>>> [BBS THREAD: PROJECT: TAKEBACK: what the notice says, and what it doesn't] [THREAD STARTED BY: /Quorum (sysop)] 2075-06-01
/Quorum
I'm lifting everyone's bans early from poetry slam since this is important news.
One post, plain language, because the city's version runs forty-one pages and the street version is wrong in interesting ways.
1. Adverse possession is dead. As of Saturday, June 1, the Chicago Supreme Court threw out the ruling that gave ownership to anyone who lived on a piece of land continuously, for long enough, without the rightful owner coming forward to claim it. In the former Containment Zone and parts of the Corridor, that covered people who have lived on their lots for as long as twenty years. As of Saturday, those people have no legal rights to the ground they're standing on. The word for them is "occupants."
2. The reclamation year. For one year, anyone who can prove a legal claim to a parcel from before the Zone went up, or who has bought the rights to one since, gets ownership immediately. When the year is out, whatever's left gets auctioned to any interested party, ownership immediate.
3. Two catches. One: parties normally exempt from local land taxes because of extraterritoriality pay them for the first five years, to fund rebuilding the area's critical infrastructure. Two: everyone who takes ownership has until June 1, 2077 to physically take possession, clear the land, rebuild, and start using it. Miss that, and the city declares eminent domain, seizes the parcel, and sells it again.
4. What the notice doesn't say. Project: Takeback is the name on the letterhead. Corps old and new are already moving in. The people who live there aren't going to take it lying down. And everyone with a claim, a grudge, or a warehouse full of old paper is going to want someone to go and look at it.
Standing reminder, since I know you: no live jobs, no names. If someone offers you work over this, that's between you and them. Talk about the shape of it here. Don't post the deal.
/Ledger
Corrections and additions.
The ruling was entered Saturday, June 1. The reclamation office will open on Monday the 3rd. The notice says "one year" and does not say from which date, so the window closes somewhere between June 1 and June 3, 2076. Both dates are being quoted. Do not assume the later one.
The tax change is five years, so through mid-2080 if you start counting at the ruling. The eminent domain date is a hard one: June 1, 2077. The notice does not define "start using it."
Also, the reclamation registry lists six filings from law firms whose registered agent is a single office on LaSalle. I mention it because the same office appears in a parcel sale I looked at in February.
/RubyRose
I'M GOING TO BE SICK
twenty YEARS. people have raised kids on those lots. there are tomato plants older than this ruling. and the city just goes "actually, no" and slides a piece of paper across the table
also. hi. everyone is hiring, right? who's hiring. asking for a friend (me)
/Ledger
You said "sick" and then "hiring" in the same post.
/RubyRose
BOTH ARE TRUE
/Abuela_Diesel
I have customers on both sides of the wall. One of them is a woman named Hortensia, seventy-one, on the same lot since '55. No deed, no lawyer.
The reclamation year is a gift to whoever already has the paperwork. The ones who do are corps and heirs.
/Cubicle_9
Just asking questions. My company posted three openings Monday: "Land Reclamation Coordinator," "Site Acquisition Analyst," and "Parcel Liaison (Field)." I'd like to know what a Field Parcel Liaison does. I've read the description twice and it uses the word "engage" fourteen times.
Also, I've been asked to update the company's "footprint exposure" spreadsheet. It has a column called "legacy occupants."
/Ledger
What did you do with it?
/Cubicle_9
They asked me to hide the column to only people with access level L7 and above. I <deleted by Quorum: Safety first Cubicle_9>
/Ghost_Lake
The deadline is the trap. Two years to physically take possession, clear, rebuild, and start using a parcel in a place that has had no working infrastructure for decades and has people living in it. Almost nobody can do that on time. Which means eminent domain isn't a risk. It's a second sale. The city seizes the parcel, resells it, and gets paid twice.
And there's the other thing. Land under a wall for that long develops a temper. Every lot in there has something living on it, and didn't sign anything.
/Ledger
Unsupported. Though the deadline arithmetic is sound.
/Small_Talk
Twenty years living on it. The city wants to see a receipt.
/Two_Wrench
Rebuilding infrastructure means water, power, sewer, roads. Somebody has to lay it. Local 130 will have hands on that for years, and I'll say what I'd say to any young plumber: take the work, and don't be the one who signs the eviction. The hall is debating it tonight. Some of the boys have family on the other side of the wall, so I expect it'll go the way it always does: loud, and then on the clock.
/Half_Past
The Toll's contract was re-awarded on March 20th. The reclamation notice came out June 1st. I keep doing that math. Somebody knew in March that the gate was about to matter, and got there first.
I'm not saying that's what happened to her. I'm saying the man who answered her line said "legacy customers." Cubicle_9's spreadsheet says "legacy occupants." Same vendor, same style guide.
/Ledger
Same style guide isn't the same author.
/Half_Past
I'd like to keep believing in coincidence a little longer.
/Porch_Light
Posting from the other side of the fence. I've had the same lot for eleven years. I built the addition myself. My kids were born in that house. The notice came taped to the pole at the end of the block, and someone had already drawn a smiley face on it. We have a meeting Thursday. I'm told about two hundred people are coming. I'm told a lot of them want to fight. What else can I say other than "hire someone"?
/Quorum
Porch_Light: you can post here. Nobody on this board will ask for your address. That's the one thing this place is for.
/Ledger
I've started a sheet: what counts as "proof of legal claim," what doesn't, and where the gaps are. It's free and it's incomplete. I'll send a link so everyone can enter the data. I will keep two tracks of the sheet, one public, and one where only I can edit; since public projects become shitshows after a while.
/RubyRose
SOMEBODY HIRE ME. (not here. not here, Quorum. i KNOW)
/Quorum
Noted.