Massachusetts H 177 (and accompanying bill S 1627) originally introduced in January had hearings in October.

The bill “would form a commission to study strategies for improving the quality of housing stock in weak markets, task the Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development with developing a “capacity building program” to help cities and towns with neighborhood stabilization and housing improvement efforts, and create a “spot blight rehabilitation program” focused on abandoned and vacant residential properties.”

For additional information, please click here for an article from the Salem News.

To view the text of the proposed bill, please click here.

Following a recent report of a resident of Cleveland Heights, Ohio, 57 and uses a wheelchair who is facing jail time because of housing code violations, Christina Plerhoples Stacy and Joseph Schilling with the Urban Institute addresses critical housing code enforcement questions.

“What are these codes meant to promote—the health of occupants and the public or community aesthetics? How do these codes vary from place to place? And who is affected by these codes and decisions about how to enforce them?”

To view the article in its entirety, please click here.

In the latest effort to battle blight, Schenectady NY Mayor Gary McCarthy announced the city will install solar-powered security monitors in a number of vacant city-owned properties across the city.

The monitors will be installed as part of a test program in Schenectady, Albany and Troy.

The device was created in response to a call from officials in  Louisville KY for help in dealing with hundreds of vacant property fires a year and is described as a “solar powered smoke detector detector.”. The device sends a signal to the police and fire department and phone calls and text messages to people in the neighborhood who sign up for it when it detects a motion or picks up siren of the smoke detector

For additional information, please click on the following media articles.

Times Union: Mayors hope security monitoring device will combat vacant property woes

Daily Gazette: New detectors aim to safeguard vacant schenectady-owned buildings

A recent article in the Jackson Sun discusses what appears to be efforts by commercial property owners to circumvent a newly enacted ordinance in Jackson TN.

A prime example of why strong language and replicating national best practices is so critical.

To view the article, please click here.

One of the sessions at the recent Center for Community Properties Reclaiming Vacant Properties Conference highlighted New York’s Cities for Responsible Investment and Strategic Enforcement Cities RISE project. At the session, staff from Hester Street (an urban planning, design and community development nonprofit working so that neighborhoods are shaped by their people) shared some insightful publications

“Tools and Tactics for Engaging Communities around Code Enforcement” (April 2019)

Topics include:

To view the report, please click here

“The Power & Proximity of Code Enforcement: a Tool for Equitable Neighborhoods” (June 2019)

In addition to discussing the creation of  a flexible toolkit for Equitable Code Enforcement, the report focuses on

To view the report, please click here

Along with vacant property registration ordinances, Land Banks are one of the more widely used tools in the fight against blight. Now, class action lawsuit have been filed by former Ohio Attorney General Marc Dann, alleging his clients “should have been compensated when their properties were transferred to the Land Bank or sold.”

As Gus Frangos, president and general counsel of the Cuyahoga Land Bank states however, “In these cases, a person has not paid their taxes for many, many years. They don’t respond to collection notices. Then they get sued, don’t respond to that. They get notice of a hearing, they don’t attend the hearing. And then at the end of that, you’ve got another 28 days after a decree of foreclosure to still come in and enter into a payment plan, to try to make some kind of arrangement so that your property’s not taken.”

In one example a plaintiff is alleging they are owed a $60,000 surplus. Even if true, what would the number be when you deduct all the municipal costs over the years to abate nuisances, issue notices, attorney and court costs etc.? What about the loss of tax revenue as a result of the negative impact to the neighboring homes and their value, all as result of this homeowner not maintaining their property? I wouldn’t be surprised if that was well over $60,000!

Similar to the issue in Washington State and “pre-foreclosure” maintenance by banks and mortgage servicers, homeowners (mortgagors) have rights, but so do the neighbors, not to live next to an eyesore or a magnet for criminal activity due to lack of upkeep.

Here too, homeowners have rights, but so do the other neighboring homeowners and residents! If one chooses to ignore them, then as Gus Frangos says “”It’s not the county’s job to babysit an owner who now claims, after all these years, that he has equity in the property,”

For additional information, please click on the following links;

News5 Cleveland: Cuyahoga County faces federal lawsuit, asked to pay money to owners of foreclosed properties

Dayton Daily News: Resident sues county over Land Bank seizure

In New York State, A07190  was signed by the Governor on September 13th. As New York State Assemblyman John T. McDonald III writes in The TimesUnion this bill is “an important tool in fighting blight in our communities.” The legislation “requires the real property transfer tax return relating to residential property sold or purchased by a limited liability company to include information on the ownership of such company.”

Once again, New York State takes a positive step in the fight against blight. The question yet to be answered is how valuable this information will prove to be. The key will be, whether the information (found on a tax return) will be readily available and in a timely manner to the individuals that need it (code officials etc.)

For additional information, please click here

In a comprehensive report, the Chicago Sun Times focuses on an increasingly popular approach to decreasing violence, often referred to as “greening”.

“The city is spending millions to beautify the public spaces where shootings are most likely to occur. It’s a strategy research has found can help fight crime as well as neighborhood blight.”

Among the topics discussed;

To view the article, please click here..