Pittsburgh seeking new ways to keep up with number of vacant properties
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A blighted home at Tioga Street and Panke Avenue in the shadow of Pittsburgh Faison PreK-5 school on Tioga Street in Homewood.
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Flint, Mich., was in steep decline when Dan Kildee was elected Genesee County treasurer 14 years ago. His hometown's days as a thriving, broad-shouldered factory town were gone. Most plants were shuttered or running well below capacity. Some 60,000 General Motors jobs alone were lost. And the city was well on its way toward shedding nearly half of its population.
The fallout included an epidemic of vacant and abandoned properties. Tax delinquency was starving the city and school district of desperately needed revenue.
When the county's antiquated tax foreclosure process was pressed into action, it took up to seven years to run its course. Houses deteriorated as they sat vacant. If they sold, it was at public auction, where they were exposed to speculators who were more interested in turning a profit on a modest investment than making repairs to improve them. Market values fell, block after block.
"It didn't take long to realize that not only was the system not up to the task of dealing with the problem, it was actually part of the problem," Mr. Kildee said.
The same is true in parts of southwestern Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio. Places ravaged by poverty, steady economic decline and population loss find 20 percent or more of their houses are vacant, according to 2010 U.S. Census data.
New laws for combating vacant and blighted properties are emerging in Pennsylvania, but land banking, which is widely seen as the best option for dealing with vacant property on a large scale, is not available in Pennsylvania. Creating and empowering a land bank requires special legislation and property tax reform, both of which are still being discussed in Harrisburg.
Tax reform and land banking laws in Michigan gave Genesee County a powerful set of legal tools that let officials take control of thousands of vacant properties relatively quickly -- within two years, in most cases -- and do so without exposing them to speculators at public auction.
"Having access to vacant property is critical," said Bethany Davidson, deputy director of the nonprofit Pittsburgh Community Reinvestment Group. "It doesn't matter what your vision is for it, if you don't have access to it you're at zero."
Local governments in Southwestern Pennsylvania rely on state statutes in their attempts to control vacant, tax-delinquent properties, and they use them sparingly.
First Published September 18, 2011 12:00 am
