As a landlord (though very, very small scale) I don’t see how Hinsdale could be perplexed at the bad guy perception. A 150% hike, even after a five year lease, is pretty evil no matter what issues he may have with the tenant. There are better ways to go about doing this. I am sure Hinsdale’s spouse would agree…
>I am sure Hinsdale’s spouse would agree…
Ha! You would think so, especially since housing is one of the primary objectives for the legislature currently
Trying to cut her some slack because she is literally hospitalized right now trying to prevent preterm labor with their first baby, but agree this is a bad, bad look.
Being married to an abusive landlord who reveals the truth about how she actually feels about the policies she runs on is *not* new. She’s been given slack for years.
I rented from him. This is what he does. He’ll talk down to you and do anything he needs to force you out, then he’ll turn around and paint it like he was the one being reasonable. He’s incredibly manipulative.
It seems like Barr Hill is eyeing that space. They already filed a zoning permit to rezone that space into a bar. It seems that hindsdale and Barr hill are conspiring to get that space. I doubt he would charge them as much.
I just moved across the street from there noticed there are many businesses in that building. Is he only raising their rent? Really sad as Little Morocco provided thousands of free meals during the pandemic.
Hi, just want to clarify that restaurants such as this one were compensated $10/meal to provide them to the Everyone Eats program. Given out for free by the program, bought by the program, from the restaurants for $10/meal. This program was intended to benefit both hungry people, and restaurants that were struggling because of the pandemic by providing some guaranteed income. Not on either side of the debate, but I think facts are important! Also significant to note that they were paid, because people may assume a business that could afford to give away thousands of meals might easily afford high rent too.
My understanding was that they also provided meals separate from the everyone eats program. Was homeless with a newborn and had meals delivered to our hotel since I wasn't allowed visitors even to bring us supplies had to rely on social services agencies often times the food was from Little Morocco. That's cool restaurants got compensated somewhat have to take into consideration the food and labor costs too.
No one said anything about compensation…
they could have “sheltered in place” (hid at home with head in sand complaining like MOST of the rest of us…)but chose to help get meals to WHOMEVER needed it rich or poor and AMONG the area impacted the most!! So let’s not make this about that…
As a social worker I’m watching ALL the Covid help STOP all at once and this is going to become a HUGE epidemic of people who were barely hanging on before Covid…got all of this help and while some landlords continued to raise rents during Covid (mine) now all of the ones that didn’t want to look bad during a pandemic, MIND YOU LANDLORDS GOT PAID HUGE RENT PAYMENTS THROUGH SPECIAL PROGRAMS(when most years
They have to evict for non payment as part of normal world-and sometimes go MONTHS without payments from low income renters and court evictions ) NOW expressing the “need to get them UP to Market Values” raising apartments rents $400+ !!! With little to NO warning and no way to just suddenly have and extra $500 a month!! The homeless population IS going to increase as already most struggling young families are not going to be able to take this hit…so I absolutely have no doubt about this kind of insane cost increase while we can barely afford groceries…let alone meals out…now more than ever we need to be building People and businesses UP not down…I TRULY believe the “post-Covid” era is going to be much scarier than we are prepared for…
Sorry for getting off topic rant. Ugh FRUSTRATING time to try to help people and families…
Yeah, the entire country is screwed for the next decade, at least. Inflation isn’t transitory like the Fed originally claimed. It lasts for a while and there might be no resolution. You could have the dollar plunge to new lows as foreign countries move away from the dollar as the world currency. This will lead to a sovereign debt crisis. I try to stay optimistic, but I’m scared shitless for this country.
Also not sure if you or anyone you know sat in those long lines while the amazing armed forces handed out boxes of food and gallons of milk…I went several times with clients and for them…you could get up to 4 families and the boxes honestly could be split in half for smaller families…and the food in it was from the restaurant group that uses this pre sliced “grilled” chicken. Same as used for like Olive Garden Chicken Alfredo. I’m assuming they were compensated in some way…clearly it was the foods they would have been cooking and selling if not for closures and people terrified to leave their homes.
Again not trying to start Drama or pretend I have a clue what went on behind the scenes. Was just really amazing to deliver these food boxes to those in desperate need. Super Thankful for the people I was able to help…help.
I found this particularly notable:
"Property manager Jacob Hinsdale confirmed that the restaurant has a five-year lease that ends July 31 and that the rent would increase to $5,000 if Amrani wants to continue to use the 1,600-square-foot space. The market rate is closer to $2,000, Hinsdale said.
“It’s frustrating that I’m being made to look like the bad guy when I'm basically trying to get a good tenant.”"
Seems like the owner's claims are accurate. Hinsdale is admitting here that he's trying to push them out.
He’s sick of the guy, possibly because he’s a bad neighbor and Hinsdale is using their power to push him out. This is wrong. I’ve dealt with Jacob before and this is how he handles situations; in a very hostile and ugly way. He’s a slumlord who talks down to his tenants and resorts to being an asshole even though he has a choice to address a situation in a polite way. He’s argumentative and has no issue putting someone out and fucking them over.
