In our next installment of our Vlog series, Michael Halpern, president and founder of MuniReg LLC elaborates on a recent article he authored for American City & County advocating for additional flexibility in the CRA to allow for what was once a critical need and may very well be a need in the future.
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To access the earlier videos in this series, please click here
To view the referenced article, please click here
A recent “Message From (HUD) PD&R Senior Leadership” discusses the relationship between remediating vacant lots and crime.
Specifically, “a growing body of research on Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design focuses on cleaning and greening vacant lots and land. Two recent randomized evaluations highlight the promise of greening vacant lots on crime prevention and mental well-being. Both studies emphasize the impact of low-cost, scalable investments to reduce crime, especially in high-poverty minority neighborhoods that historically have been underserved.
For more information, please click here.
Proposed legislation in New York State awaiting the Governor’s signature is designed to close an important loop.
Albany is showing “that less than half of the properties involved in eviction proceedings have that permit on file.”
“Mayor Kathy Sheehan said the legislation would be a change from the current requirement, where the city relies on city court judges to enforce the law that a landlord needs to have a rental occupancy permit as part of the eviction proceeding.”
For more information, please click here.
The newest edition of HUD’s Office of Policy Development and Research Journal discusses methodologies for measuring urban blight.
“Across the United States, communities struggle with blighted urban environments and associated negative outcomes, including reduced property values, increased criminal activity, and poor health of residents. Historically, blight has been difficult, labor-intensive, and expensive for researchers to measure.”
Included in this edition;
- examination of the relationship between inner-city blight and urban sprawl in the United States. The study finds “that city-center vacancy rates positively correlate with levels of urban sprawl, suggesting that policies that limit sprawl may also work to mitigate blight.”
- presentation of a system of detecting abandoned houses using deep learning techniques for image classification. This approach “requires fewer resources compared to older approaches to measuring blight, is sensitive to local contexts, and is scalable to empower communities and cities to design more effective strategies to address housing abandonment.”
- investigation of the degree to which tract-scale data on vacancy from the U.S. Postal Service and the U.S. Census Bureau correlate with physical blight.
- discussion of challenges in assessing blight using the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Aggregated U.S. Postal Service (USPS) Administrative Data on Address Vacancies arising from the use of the category “not-a-statistic” (“no-stat”) to describe addresses not receiving mail.
For more information, please click here
The City of San Antonio TX is considering a new, proactive apartment inspection policy in an attempt to hold accountable negligent landlords who allow tenants to live in unsanitary, dangerous and otherwise illegal conditions.
While considering several options, city staff are leaning towards funding a program through fees levied “against property owners on a so-called “bad actors” registry whose properties have a “higher than normal” number of code violations”
For more information, please click here.
One City Manager has proactively utilized local media to both educate his citizens on the issue of blight and how the city addresses it, but also issues a strong call for collaboration.
For more information, please click here.
One Ohio community is now ceasing to send warnings or letters etc. “for anyone that has trash laying around their house or high grass”.
Per the City Solicitor those warnings are not required. “There’s no change that’s required, we’re just enforcing the laws as they’re read,”
To view the article, please click here.
In a recent “Revitalize or Die” blog posting, Jeff Siegler encourages local governments to implement the proper blight fighting tools and take the necessary actions to protect their respective communities. Siegler seeks to change the mindset where one “actually believe we don’t have a say, even worse, we have come to sympathize with people that aren’t maintaining their property and defend their right not to do so.”
To view the article, please click here.
A federal appeals court struck down a 2017 Maryland statute that “allowed for certain groups, including Prince George’s County residents, county or public school employees, federal employees and veterans, to bid on tax-delinquent properties at an early “limited auction” before the properties would be made available for bidding by the general public.”
For more information, please click here.
- Crime
- Arson and “accidental fire”
- Public nuisance and health
- Decreased property values and tax revenues
- Lost tax revenues
- Lower property values
- Cost to homeowners
- Higher insurance premiums
- Poorer quality of life
