The Big Questions

Block by Block...

The Times Union reports on how Chief Tuffey describes the new anti-blight initiative. (Link only good for 1 week.)

As with the initial announcement, I think this sounds mixed. Departments sharing information and putting it in one place is awesome. Can you really build the level of centralized database you need to track this stuff with no new resources dedicated to it? I'm skeptical. But you can make a start I guess.

Just actually paying attention to blighted properties in a sustained way will be huge. (Although if I had to choose, work going on without a permit wouldn't be my one example of a problem to highlight.)

I just really want to see this paired with prevention and different incentives, or the APD won't be able to keep up.

Jennings and abandoned buildings

Sorry for the hiatus. While my attention was elsewhere:

Mayor Jennings, along with Attorney General Cuomo and DA Soares talked about abandoned buildings. Specifically, they announced a plan that involves targeting 50 blocks, establishing a Division of Neighborhood Revitalization, and creating a special court to address building code violations. They also plan to crack down legally on owners of buildings where crime is regularly taking place. These are all good things, and it's good to see Soares and Jennings appearing behind the same podium on something important.

However, the Times Union editorial about it was on point: It's good they're talking about it; it should be one of Jennings' major focuses for the rest of his term; the actual plan is not bad; and yet, talk isn't enough.

Point one: The plan needs money, and no one has said where its coming from.

Point two, which the TU didn't make: Until we change the incentives creating abandonment, all these clean-up programs are going to be a losing battle. Luckily, a team of planners the mayor invited to the city over the summer included some national experts in dealing with abandonment, and they offered a detailed, point-by-point agenda for both reducing and preventing abandonment. It wasn't even that expensive, and parts of it would pay for themselves before long.

Perhaps re-jiggering the details of the city-county foreclosure process, creating a detailed and functional database of abandoned properties, enforcing existing regulations, upping fees, and providing real rehab money to homeowners isn't as sexy a list as what this press conference was announcing, but it has the advantage of being well-tested and likely to make a long-term different in the pattern, not just a short-term difference in specific properties.

It's sad that there doesn't appear to have been any mention of any of this in the Jennings' plan. Does he remember that he said he'd move to implement the SDAT recommendations?

I suppose we have achieved recognition of abandoned properties as a major issue at least.

For more info on the topic at large: National Vacant Properties Campaign.

Conversation on taxes and vacancy

In case you don't read the comments devotedly (I mean, I know you do, but...), I point you to some interesting discussion that has been happening on a previous post.

Operation Vacant Properties

Perhaps the most compelling portion of the presentation was Alan Mallach on vacant properties. Looking at the number of Albany's vacant properties in private hands, and their conditions, Mallach said "Your ordinances are not working. . . Owners have to bear the costs and the city has to be aggressive about
making them."

He suggested several very concrete steps:

• A detailed and constantly updated real property information system, accessible by the public.
• A land bank, which is a mechanism for taking control of abandoned properties, maintaining them, and finding good, non-speculative owners for them.
• A chance in the relationship between the city and county on foreclosures, in which the county pays some taxes to the city, takes ownership of properties and sells them off at auction to speculators. This is short-term cash boost to the city that is a long-term drain on the city in lost property taxes and all the other costs associated with these properties. The land bank should take all foreclosed properties.
• Revise and enforce our vacant property ordinances so that "owners of vacant property are responsible for absolutely everything their buildings cause."  Mallach recommended graduated fees (in Wilmington DE they double every year) and billing owners for code inspections, police calls, fire calls, etc. and then going after the liens.
• Putting out a bond for forgivable loans (i.e. if you meet certain criteria, like living in the house for X years you don't have to pay it back) for owner-occupants to rehab abandoned properties. This would be gap financing, just covering the difference between rehab costs and market value. It would easily pay for itself in increased property taxes.

As wonkish as this sounds, it wasn't just me who was following closely. A set of concrete, possible, not costing millions of dollars we don't have steps to take toward what is one of the more intractable problems in our most distressed neighborhoods? Well, that's exciting. And, might I had, reducing abandoned buildings is a major crime-fighting strategy.

OK, I'm exhausted. There's more to say, but it's not going to be tonight.