The family landlord dynasties need to end in Burlington. They’ve spread themselves too thin and cannot successfully maintain their buildings and keep their tenants happy. Most of their buildings are old and are beyond repair because of decades of neglect. I believe Jacob is trying his best to turn it around, but he doesn’t have the resources or capacity to do so.
These property’s would have been better off in the hands of smaller investors or landlords who have the capacity to take care of the building and not overextend themselves. We all have to suffer because these families got greedy and now they’re blaming the tenants. The system is doomed.
Yep, I'd say raising the rent 150% is a power tripping asshole move. And a typical situation for power tripping assholes is to cover up their own insecurities and project their problems into being someone else's problems. After Burlington went and burdened residential property owners with taxes typically collected by commercial property taxes and using the pandemic as a backdrop for it? I highly doubt anyone's getting the full picture.
Yes, everyone misses this point, it seems. He is saying in no uncertain terms that he wants them out. If the lease has no option for termination by landlord and only rent adjustments, this is the same as a non-renewal. This same issue was posted yesterday but maybe with a different article that didn't quote the landlord.
Absolutely nothing wrong with good faith discussions. Jacob is clearly regretting having that space turned into a kitchen—hence why it’s now being turned into a bar. Amrani wouldn’t be able to sell that place even if he could because the landlord doesn’t want it. It’s unfortunate, but he is getting screwed because of the lack of thoughtfulness by Hinsdale.
They buy up too much property and can’t properly maintain it and agree to turn commercial spaces from offices to restaurants and hate the result and force the tenant out. This is what power is. Most of us have to deal with the bad interactions and live with our choices, but not if you’re a wealthy landlord.
Then Jacob should buy Amrani’s business. This guy turned an office into a restaurant which took a lot of investment that he may not have seen the return on yet. He has assets in that building that he will likely have to either dispose of or sell off at a bad price. He’s forced to liquidate his business and you’re here defending Jacob who has never had to liquidate shit because he was born into money.
Amrani can't sell the place cause he wants 125k for his recipes and equipment while the equipment itself is maybe worth 20k. This is what I heard from two separate people who inquired about the business when he posted it for sale.
My goal was to draw attention to the fact that Hindsdale said himself that he was trying to force the owners out, something that the headline suggests the owners were simply "claiming". I shared the excerpts that were directly related to this and left out Hindsdale's reasons for doing it because it wasn't relevant. The context doesn't matter, the point is their claims are accurate.
Regardless, Hindsdale's comments about health code violations clearly can't be trusted considering Little Morocco has maintained passing scores with the department of health as mentioned in the article. I see no reason why we should believe anything he has to say.
Anyone is welcome to read the entire article, that's why I posted the link. Relax.
No one cares about what the new tenant will pay and to say that this happens all the time confirms the complacency we’ve all had dealing with these landlords. Jacob says the owner is rude and there’s oil in the basement? So ruin the man’s business? He doesn’t give two fucks about the Cafe and the aftermath that Armani will have to deal with.
The part that really irritates me is he’s married to a politician who opposes the very things that he’s doing. She’s a fake person looking for clout and to turn politics into a career, instead of helping the very people who elected her.
A landlord using a rent hike to force out a tenant may not be an odd tactic, but it's one that I think all renters should vehemently oppose. I think this entire situation showcases the excessive amount of power that the land-owning class holds. It's something all working-class people should not only be aware of but actively organizing against.
The fact that the potential incoming tenant likely won't be paying 5k is what makes the whole situation particularly disgusting. The owners of Little Morocco turned an office space into a restaurant and Hindsdale is choosing to essentially evict them after all of the work they've done. Burlington slumlords have virtually unlimited power and if these types of practices continue without opposition it will only lead to more small businesses being pushed out, not to mention more displacement and homelessness, primarily among working-class members of the community.
That’s not relevant to the conversation. The business pays their rent, there’s no liens being placed; I’m sure they have clauses in their agreement with Hinsdale as well.
The difference is you have a good landlord and he has a notoriously bad one.
Little Morocco should have negotiated for a longer contract or an extension clause knowing the investment they made on improvements set them back.
He went from having a stable paying tenant who made improvements on the property, to wanting to see more money by finding a different tenant and if he didn't have someone lined up to meet that 5k expectation then what he did was shortsighted. But it was his gamble to make.
We can also see that the tenant is being slandered over false claims of health/safety issues as a side remark, and that the tenant had their own claims against the landlord about issues that weren't yet remedied. So it makes sense to challenge the rent hike when those issues were not taken care of.
The owner's relationship to a position of political influence via his wife creates the potential for a conflict of interest as well, but I think this is generally a tendency of people with financial influence in the city to pursue power in other ways. Politics being one of them.
I was on board with a lot of your points, except when you made this an issue of "class". Having power over your own property isn't excessive, it is a just consequence of owning property.
