Vacant and Abandoned
By Albert B. Kelly
If there’s one thing that can have a negative and
long-lasting impact on neighborhoods, it’s the presence of vacant or abandoned
houses not properly maintained. They easily become an eyesore and in addition
to depressing property values, unkempt houses can become targets of vandalism
and other nuisance activity. In winter, the possibility of fire impacting surrounding
homes increases if illegal squatters light fires to try and stay warm
Such unkempt houses have always posed a challenge,
especially in resource-poor communities, but things got worse with the Great
Recession in 2009. Coming off the financial crisis, many homeowners simply
walked away from their homes and mortgages. Others stayed until the lender
moved ahead with foreclosure.
It happened all over the country as people lost jobs or had hours
cut at work. And depending on the type of mortgage, some people suddenly had
monthly payments they couldn’t afford. This happened to homeowner-occupants,
but it also happened to some who owned rental properties. Regardless, the
financial crisis left a lot of people in a bad place.
Certain cities and areas of the country bounced back
relatively quickly, but these areas were usually the ones with higher- end real
estate markets near major metropolitan areas. For smaller communities, the
bounce back hardly came if it came at all. Mortgage lenders had large
inventories of properties around the country and this likely played a part in
prioritizing where their attention and resources were placed and when.
For smaller communities like Bridgeton, this meant an
inventory of vacant or abandoned structures that kept growing- structure by
structure -well after economists had said the worst was over. This inventory of
vacant or abandoned properties is with us today in varying conditions, with
some properties worse than others, and with all of them contributing the
negative impacts mentioned above. This is not what we need in the midst of our
other challenges.
With these negative impacts in mind and the need to do
something substantial, working with City Council, we adopted a new vacant and
abandoned property ordinance (ordinance 18-3) that seeks to implement a host of
legislative tools passed by the State legislature (P.L. 2003, c. 210 and P.L.
2014 c. 35) that deal with the maintenance and upkeep of vacant or abandoned
properties, including ones for which a creditor has filed an action to
foreclose.
Under the laws crafted by the State legislature, the scope
of responsibility and accountability was expanded not only to include the title
holder, but also any agent of the title holder or any foreclosing entity with
authority to act with regard to a given property. The tool kit goes on to define
what constitutes a vacant or abandoned property and sets out procedures to be
followed when enforcing the provisions of the ordinance.
The thing to know is that the ordinance has teeth and the journey
in getting to this point was long considered and not done lightly or easily. We
brought in the technical assistance we deemed necessary and the process of
training staff, developing and managing the process, and dealing with this
inventory of vacant or abandoned structures is ongoing.
Partly as a result of these efforts, as of this writing, we’ve
seen 10 properties demolished in various neighborhoods throughout the city with
some initiated by the private owners and others initiated by the City. While
demolition is admittedly a drastic step, it is sometimes necessary not only to
protect public health and safety which is the first priority, but also to eliminate
an obvious attractive nuisance in a given neighborhood. That said, to the
extent feasible, we hope to see the majority of properties rehabilitated and
back on the tax rolls.
Small communities like Bridgeton need to be aggressive in
dealing with vacant or abandoned structures because for many “investors”, banks
and mortgage companies, these properties are just revenue streams gone bad in some
town on a map- something they’ll deal with when they get around to it-
something they’ll invest in only if they absolutely have to. Well now they have
to.
The issue of vacant or abandoned properties won’t be
resolved any time soon as the housing and real estate markets are subject to
cycles just like anything other market. But having an ordinance with teeth in
it and the ability and willingness to enforce it means that our community won’t
be ignored and we won’t look the other way when problems arise.