Cincinnati Struggles In Getting A Handle On Its Abandoned Properties; Imposing Vacant Building Fees Yields Ineffective Results

In Cincinnati, Ohio, the Business Courier of Cincinnati reports:

• [T]here could be as many as 4,500 vacant buildings in Cincinnati, based on a recent computer search of addresses where Greater Cincinnati Water Works service has been shut off for at least six months. But only 1,614 of those properties are subject to licensing fees, and fewer than half have actually paid the fees since 2006.

• That’s not what city leaders expected when they beefed up the fee structure and requirements for Vacated Building Maintenance Licenses, or VBMLs, in 2006. The ordinance was designed to get vacant buildings put back into productive use or demolished, if necessary, as quickly as possible by spelling out standards for building owners to meet and charging them fees if the buildings remain vacant. The longer the building sits vacant, the higher the fee.

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• About 544 property owners [...] have paid $628,000 in VBML fees since the revamped ordinance took effect.(1) City contractors have demolished more than 220 problem properties. And hundreds more building owners are working their way through the licensing process, some making interim repairs to stabilize roofs and prevent break-ins. But at this pace, it could take the city decades to make its way through its vacant-building stockpile.

For more, see An ordinance aimed at seizing the potential of Cincinnati’s thousands of vacant buildings is falling short.

Go here, Go here, Go here, and Go here for other posts on vacant homes leaving their mark on neighborhoods.

(1) Reportedly, one property owner described in the story pays a $3,500 annual license fee for a vacant home he plans on fixing up and moving into. ForeclosuresDestroyNeighborhoodsApple