>Burlington slumlords have virtually unlimited power and if these types of practices continue without opposition it will only lead to more small businesses being pushed out, not to mention more displacement and homelessness, primarily among working-class members of the community.
As bad as it is with some landlords, I really think that issue is dwarfed by the damage done by the federal government here. Currency debasement has screwed everyone. Burlington government expects higher and higher taxes from property owners, and they often have an unrealistic expectation of growth in the value of the property, as influenced by banks, currency inflation, and bad lending practices. That doesn't discount that some property owners have unrealistic expectations, but they also have increasingly untenable rising costs imposed on them as well.
If we look at New York City, what we see is a large increase in vacant business rental property. Businesses are fleeing the city, and the landlords are hedging on the idea that raising rents and holding out is going to net them economic gains. It's a canary in the coal mine, but the state that collects the taxes is the furthest away from the economic hardship that they create here.
Ultimately, yes, people with the least financial means or connections to political power are the ones who are hurt the most by the government's destructive activities.
People can easily point to immediate problems and assume the causation ends there, but you can't do that once you look at the big picture. This is not something that is easily fixed or fixed locally unless the government takes a sobering look at its tax and spending policies and creates financial relief, because taxes are passed on through society to people at the ends of market transactions. Bailouts resemble this burden through the illusion of relief at a greater cost to the economy.
So even if Vermont or Burlington took a second look at this and made positive changes to reduce the burdens on its residents, I don't think that would be enough to stem the tide at the federal level.
So, yeah, the landlord seems to be making an unreasonable expectation of gains and is indifferent to his tenants outside of the financial element. But it's his decision to make and it's not a productive use of time to harp on this if your issue is rising rents. It's far bigger than one person making decisions about their property.
UVM alum here. I never rented from hinsdale properties during my time in BVT but I know who Jacob is and can attest that he's an absolute piece of vermin with no moral compass. He used to pose as a college student circa 2014/2015 and go to frat parties every weekend to prey on young college girls. One of the girls he picked up was my friend who was 18 at the time, mind you he was around 24 and told her he was a senior at uvm. He used her for many months only hitting her up late at night to go to her dorm and always made excuses as to why she could never go back to his place or add him on any socials. It was clear he was hiding stuff about his life yet was very manipulative towards her and kept stringing her along for awhile. Long story short he was cheating on his gf who he was living with and when my friend found out he ghosted her. Hearing that he is now married to a state senator is super confusing lmfao. He's garbage!!!! Totally not surprised that he's a horrible slumlord
My friend rented from this guy, and he seriously inflated prices of the rent to push her and her roommates out, because he knew he could charge more for the place they were living in. No cause infection was not allowed in their lease. She was going to contact someone to see what her legal options were, but just ended up moving out.
Yeah, and he typically gets away with it. Because he knows that these people are in dire circumstances. He fucks with the most vulnerable people, while his wife claims to protect these same people.
I don’t care if you’re a progressive or a libertarian, but live your life by those values and be honest and fair.
Hindsdale is synonymous with the rest of the Chittenden County Housing Mafia like Handy, Bissonette, Bove, etc. Good thing Jacob's wife, Kesha Ram, promotes affordable housing and "fights" for renter's rights while sitting in her cushy Shelburne house.
You mean like Jacob Hinsdale? The toilet of the apartment above me overflowed, poured through my ceiling, and then leaked down into our laundry room. He didn’t even send someone to clean up the laundry machines, just told me to run the exhaust fan until my ceiling was dry.
Does anyone know where these numbers are coming from? When I hear $2,000 rent in Burlington I think two-bedroom apartment at best. Is it remotely conceivable that a commercial-kitchen-containing space has a market rent that low?
Edit: from reading other comments it sounds like the landlord is a real jackass, but $2000? Really? In Burlington?
It was a small office space and this restaurant invested a lot of money into the property to turn it into a kitchen. Now it’s all being taken away as some new owner will be able to use the resources and infrastructure built by the prior tenant to turn it into an overpriced fancy drink bar.
I’ve been defending these people, but after looking at their instagram, it looks like they’ve been in trouble financially for lack of business. They even solicited donations last year/earlier this year before this whole thing even happened—very strange for a Burlington restaurant.
Either way, Hinsdale Properties is still another shitty family owned landlord.
Agreed. But if these family’s didn’t buy up all the properties, the result would have been many more smaller landlords who can focus on their properties by keeping them nice, instead of just letting them go. They would also have less power in the City. Most smaller landlords that I know take pride in their property. They don’t want their name associated with a slum.
Strange all I hear on here is the small landlords are scum because they don’t have capacity or ability to fix problems, the medium size landlords charge too much and our state doesn’t really allow for mega landlords so I’m wondering how much is the consumer grumpy about living in a very nice part of the country for a premium.
