**Following up on the below post, SB 42 Zombie Property Remediation Act of 2021 has now been signed by the Governor and enacted.
To view the final bill language, please click here.**
On February 10th, Senate Bill 42 was introduced into the State Legislature and assigned to the Economic Development Committee.
If enacted, a municipality could commence legal action to compel a mortgage foreclosure to expedite the process of returning the property to productive use.
For more information, please click on following links.
Herald Dispatch: Senate bill addresses ‘zombie properties’ in W.Va.
On February 3rd HB 372 was introduced and referred to the Committee of Urban Affairs.
HB 372 is titled “An Act providing for foreclosed property maintenance; imposing powers and duties on the Department of Community and Economic Development and municipalities; and prescribing penalties.”
Currently worded the bill would create several new processes including
- Foreclosed property registration along with inspection and maintenance requirements
- An option for owners (as defined) to enter into a municipal maintenance agreement with the local government.
- Submission of registration information to the Department of Community and Economic Development
To view the current status and draft language of the bill, please click here
In 1983, the City of Memphis created the Shelby County Environmental Court, a new division of City Court to handle violations of its health, fire, building, and zoning codes. In 1991, the Tennessee Legislature created the Shelby County Environmental Court and gave it the authority to issue conjunctive orders in aid of its jurisdiction. The Court could now order compliance with the law, both to remedy the problem at hand and to prevent future violations from arising.
However, recently a federal lawsuit has been filed against Shelby County Environmental court claiming the court “illegally forced two homeowners out of their own homes that they’d live in for decades.”
For more information please click here.
A recent article in the Herald Democrat discusses a four month old program that “is probably on life support”.
The program allowed Denison TX to put municipal liens on vacant properties up for sale. City officials at the time hoped this would allow developers to obtain clean titles through foreclosure.
However, as the article details, the results were not what was expected and City officials are working to learn from some of hurdles they’ve experienced to salvage the program.
For additional information please click here.
City of Tuscaloosa & The University of Alabama-Culverhouse College of Commerce & Business Admin have developed a new patent-pending camera-based system to streamline the battle against deteriorating properties.
This system involves cameras mounted on city vehicles, primarily garbage collection trucks, to spot problems.
These images will, in turn, be fed into a computer model trained to spot blighted properties and nuisances.
For more information, please click on following links
University of Alabama Press Release
The Neighborhood Homes Investment Act has been re-introduced in the Senate as S. 98.
Bipartisan legislation titled The Neighborhood Homes Investment Act calls for the creation of a new federal tax credit that will produce new equity investment dollars for the development and renovation of 1-4 family housing in distressed urban, suburban, and rural neighborhoods.
For more information please click on the following links.
January 28th 2021 Press Release
Dedicated website (Including the current text, Executive Summary, a Sample Support Letter)
Two communities recently announced specific strategies to address an increase in commercial vacancies.
Brookhaven NY “Floating Zones”
The redevelopment districts are what planning officials call a “floating zone” that can be superimposed on a specific property without changing the site’s zoning. For example, the zone could allow apartments or single-family homes on a site zoned for retail, as long as the housing project meets certain conditions.
https://www.newsday.com/long-island/suffolk/brookhaven-rezoning-retail-strip-malls-1.50126107
South Euclid OH “Dark Store Ordinance Resolution”
Council passed a resolution, a companion to the dark store ordinance, that will allow (Economic Development Director Michael) Love to work with the owners of vacant buildings to find what could be temporary uses for those buildings.
“We also realize, in some cases, it can be difficult to find new tenants and get properties re-occupied,” Love said, “so we do want to do this for landlords who are really trying to improve their properties and make them attractive to new tenants.
“We want to incentivize them to do that and don’t want to seem putative through the dark store ordinance,” he said.