Guide to Revitalize Your City

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A Guide to Revitalize Your City

Published by Joe Moore and Timothy Duke at Smashwords

Copyright 2012 Joe Moore and Timothy Duke

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Table of Contents

Preface

Chapter 1 Step by Step Guide for Code Enforcement Officer

Chapter 2 Demolition versus Deconstruction

Chapter 3 County Executive

Chapter 4 Sherriff

Chapter 5 Mayor

Chapter 6 Police Department

Chapter 7 Gang Symbols – Indications of a Declining Neighborhood

Chapter 8 Fire Department

Chapter 9 Maintenance Department

Chapter 10 Legal Department / Courts

Chapter 11 Community Gardens-Repurposed vacant or blighted structures

Chapter 12 Rebuilding Neighborhoods

Chapter 13 Seminar Preparation

REFERENCES

A. Deserted Homes Plague Cities--Grant Co 7th Best in USA reducing problem- June 15, 2012 USA Today

B. Anderson, IN –Vacant Houses and Gang Activity – newspaper article

C. New Orleans vacant housing maintenance $2,810 per year per unit

D. Indiana had a 32 percent increase in Foreclosures in 2012 versus 2011 – IBJ article July 12, 2012

E. Indiana Economic Digest September 13, 2010 Marion to continue efforts to clear blight

F. Cost of cleaning up blight in Marion

G. Notice of Public Hearing by Board of Public works

H. City Program benefits Non-Profits

I. Center for Community Progress – Vacant Property Registration

J. Indiana Department of Environmental Management Office of Air Quality, Air Compliance Branch

K. IC 6-1.1-24 Sale of Real Property When Taxes or Special Assessments Become Delinquent

Affidavit County Auditor

L. IC 6-1.1-25 Redemption of and Tax Deeds for Real Property Sold for Delinquent Taxes and Special Assessments

Tax Deed

Tax Sale Record - Auditor

Indiana House Bill 1145 (Feb 13, 2008) Citations Affected:IC 36-1, Tax delinquent properties

M. IC 36-1-11 Disposal of Real or Personal Property

Definitions

Approvals

N. IC 36-7-9 Chapter 9. Unsafe Building Law

O. City of Marion v Bayview Financial – Indiana Court of Appeals

P. Notice to Proceed

Q. Indiana Land Bank Public Law 169-2006 (HEA1102)

R. Lawsuits and court proclamations filed against the City of Marion for property acquisition

R1. IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF INDIANA

S. County proclamation for the transfer of property from the county to the city

T. Notification letter to Property owner

U. Police report on location of property owner

V. FR–5255–N–01], Notice of Allocations, Application,Procedures, Regulatory Waivers, Granted to and Alternative, Requirements for Emergency, Assistance for Redevelopment of, Abandoned and Foreclosed Homes Grantees Under the Housing and Economic Recovery Act, 2008

QQ_The_Bright_Side_Abanded_Buildings

RR_The_Bright_Side_Deconstruction

Y. HOUSE BILL No. 1249

Z. Report of 2 firemen’s death in a vacant building fire April, 2012 in Philadelphia

AA. Here is HUD's simple, graphical OVERVIEW of purpose and operation of the Neighborhood Stabilization Program works.

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Preface

Mr. Joe Moore, CBO Enforcement Authority, City of Marion, IN, Code Enforcement Department is co-authoring this book with Timothy Duke. Joe has analyzed and organized the efforts of city officials to achieve higher property tax collection for 2012, decreased crime and decrease of structural properties. The end result makes the city a more desirable place for businesses to expand and attract new businesses to the area.

During the past three years, Joe has read and analyzed the series of laws enacted by the State of Indiana beginning in 2006 through 2009 and applied them to the properties identified to be delinquent on property taxes, some for many years. These properties are categorized as 1) property owners delaying payments for as long as possible, 2) blighted, 3) abandoned, 4) criminal havens, 5) unknown property owners (foreclosure banks) and 6) non-local owners. As a result of code enforcement efforts, most property owners that were delaying payments for cash flow reasons or believed they were able to not pay and keep renting the property, paid all back taxes and current tax. Other structures have been demolished and no longer present a haven for criminals or drug users or structure fires or deterioration of the neighborhood.