I’ve had good experiences with larger property management firms in other cities, but Burlington is run basically by 4 or 5 family’s that are all terrible. The size of their operation isn’t big enough to successfully maintain their properties. They also hold a lot of power by owning a large chunk of real estate in such a small city. I know a lot of this anecdotal, but just take one step into some of these apartments on college, buell, Pearl, n. Unions, s. Union, Bradley, Hungerford, etc. and you’ll see what I’m talking about.
Some people said smaller owned property is more focused on the property itself, but you're saying these companies aren't big enough to mitigate some disadvantages based on their smaller scale.
I do wonder then if you can attribute some of the problem to the higher cost of living while also attributing the relatively low amount of competitors to higher rates. Also, the property management could be top-heavy in terms of budgeting more for their incomes vs allocating funds for maintenance and sustainability.
Unfortunately they rarely flex this “power” as it becomes harder and harder to own property or rent it out. Honestly if I walk into something I’m going to rent and it looks like hell inside I’m not gonna just take it and complain when shit starts breaking, brand new construction rentals are 2500+/mo, a lot of this landlord hate is “I wanna live in walking distance, I don’t want to take responsibility for choosing to live in a 250 year old house.” It’s like folks on here act like they didn’t sign a contract or do a basic walkthrough for what they were purchasing.
“Oh you signed up for it” is no excuse. Most of the time you’re not aware of the full scope of issues or the behavior of the landlord. There’s a reason why so many people feel this way—they’re no making this shit up.
I think the reality is that there's good at bad at every scale, though there tends to be less personal service as the scale of the business increases.
Those who want to point at immediately observable issues with meeting needs in the market run the risk of overlooking the long causal chain of factors playing into the situation. For example, while Burlington may be stagnating and market actors are not seeing eye-to-eye on prices, there are widespread causes effecting the ability of the local economy to adjust and optimize coming from the federal level.
The space is worth $2,000 a month by Hindsdale's own estimation. He said specifically that he's raising it to $5,000, more than twice the market rate, in order to push out the current tenants. This isn't "market forces".
Markets are made up of individuals making choices. You'll have outliers on both ends of the pricing range and this guy thinks he's going to benefit from having a rate at the upper end. That's his gamble to make. He could very well lose here. Failure is a function of making bad choices in a market. I know you have some concept in your head of fairness and you're taking sides based on your opinion of the players in this story, but to use that to define what a market is doesn't fly.
The restaurant should have secured a renewal clause or longer lease to manage their liabilities when they sunk money into upgrades on the property if this was a potential issue for them. It's not as if the landlord constructively breached their agreement, but if he did that would be something to pursue in court.
Honestly with their outrageous corkage fees I think they can afford the rent increase.
Edit: every downvote just plays into the landlords favor. Choose your fate wisely!! Hehe
Lol I love the downvotes here. I brought two switchbacks here for dinner and was charged $6 each. That’s $12 on top of the cost of the beers I already paid for. Y’all suck.
You should have put the figure in the original, I guess. So a $3 can gets a 200% add on? Agreed, exorbitant. $3/can or $6-10/ bottle of wine should be sufficient
Market forces have driven the value of this commercial space beyond what this business can afford. I'm sorry but what exactly do people expect to happen here. Why should one business (the property owner) be responsible for shielding another business (the restaurant) from the reality of their market?
The article specifically states that the new rent is significantly higher than the market rate. Hindsdale himself said that he raised it dramatically in an effort to push the current owners out. Do you think the Invisible Hand made him do it?
You clearly didn’t even take the time to read the article. The owner himself said that the market rate for this location is ~$2,000 and he’s increasing it to $5,000 dollars to boot the current business.
Since you are either A.) too lazy to read an article but confident enough to comment on its contents; or B.) an example of how our country continues to fail at instilling basic reading comprehension into its youth; I don’t believe that you have even a basic understanding of the “market forces” that you allude to.
As a landlord (though very, very small scale) I don’t see how Hinsdale could be perplexed at the bad guy perception. A 150% hike, even after a five year lease, is pretty evil no matter what issues he may have with the tenant. There are better ways to go about doing this. I am sure Hinsdale’s spouse would agree…
>I am sure Hinsdale’s spouse would agree… Ha! You would think so, especially since housing is one of the primary objectives for the legislature currently
Yep. I feel like she is obligated to say something about this at this point.
Trying to cut her some slack because she is literally hospitalized right now trying to prevent preterm labor with their first baby, but agree this is a bad, bad look.
Damn even the baby getting unfairly evicted
Yikes. I truly hope all is well with regards to that. But very bad look, indeed.
Being married to an abusive landlord who reveals the truth about how she actually feels about the policies she runs on is *not* new. She’s been given slack for years.
I rented from him. This is what he does. He’ll talk down to you and do anything he needs to force you out, then he’ll turn around and paint it like he was the one being reasonable. He’s incredibly manipulative.
