At Tuesday's CAC meeting, the Hospital publicly distributed a letter it sent to the members of the CAC. This letter claimed:
"As you know, Children's has purchased several homes directly on the east and south perimeters of the hospital campus. Children's Board of Trustees approved these purchases in order obtain some homes to lease to Children's faculty and staff who want to be near the hospital and avoid commuting..."This claim is not credible. Not long ago, the Hospital advertised almost all of its purchased homes on Craigslist. You can see our previous post for a full table of advertised prices. The Dave Poletti ads were reposted repeatedly to keep them top-of-the list on Craigslist. The ads said nothing about the rentals being intended for "faculty and staff." At the end of the day, it appeared that the rental agency was successful in its public ads -- one of the listings quickly changed from "Available" to "Application Pending."
The Hospital's credibility suffers when it presents an inaccurate picture of its land-use intentions.
The CAC needs to receive accurate information on how the Hospital's purchases are managed. A major transition from owner- to renter-occupied homes along 45th Street has occurred. This transition must be publicly recognized and evaluated by the CAC. 12 out of the 17 homes (71%) along 45th St between 40th & 44th Avenues are now rentals, largely due to purchases by the Hospital and agents of Talaris.
[Note: Craigslist ads always expire after 30 days, so we saved two of them. Here's a zip folder with these ads. Just download the folder, unzip the files to a folder on your hard drive, and click on each of the .html rental files.]