Joe has created a blueprint, step by step, that all cities and counties in Indiana can follow to achieve similar results. The process involves coordination of all city departments and the county executive. Each department plays a role and each department has a financial motivation to work together with other departments. While all cities and counties have tight budgets, the result of reducing blighted/delinquent tax properties yield higher revenues to the city and lowers the cost of operation of all departments in the city and the county. This coordination effort may seem to be impossible in some cities and counties, but Joe has a process that gets all the departments coordinated and moving to the same goals. Part of the reason coordination of all the departments seem daunting is the way the laws are written. Without this guide, each department would have to spend many hours filtering out the sections of each law that does not apply to them. Not many people have the dedication to do this and certainly improbable that each department in every city and county has someone that would do the filtering. Thus the lack of cooperation occurs between departments. This book is organized by department, so each department can easily define their role. Therefore the city recorder does not have to read the functions and responsibilities of the fire department or police department. Also, all references to Indiana Code are included so that anyone can look up the entire code and read and interpret the code on their own if they desire. Remember, we are not attorneys, so our interpretations are not legal advice, they are merely our attempt to translate the law into layman’s language.

To understand the economic impact for various sizes of counties and cities, you can use the percentages we state along with the actual numbers we experienced in Marion, IN and extract them to your city demographics. Also you may find that your starting point is different than ours. The US Census of 2010, lists Marion with a population of 29,948, 13,715 residential units and 2,098 business units and had 3,670 vacant housing units or a vacancy rate of 27%.

Joe started the identification of properties in the 2007. In 2007, Marion had 1,200 units that were delinquent in property taxes, some for multiple years. Property tax collection averaged 82%. We now estimate that the city of Marion will have over 90% property tax collection for 2012, which includes some owners paying all their back taxes to avoid their property being condemned. The County Sherriff’s Tax sale this year, 2012, has only 50 properties this year. The payment of all property taxes, on time, is the major goal of this program. A secondary goal is motivating property owners to properly maintain the property so that the city does not have to mow and the police and fire departments reduce the emergency responses they make. The reduction in the cost of mowing and maintaining vacant properties are significant.

Getting each department on board, involves working with them to solve a specific problem. Each department experiences first-hand how the process works and the advantage to working with the city code enforcement officer to solve re-occurring problems i.e. a crack/meth/drugs in an abandoned house that the police were having continual problems or fire department responses for arson or accidental fires. Code enforcement declares the house condemned and the house is demolished. The county moves the property from its books to the city. The county no longer has to pay the city for mowing and upkeep, the police can spend their time more efficiently. A neighbor buys or is given the vacant land and the property is back on the tax role. The neighborhood looks better, fires are reduced and crime is reduced. Other neighbors start improvements on their properties. Some properties are too small to build on with today’s codes and therefore the city may decide to give the property to an abutting landowner. A key to moving vacant properties is being able to do so quickly. The longer a structure is vacant the more likely it will be stripped of all valuable metals and make it too expensive to rehabilitate.

The City of Marion maintenance department, police, fire, assessor, court and code enforcement was spending $1,400,000 per year to maintain these units delinquent on taxes or about $1,166 per house. As properties deteriorated, the assessor was under pressure to lower assessed value of adjoining houses or all the houses in the neighborhood. The legal department continued to spend large amounts of money preparing documents and advertising the delinquent taxes per property twice per year with little results, year after year. The Sherriff would auction off some properties each year to slum lords who never paid taxes in the future and the city/county continued to have criminal elements frequenting the property. Other properties had been stripped and required a lot of work to make them habitable and thus un-salable.

Stewardship of tax payer dollars in today's economic environment is very important. Local Governments are facing huge reductions of federal and state funding, resulting in less and less money each year to fund necessary programs. Cities are now faced with reduced budgets. Today’s elected officials and administrators are faced with the daunting tasks of continuing to provide essential services to the tax payers of the community while still struggling to fund quality of life programs and other necessary programs essential to economic growth of the community. For these reasons it is essential that we look for ways to maximize the impact of every dollar spent. Governments have been forced to become more efficient and look for ways to optimize every dollar available to them.

All cities are striving to help businesses grow and increase local employment and attract new businesses to the area. Blighted neighborhoods are a detriment to attracting new businesses and encouraging exiting businesses to grow in the local community.