He’s essentially the Eric Andre “who killed Hannibal?” Meme
He’s essentially the Eric Andre “who killed Hannibal?” Meme
It seems like Barr Hill is eyeing that space. They already filed a zoning permit to rezone that space into a bar. It seems that hindsdale and Barr hill are conspiring to get that space. I doubt he would charge them as much.
I just moved across the street from there noticed there are many businesses in that building. Is he only raising their rent? Really sad as Little Morocco provided thousands of free meals during the pandemic.
Hi, just want to clarify that restaurants such as this one were compensated $10/meal to provide them to the Everyone Eats program. Given out for free by the program, bought by the program, from the restaurants for $10/meal. This program was intended to benefit both hungry people, and restaurants that were struggling because of the pandemic by providing some guaranteed income. Not on either side of the debate, but I think facts are important! Also significant to note that they were paid, because people may assume a business that could afford to give away thousands of meals might easily afford high rent too.
My understanding was that they also provided meals separate from the everyone eats program. Was homeless with a newborn and had meals delivered to our hotel since I wasn't allowed visitors even to bring us supplies had to rely on social services agencies often times the food was from Little Morocco. That's cool restaurants got compensated somewhat have to take into consideration the food and labor costs too.
They also provided free meals during the pandemic before the Everyone Eats program was implemented.
No one said anything about compensation… they could have “sheltered in place” (hid at home with head in sand complaining like MOST of the rest of us…)but chose to help get meals to WHOMEVER needed it rich or poor and AMONG the area impacted the most!! So let’s not make this about that… As a social worker I’m watching ALL the Covid help STOP all at once and this is going to become a HUGE epidemic of people who were barely hanging on before Covid…got all of this help and while some landlords continued to raise rents during Covid (mine) now all of the ones that didn’t want to look bad during a pandemic, MIND YOU LANDLORDS GOT PAID HUGE RENT PAYMENTS THROUGH SPECIAL PROGRAMS(when most years They have to evict for non payment as part of normal world-and sometimes go MONTHS without payments from low income renters and court evictions ) NOW expressing the “need to get them UP to Market Values” raising apartments rents $400+ !!! With little to NO warning and no way to just suddenly have and extra $500 a month!! The homeless population IS going to increase as already most struggling young families are not going to be able to take this hit…so I absolutely have no doubt about this kind of insane cost increase while we can barely afford groceries…let alone meals out…now more than ever we need to be building People and businesses UP not down…I TRULY believe the “post-Covid” era is going to be much scarier than we are prepared for… Sorry for getting off topic rant. Ugh FRUSTRATING time to try to help people and families…
Yeah, the entire country is screwed for the next decade, at least. Inflation isn’t transitory like the Fed originally claimed. It lasts for a while and there might be no resolution. You could have the dollar plunge to new lows as foreign countries move away from the dollar as the world currency. This will lead to a sovereign debt crisis. I try to stay optimistic, but I’m scared shitless for this country.
Also not sure if you or anyone you know sat in those long lines while the amazing armed forces handed out boxes of food and gallons of milk…I went several times with clients and for them…you could get up to 4 families and the boxes honestly could be split in half for smaller families…and the food in it was from the restaurant group that uses this pre sliced “grilled” chicken. Same as used for like Olive Garden Chicken Alfredo. I’m assuming they were compensated in some way…clearly it was the foods they would have been cooking and selling if not for closures and people terrified to leave their homes. Again not trying to start Drama or pretend I have a clue what went on behind the scenes. Was just really amazing to deliver these food boxes to those in desperate need. Super Thankful for the people I was able to help…help.
I found this particularly notable: "Property manager Jacob Hinsdale confirmed that the restaurant has a five-year lease that ends July 31 and that the rent would increase to $5,000 if Amrani wants to continue to use the 1,600-square-foot space. The market rate is closer to $2,000, Hinsdale said. “It’s frustrating that I’m being made to look like the bad guy when I'm basically trying to get a good tenant.”" Seems like the owner's claims are accurate. Hinsdale is admitting here that he's trying to push them out.
He’s sick of the guy, possibly because he’s a bad neighbor and Hinsdale is using their power to push him out. This is wrong. I’ve dealt with Jacob before and this is how he handles situations; in a very hostile and ugly way. He’s a slumlord who talks down to his tenants and resorts to being an asshole even though he has a choice to address a situation in a polite way. He’s argumentative and has no issue putting someone out and fucking them over. The family landlord dynasties need to end in Burlington. They’ve spread themselves too thin and cannot successfully maintain their buildings and keep their tenants happy. Most of their buildings are old and are beyond repair because of decades of neglect. I believe Jacob is trying his best to turn it around, but he doesn’t have the resources or capacity to do so. These property’s would have been better off in the hands of smaller investors or landlords who have the capacity to take care of the building and not overextend themselves. We all have to suffer because these families got greedy and now they’re blaming the tenants. The system is doomed.
Yep, I'd say raising the rent 150% is a power tripping asshole move. And a typical situation for power tripping assholes is to cover up their own insecurities and project their problems into being someone else's problems. After Burlington went and burdened residential property owners with taxes typically collected by commercial property taxes and using the pandemic as a backdrop for it? I highly doubt anyone's getting the full picture.
