it's quite another to be partisan and spreading unfactual information that one would expect others to take as truth, even if one isn't aware that one is being unfactual. The first law in the Scout Law is A Scout is Trustworthy. We need to be ready to show that we are trustworthy by making sure we aren't repeating unfactual statements made by others.

[vol_scouter]

Calicopenn,

 

This is not an attempt to argue but rather to clearly understand what you are saying. If the scouts built the building, supplied the materials, etc., would they not own the building? If they did not own the land, would they not still own the building? Theoretically (certainly not actually in this case), could they not move the building onto land that they owned? Is the law such that the erection of a structure on a piece of land become the property of the land owner? Can you clear this point up for at least myself?

[Scoutfish]

 

 

ABSOLUTELY! If that'show the contrace for leasing the land is written. I can lease my land to a farmer. I can tell him that he can build a barn, hook power to it and dig a wellto supply water to it. But I can also say that once the lease has expired, all building on the property revert to me for ownership.

 

If the farmer signs it...then that is how it will be. If he refuses, either I could relent on that point or refuse to lease the land to him and wait until another person - who agrees to my terms - decides to lease the land.

 

In the end, it's whatever both parties agree to and sign to on the contract.

[AlamanceScouter]

If they are not wanted in Philadelphia then why do they want to stay? I say just leave the place and focus their energy and resources on places that want them. They can't have anything close to a vibrant and valuable program in Philly with all of this going on.

[CalicoPenn]

Vol - sorry for the late reply - I have been out on a river fishing for trout.

 

Scoutfish pretty much nailed it except in general, and depending on the state, the contract itself does not need to spell out that the improvements become property of the landowner, though most land contracts will spell it out mostly to re-iterate state real estate law.

 

In most states, once a permanent improvement is made to a parcel of land, it becomes, by law, "tied" to the land forever, and it becomes part of the land, and thus owned by the landowner, immediately upon completion, though with some limitations on ownership rights.

 

In this case, the Boy Scouts built the building, but they never really owned the building - as soon as the building was completed, the landowner also owned the building. However, and this is where folks can get confused, although the landowner now owns the building, the rights of ownership may be limited.

 

To illustrate, if you rented a house and the landlord decided he wanted to slap vinyl siding on the house, at his cost, he could do so even if you object. However, if you had a ground lease with the right to build a building and you built a log cabin, and the landowner decided he wanted to slap vinyl siding on it, he would be unable to do so until the ground lease expires - his rights over the building are limited since he did not build the structure, nor did he rent you the structure - he may own the structure but your rights to the structure, as long as you occupy it, are stronger than his.

 

In exchange for limiting the landowners rights to the buildings, the occupant is required to fully maintain the building. If you rent the house and the roof is damaged, the landlord is required to repair the roof - you may carry renters insurance to cover any personal losses, but the landlord must carry property insurance to cover losses to the building. If you have a ground lease and the roof on the house you built is damaged, you have the obligation to repair the roof - you would have to carry property insurance, not the landlord. And if you don't have the insurance or the money and decide to just vacate, the landlord can get a court order requiring you to pay for the repairs.

 

Note the permanent - that's an important distinction. Example - build an in ground pool and it's likely to be considered a permanent improvement and it gets left behind. Put up a fancy above ground pool and it's likely to be considered non-permanent and you can take it with you.