This program will bring a return of about 5 times the dollar amount invested. Dollar for dollar, the demolitions of vacant and blighted structures in our communities have the largest impact for the money spent. Blighted properties are havens for criminal elements and used by squatters and drug addicts as hang outs and shelter in bad weather. They are ransacked for anything of value, stealing the wire and scrap metal. These properties are used as dump sites for other’s trash and garbage.

These vacant properties generate many neighbors calling police officers to respond to suspicious activity, wasting police resources that could be better spent elsewhere. They increase the chance of an officer being injured. I would hate to be an officer that had to chase a suspect into an abandoned structure in the dark, not knowing where the floor may be missing or rotted.

What about the risk a fireman takes to rush to a burning structure and put out a blaze? They do not know when responding that this house is vacant and dangerous. They must treat it as any other fire and risk their life searching for anyone who may be trapped or unconscious and put the fire out to protect the neighbors and public. The causes of fires at these abandoned properties are usually vandalism or vagrants/drug users using a candle for light or an old fireplace for heat or a well-intentioned neighbor trying to eliminate a problem. Regardless, the risk to policemen and firemen are great and have resulted in higher injury rates and increased insurance claims versus an occupied property (reference Report of 2 firemen’s death in a vacant building fire April, 2012 in Philadelphia). Therefore, insurance premiums increase to cover these preventable/unnecessary injuries. If the house was not there, no call would be made generating an emergency response.

After the first year of demolitions, the police department in City of Marion reported a 12 percent drop in the overall crime rate. The police department stated they experienced a significant decrease in calls for service. While I'm sure that the demolition program was not the only contributing factor in the drop in crime, without having to respond to repeated calls to the demolished structures, they were able to use their time responding to other criminal acts or being pro-active in stopping a crime before it was committed.. The fire department saw a 88% reduction in structure fires, from 100 the year before demolitions started to 12 the following year. This is a drastic decrease, perhaps unbelievable to some. However, the low number of structure fires per year has remained at this low level.

The average cost of a demolition is around $7,500. Where else could you spend $7,500, reduce crime by 12%, decrease fire runs, increased public safety, lower insurance cost to the city, increase property values and realize a high tax collection rate? The de-construction costs may be lower than demolishing if the city uses inmate labor and just released felons in a half-way house and needing their first job after prison. The city should find a market for the de-constructed structure’s elements.

Stabilization of assessed value of viable homes, which is critical because federal and state monies are distributed based on a community’s assessed value. Dollar for dollar, demolition is the only program that will bring a return of about 5 times the dollar amount invested. It's important to note, that at the beginning of the process an investment is needed. When the program is implemented properly, it is self-sustaining and will fund itself. How many other government programs can we say that about .

With the housing market in the USA today, banks and borrowers alike are simply cutting their losses and walking away from these properties, leaving communities to drown in blighted and abandoned properties. There is not a community in the United States that is not affected by these abandoned properties. New Orleans has been spending over $80 million per year to maintain blighted properties. Although federal politicians and banks would like for us to believe that we have seen the worst that is simply not the truth. The mortgage holding banks/institutions in the United States are hiding huge amounts of stagnate debt on foreclosed/abandoned property. How you ask, when a property is foreclosed, banks do not change the title of the property to their name and therefore the bank does not show the loan as uncollectable or reduce the value of the property to the actual market value of the property and usually hide behind a third party paid to monitor these properties.

Communities are experiencing huge expenses with blighted properties. These properties are heavily loaded with liens and tax levies while reducing market values of the neighborhood, it is impossible for private investment programs of the past to overcome these issues.

Many communities have already seen private investment in their existing housing stock cease. With little private investment in the existing foreclosed/abandoned housing stock, communities have no way to eliminate the abandoned properties. We are not likely to see private investment in new home construction in these neighborhoods either.

Mr Joe Moore has addressed/spoke to city councils in several cities concerning this problem. If you buy this book and wish to make a consulting arrangement, please email Timothy Duke at timothyeduke@yahoo.com for the seminar schedule and fees.