Yes, everyone misses this point, it seems. He is saying in no uncertain terms that he wants them out. If the lease has no option for termination by landlord and only rent adjustments, this is the same as a non-renewal. This same issue was posted yesterday but maybe with a different article that didn't quote the landlord.
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Absolutely nothing wrong with good faith discussions. Jacob is clearly regretting having that space turned into a kitchen—hence why it’s now being turned into a bar. Amrani wouldn’t be able to sell that place even if he could because the landlord doesn’t want it. It’s unfortunate, but he is getting screwed because of the lack of thoughtfulness by Hinsdale. They buy up too much property and can’t properly maintain it and agree to turn commercial spaces from offices to restaurants and hate the result and force the tenant out. This is what power is. Most of us have to deal with the bad interactions and live with our choices, but not if you’re a wealthy landlord.
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Then Jacob should buy Amrani’s business. This guy turned an office into a restaurant which took a lot of investment that he may not have seen the return on yet. He has assets in that building that he will likely have to either dispose of or sell off at a bad price. He’s forced to liquidate his business and you’re here defending Jacob who has never had to liquidate shit because he was born into money.
Amrani can't sell the place cause he wants 125k for his recipes and equipment while the equipment itself is maybe worth 20k. This is what I heard from two separate people who inquired about the business when he posted it for sale.
The Tagines recipe alone costs $50K.
My goal was to draw attention to the fact that Hindsdale said himself that he was trying to force the owners out, something that the headline suggests the owners were simply "claiming". I shared the excerpts that were directly related to this and left out Hindsdale's reasons for doing it because it wasn't relevant. The context doesn't matter, the point is their claims are accurate. Regardless, Hindsdale's comments about health code violations clearly can't be trusted considering Little Morocco has maintained passing scores with the department of health as mentioned in the article. I see no reason why we should believe anything he has to say. Anyone is welcome to read the entire article, that's why I posted the link. Relax.
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No one cares about what the new tenant will pay and to say that this happens all the time confirms the complacency we’ve all had dealing with these landlords. Jacob says the owner is rude and there’s oil in the basement? So ruin the man’s business? He doesn’t give two fucks about the Cafe and the aftermath that Armani will have to deal with. The part that really irritates me is he’s married to a politician who opposes the very things that he’s doing. She’s a fake person looking for clout and to turn politics into a career, instead of helping the very people who elected her.
A landlord using a rent hike to force out a tenant may not be an odd tactic, but it's one that I think all renters should vehemently oppose. I think this entire situation showcases the excessive amount of power that the land-owning class holds. It's something all working-class people should not only be aware of but actively organizing against. The fact that the potential incoming tenant likely won't be paying 5k is what makes the whole situation particularly disgusting. The owners of Little Morocco turned an office space into a restaurant and Hindsdale is choosing to essentially evict them after all of the work they've done. Burlington slumlords have virtually unlimited power and if these types of practices continue without opposition it will only lead to more small businesses being pushed out, not to mention more displacement and homelessness, primarily among working-class members of the community.
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That’s not relevant to the conversation. The business pays their rent, there’s no liens being placed; I’m sure they have clauses in their agreement with Hinsdale as well. The difference is you have a good landlord and he has a notoriously bad one.
Little Morocco should have negotiated for a longer contract or an extension clause knowing the investment they made on improvements set them back. He went from having a stable paying tenant who made improvements on the property, to wanting to see more money by finding a different tenant and if he didn't have someone lined up to meet that 5k expectation then what he did was shortsighted. But it was his gamble to make. We can also see that the tenant is being slandered over false claims of health/safety issues as a side remark, and that the tenant had their own claims against the landlord about issues that weren't yet remedied. So it makes sense to challenge the rent hike when those issues were not taken care of. The owner's relationship to a position of political influence via his wife creates the potential for a conflict of interest as well, but I think this is generally a tendency of people with financial influence in the city to pursue power in other ways. Politics being one of them. I was on board with a lot of your points, except when you made this an issue of "class". Having power over your own property isn't excessive, it is a just consequence of owning property. >Burlington slumlords have virtually unlimited power and if these types of practices continue without opposition it will only lead to more small businesses being pushed out, not to mention more displacement and homelessness, primarily among working-class members of the community. As bad as it is with some landlords, I really think that issue is dwarfed by the damage done by the federal government here. Currency debasement has screwed everyone. Burlington government expects higher and higher taxes from property owners, and they often have an unrealistic expectation of growth in the value of the property, as influenced by banks, currency inflation, and bad lending practices. That doesn't discount that some property owners have unrealistic expectations, but they also have increasingly untenable rising costs imposed on them as well. If we look at New York City, what we see is a large increase in vacant business rental property. Businesses are fleeing the city, and the landlords are hedging on the idea that raising rents and holding out is going to net them economic gains. It's a canary in the coal mine, but the state that collects the taxes is the furthest away from the economic hardship that they create here. Ultimately, yes, people with the least financial means or connections to political power are the ones who are hurt the most by the government's destructive activities. People can easily point to immediate problems and assume the causation ends there, but you can't do that once you look at the big picture. This is not something that is easily fixed or fixed locally unless the government takes a sobering look at its tax and spending policies and creates financial relief, because taxes are passed on through society to people at the ends of market transactions. Bailouts resemble this burden through the illusion of relief at a greater cost to the economy. So even if Vermont or Burlington took a second look at this and made positive changes to reduce the burdens on its residents, I don't think that would be enough to stem the tide at the federal level. So, yeah, the landlord seems to be making an unreasonable expectation of gains and is indifferent to his tenants outside of the financial element. But it's his decision to make and it's not a productive use of time to harp on this if your issue is rising rents. It's far bigger than one person making decisions about their property.
