What You Should Know about Vacant Properties

Posted by on June 21, 2006

Jennifer Leonard of the National Vacant Properties Campaign offers this advice to urban leaders on how to tackle the problem of vacant properties in their communities:

Understand the costs of vacant and abandoned properties in your community, and don?t underestimate the opportunities they offer. Vacant and abandoned properties present an opportunity to revitalize neighborhoods, build new markets, and make communities vibrant places once again. They are one of a city?s greatest opportunities for future change.
Cities around the country have developed successful strategies to eliminate blight, prevent abandonment, better manage vacant properties, and prepare them for better use. While the programs and policies created are the tools with which to effectively make these changes happen, they must be integrated into a long-term vision. Often the most profound changes will be seen in the future. Leaders need to be willing to make decisions today that create greater payoffs in the future. Short-term solutions (i.e. selling vacant property to the highest bidder to generate immediate revenue, rather than to a buyer that will put it to better use, or even holding property) often create bad outcomes for the community.
The greatest successes we?ve seen required that a person or organization champion these initiatives in their community ? ?vacant properties champions? are found everywhere: can be a political leader (mayor, city manager, treasurer) a community leader (CDC or resident), or within the legal system (housing/environmental court judges).
Actions to take right now:
· Define the problem in your community:

o Are properties few in number and scattered throughout the city or is there neighborhood-wide abandonment?

o What types of properties are the problem - primarily housing, or is there commercial and industrial abandonment?

o Are vacant and abandoned properties tax-delinquent or up-to-date and speculative properties?

· Understand what policies and practices address these properties, and how they work. Some questions to ask: Does your city have an accurate and detailed inventory of the properties? How does the code enforcement department work, and who hears cases brought to court? How does the City acquire vacant property (if it does), how does it manage it, and who determines how to dispose of it? Do vacant properties currently fit into your city?s vision? What is the process for tax-foreclosure?

· Consider addressing the issue regionally.

· Understand all of the negative consequences of vacant properties in your community including increased crime, lower property-tax revenue, strain on fire and police force, increased environmental and health hazards.

CEOs for Cities is a founding member of the National Vacant Properties Campaign.