Lancaster Mayor Rick Gray thinks two years is too long.
Under current procedures, that's the time it takes to return a condemned home to market for resale.
If everything goes smoothly.
Gray said when he entered office he was surprised to find the process took that long and added bluntly, "To take a couple of years to do this seems idiotic.
"It's not fair to the people in the neighborhood who have to live next to that property," he added. "It's a possible place for drug use and even burglary. In this day and age, you put a condemned sign on a building and you might as well post another sign that says, 'copper available.' "
That's why Gray's administration will approach City Council with a package of legislation designed to lop, at the very least, six months off the process.
As of this month, there are exactly 100 condemned properties in the city. You can find those properties and reasons for their condemnations on a map at
http://www.lancasteronline.com/pages/maps/condemned.php.
Randy Patterson, the city's director of economic development and neighborhood revitalization, said when the Gray administration arrived at city hall, "there were about 150 condemned properties that required some level of attention, with some going back as far as 1999."
Patterson added, "While there may have been a system, there didn't appear to be any logical way the properties were being addressed."
He said he instructed his staff to bring five properties before the Vacant Property Reinvestment Board each month.
"Our goal was to get to a point where we can deal with properties that were condemned within the past six months," he said. "We worked diligently through the backlog and in April we caught up. We are now at the point where we are dealing with properties that were condemned in November of last year."
Properties are condemned, said Patterson, for three reasons: Water service has been disconnected; the property is unsafe and/or unsanitary; or fire has gutted the property.
Condemnation due to water service shutoff, Patterson said, "is the easiest one to resolve if you have the resources to resolve it. You just need to pay the bill and get the utilities back on."
Otherwise, a condemned property must sit vacant for six months before it is referred to the Vacant Property Reinvestment Board. The board verifies the condemnation and sends a notice to the owner stating the property is eligible for the vacant property program. The owner has 30 days to respond to this notice.
If the owner does not respond, the board issues a "First Declaration of Blight" and the owner has another 30 days to respond. If the owner doesn't, a "Second Declaration of Blight" is issued with another 30-day window.
Absent a response, the property is referred to the Lancaster City Planning Commission, which reverifies the blighted condition and then refers the case to the city Redevelopment Authority, which begins a process to acquire the property.
At this point, the authority notifies the owner that "it is considering using eminent domain" to acquire the property, Patterson said. This opens yet another 30-day window.
If the property owner still does not respond, the authority assigns an appraiser to determine a "just compensation value" and advertises the property for sale in legal notices and on the city's Web site.
Developers submit proposals, which the board reviews before entering into an agreement. The price paid for the property may not be less than the established just compensation value and the money is sent to the former property owner.
At any time during this process, Patterson said, the owner may appeal declarations, which can delay the process. The owner can also work with the Property Reinvestment Board to develop a schedule to make repairs necessary to lift the condemnation.
This year-long process is the target of the administration's initial streamlining efforts.
"The six months between when the property is condemned and when it is referred to the property reinvestment board is not a state law," Patterson said. "For some reason that was selected locally."
Patterson wants to shorten that by three months, to 90 days.
"Our rationale is for the property to get to that [condemnation] stage, the property owner has already chosen to not take any action on the notices received prior to the condemnation.
"If it's taken that long to get to that stage, why wait any longer?"
The second change would remove the Second Declaration of Blight.
"We want to eliminate one of the 30-day blight periods," Patterson said. "The property owner will still have one 30-day period to respond, and if the owner chooses to ignore that, the property will be forwarded directly to the city Planning Commission."
The third change deals with the process after the Redevelopment Authority sells the property.
When chosen for the rehabilitation work, developers must submit a deposit and a work schedule detailing a repair timeline.
Currently, the developer has one year to complete the work, which Patterson believes provides too much leeway. Even though developers submit monthly schedules, some will perform no work for the first 10 months and then scramble to complete the job in the final two.
"We believe the rehab agreement should be a contract," Patterson said. "It should be a hard schedule, and if the developer can't keep to the schedule, we should be able to rescind their deposit.
"That's the other piece of the puzzle. Instead of sitting there nine months without work we can push back and get them back on track."
All properties purchased through this process must be rehabilitated and sold for single-family home ownership, with one exception, Patterson said.
"Properties which had previously contained three or more rental units may stay rental units."
City inspectors will keep tabs on properties under agreement, making sure contractors adhere to work schedules.
"You have to show us you are committed to rehabbing the property," Patterson said.
"One excuse we often hear is, 'I have so many properties and I'm working hard on them, but I can't keep up,' " Patterson explained. "Our response is, that's not our responsibility.
"Our responsibility is to the neighbors and the neighborhood. If they can't maintain their work schedule, maybe they should reconsider their ability to meet their own responsibilities."
Patterson said his goal is simply "to get properties off the condemnation list and get them into the hands of property owners."
Gray concurred, "Would we sooner never have to condemn a property again? Absolutely.
"We're not looking for new ways to take property; we don't want it," he said. "As it is, it takes an awful lot of time and hassle to solve a problem that really isn't our fault.
"We just want to get the property into the hands of people who are going to enter into a collaborative relationship with the city and with their neighbors."
Chip Smedley is a staff writer for the Sunday News. E-mail him at csmedley@lnpnews.com.