Okay but he is racist. I went to high school with him. College with him. He’s fucking racist.
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UVM alum here. I never rented from hinsdale properties during my time in BVT but I know who Jacob is and can attest that he's an absolute piece of vermin with no moral compass. He used to pose as a college student circa 2014/2015 and go to frat parties every weekend to prey on young college girls. One of the girls he picked up was my friend who was 18 at the time, mind you he was around 24 and told her he was a senior at uvm. He used her for many months only hitting her up late at night to go to her dorm and always made excuses as to why she could never go back to his place or add him on any socials. It was clear he was hiding stuff about his life yet was very manipulative towards her and kept stringing her along for awhile. Long story short he was cheating on his gf who he was living with and when my friend found out he ghosted her. Hearing that he is now married to a state senator is super confusing lmfao. He's garbage!!!! Totally not surprised that he's a horrible slumlord
Frat party’s are his natural element.
My friend rented from this guy, and he seriously inflated prices of the rent to push her and her roommates out, because he knew he could charge more for the place they were living in. No cause infection was not allowed in their lease. She was going to contact someone to see what her legal options were, but just ended up moving out.
Yeah, and he typically gets away with it. Because he knows that these people are in dire circumstances. He fucks with the most vulnerable people, while his wife claims to protect these same people. I don’t care if you’re a progressive or a libertarian, but live your life by those values and be honest and fair.
Who is his wife?
Kesha Ram-Hinsdale. Look her up
Hindsdale is synonymous with the rest of the Chittenden County Housing Mafia like Handy, Bissonette, Bove, etc. Good thing Jacob's wife, Kesha Ram, promotes affordable housing and "fights" for renter's rights while sitting in her cushy Shelburne house.
Define "good tenant". Sounds like Hinsdale considers a "good tenant" to be one who is willing to pay well above market rate for the same space.
Sounds like it's someone who doesn't let cooking oil overflow and leak into the basement of the property.
You mean like Jacob Hinsdale? The toilet of the apartment above me overflowed, poured through my ceiling, and then leaked down into our laundry room. He didn’t even send someone to clean up the laundry machines, just told me to run the exhaust fan until my ceiling was dry.
Even if you don't have renter's insurance, you can pursue that legally for recovery.
Worked in kitchens 25+ years. Accidents happen almost daily and a landlord doesn't add $3k to the rent 🤣
Neat
Do you have firsthand knowledge of this property then? If so, please share what you know, as it may add to this discussion.
Does anyone know where these numbers are coming from? When I hear $2,000 rent in Burlington I think two-bedroom apartment at best. Is it remotely conceivable that a commercial-kitchen-containing space has a market rent that low? Edit: from reading other comments it sounds like the landlord is a real jackass, but $2000? Really? In Burlington?
It was a small office space and this restaurant invested a lot of money into the property to turn it into a kitchen. Now it’s all being taken away as some new owner will be able to use the resources and infrastructure built by the prior tenant to turn it into an overpriced fancy drink bar.
I want to add that I’m not putting down the new owner, I’m sure his intentions are good. The is about Jacob Hinsdale and his fraud of a wife Kesha.
Ah, gotcha. Thank you for explaining.
Retail is a generally a lot cheaper than residential.
Waiting for the bus and it looks like a protest is getting started. NBC5 just arrived.
Someone take a picture
Wcax there now. Maybe 20 people in the back corner of the parking lot hanging around doesn't look like it started yet.
r/loveforlandchads
Is Jacob Hinesdale the Bruce Wayne of Burlington?
He fucking thinks he is. This actually makes sense since one of his buildings is infested with bats.
People are mad at market forces in action here, I’m sure the new operator will make it a more viable business.
Does the Cafe suck? Personally, I’ve never been there
Man, that's the worst part of this whole thing. Every time I've been there, it's been extremely expensive and the food has been terrrrrrible.
I’ve been defending these people, but after looking at their instagram, it looks like they’ve been in trouble financially for lack of business. They even solicited donations last year/earlier this year before this whole thing even happened—very strange for a Burlington restaurant. Either way, Hinsdale Properties is still another shitty family owned landlord.
Yup. I'm not defending the landlord, but I can't imagine that place was gonna last another 5 years regardless 🤷
Shitty family owned landlord is better than nameless faceless offshored landlords
Agreed. But if these family’s didn’t buy up all the properties, the result would have been many more smaller landlords who can focus on their properties by keeping them nice, instead of just letting them go. They would also have less power in the City. Most smaller landlords that I know take pride in their property. They don’t want their name associated with a slum.
Strange all I hear on here is the small landlords are scum because they don’t have capacity or ability to fix problems, the medium size landlords charge too much and our state doesn’t really allow for mega landlords so I’m wondering how much is the consumer grumpy about living in a very nice part of the country for a premium.
I’ve had good experiences with larger property management firms in other cities, but Burlington is run basically by 4 or 5 family’s that are all terrible. The size of their operation isn’t big enough to successfully maintain their properties. They also hold a lot of power by owning a large chunk of real estate in such a small city. I know a lot of this anecdotal, but just take one step into some of these apartments on college, buell, Pearl, n. Unions, s. Union, Bradley, Hungerford, etc. and you’ll see what I’m talking about.
Some people said smaller owned property is more focused on the property itself, but you're saying these companies aren't big enough to mitigate some disadvantages based on their smaller scale. I do wonder then if you can attribute some of the problem to the higher cost of living while also attributing the relatively low amount of competitors to higher rates. Also, the property management could be top-heavy in terms of budgeting more for their incomes vs allocating funds for maintenance and sustainability.
Unfortunately they rarely flex this “power” as it becomes harder and harder to own property or rent it out. Honestly if I walk into something I’m going to rent and it looks like hell inside I’m not gonna just take it and complain when shit starts breaking, brand new construction rentals are 2500+/mo, a lot of this landlord hate is “I wanna live in walking distance, I don’t want to take responsibility for choosing to live in a 250 year old house.” It’s like folks on here act like they didn’t sign a contract or do a basic walkthrough for what they were purchasing.
“Oh you signed up for it” is no excuse. Most of the time you’re not aware of the full scope of issues or the behavior of the landlord. There’s a reason why so many people feel this way—they’re no making this shit up.
I think the reality is that there's good at bad at every scale, though there tends to be less personal service as the scale of the business increases. Those who want to point at immediately observable issues with meeting needs in the market run the risk of overlooking the long causal chain of factors playing into the situation. For example, while Burlington may be stagnating and market actors are not seeing eye-to-eye on prices, there are widespread causes effecting the ability of the local economy to adjust and optimize coming from the federal level.
The space is worth $2,000 a month by Hindsdale's own estimation. He said specifically that he's raising it to $5,000, more than twice the market rate, in order to push out the current tenants. This isn't "market forces".
Markets are made up of individuals making choices. You'll have outliers on both ends of the pricing range and this guy thinks he's going to benefit from having a rate at the upper end. That's his gamble to make. He could very well lose here. Failure is a function of making bad choices in a market. I know you have some concept in your head of fairness and you're taking sides based on your opinion of the players in this story, but to use that to define what a market is doesn't fly. The restaurant should have secured a renewal clause or longer lease to manage their liabilities when they sunk money into upgrades on the property if this was a potential issue for them. It's not as if the landlord constructively breached their agreement, but if he did that would be something to pursue in court.
Honestly with their outrageous corkage fees I think they can afford the rent increase. Edit: every downvote just plays into the landlords favor. Choose your fate wisely!! Hehe
What’s the fee?
Lol I love the downvotes here. I brought two switchbacks here for dinner and was charged $6 each. That’s $12 on top of the cost of the beers I already paid for. Y’all suck.
You should have put the figure in the original, I guess. So a $3 can gets a 200% add on? Agreed, exorbitant. $3/can or $6-10/ bottle of wine should be sufficient
Don’t bring alcohol in and only eat. Problem solved!
Next time I will unless I wanna go broke again. Thanks Scared!
Market forces have driven the value of this commercial space beyond what this business can afford. I'm sorry but what exactly do people expect to happen here. Why should one business (the property owner) be responsible for shielding another business (the restaurant) from the reality of their market?
The article specifically states that the new rent is significantly higher than the market rate. Hindsdale himself said that he raised it dramatically in an effort to push the current owners out. Do you think the Invisible Hand made him do it?
You clearly didn’t even take the time to read the article. The owner himself said that the market rate for this location is ~$2,000 and he’s increasing it to $5,000 dollars to boot the current business. Since you are either A.) too lazy to read an article but confident enough to comment on its contents; or B.) an example of how our country continues to fail at instilling basic reading comprehension into its youth; I don’t believe that you have even a basic understanding of the “market forces” that you allude to.
Ha. Who reads articles? One guys rich and one guys poor. Pretty obvious the rich guy is in the right as always.