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Chapter 1 Step by Step Guide for Code Enforcement Officer

The following is the procedure, from start to finish, for demolition or de-construction of a structure (since these are just different modes of removing a structure, de-construction can be substituted for demolishing in any of the following text):

1.Creation of File by Code Enforcement Office

a. Complaint Received

b. Logged in

c. Demolition/De-construction Inspection requested

d. Request board-up (If needed)

e. Decide if structure is of emergency of regular Unsafe Building Status

f. Make Case file

i. Cover sheet

ii. Complaint Memo

iii. Demolition/de-construction check list

iv. Assessor’s Office Information/Printout

v. Demolition/de-construction Inspection

2. Regular unsafe building hearing procedure

a. Order title memorandum/search

i. Property address

ii. Key number

iii. Legal description

iv. Name of property owner of record

v. Mortgage(s); lien(s); anyone having a substantial interest in property

vi. Property tax history and note any Delinquent taxes

vii. Signed and dated by assessor (date must be within 3 months of hearing)

b. Set hearing date

c. Unsafe building order generated, 5 originals

d. Building commissioner signs Unsafe Building Orders, 5 originals

e. Legal Publication notice is sent to the local newspaper.

i. Publication is to run on 2 consecutive days

ii. Publication is to run at least 10 days prior to hearing

f. Original of signed Unsafe Building Order and Notice of Unsafe Building Hearing is sent to the following via Certified Mail, Return Receipts (All must receive 10 days prior to hearing date):

i. property owner of record

ii. Mortgage(s); lien(s); anyone having a substantial interest in property

iii. Assessor office

iv. Treasurer/taxing agents, Auditor

v. Code Enforcement Office file

g. Docket sheet is prepared to include all cases being heard at the scheduled Hearing

i. Docket sheet contains for each case:

i. Hearing Officer’s name

ii. City Attorney’s name

iii. Hearing date, time and location

iv. Address of unsafe structure

v. Legal description of property

vi. Owner(s) of record, including County Auditor and Treasurer

vii. Disposition/status of case

j. Copy of Docket sheet and Notification of Hearing is conveyed at least 5 days prior to Hearing for their review to:

i. Hearing Officer

ii. Attorney(s)

k. Finding of Facts report is generated and included in the case file two (2) days prior to Hearing and includes:

i. Photographs

ii. Delinquent Taxes and Property Tax history

iii. Police Department reports

iv. Fire Department reports

v. City maintenance mowing, trash removal records

vi. Board of Public Works

vii. New information

l. On day of hearing, the case file will contain:

i. Title memorandum

ii. Notice of Unsafe Building Hearing

iii. Copy of Newspaper publications with dates

iv. All certified mail return receipts received

v. Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) Notification Form (when necessary)

vi. Finding of Facts

vii. Any other pertinent information from interested parties or staff

m. During the Hearing

n. Hearing Officer with the recommendation of the Board of Public Works should affirm or modify or deny the Building Commissioner’s Order

o. Accurate minutes of meeting made from recorded hearing to include:

i. Who was present

ii. If property owner(s) of record appeared

iii. If Mortgage holder(s); lien holder(s); anyone having a substantial interest in property appeared

iv. Property owner’(s) statements, responses and anything pertinent to case

v. Any request, statement or response by City Attorney

vi. Any request, statement or response by demolition/de-construction inspector or coordinator

vii. The Order of the Hearing Officer

p. Minutes are to be distributed to :

i. Case file

ii. General file

q. The Order signed by the Hearing Officer will be:

i. Recorded on the Finding of Facts

ii. Sent to Building Commissioner who Records the demolition/de-construction date and amount or Records the modification or Denial

iii. Building Commissioner then forwards the Order to Recorder’s Office and is filed and Recorder’s Office then sends a copy to Building Commissioner and City Attorney

iv. City Attorney files a lien against the property owner

v. If Order is affirming, then demolition/de-construction can commence

3. Other Regular Demolition

a. City owned property

b. Requires a ten (10) day notice to IDEM

4. Emergency Demolition Procedures

a. Definition of Emergency: The structure presents an imminent and immediate danger to the public, a fire hazard, hazard to public health, a public nuisance, dangerous to a person or property, or vacant and not maintained in a manner allowing for human habitation, etc.

b. Obtain signed emergency order from the Building Commissioner

i. Pursuant to Indiana Code, I.C. 36-7-9-9, demolition may proceed without further notice

ii. City may recover costs by filing lien against property owner

c. IDEM asbestos inspection will be conducted for Ordered demolition, Only if possible. In the event the structure cannot be entered, an asbestos inspector will be on site from start to finish of that demolition.

5.Asbestos Inspections – only on commercial buildings

a. Pursuant to IDEM for Asbestos inspections: asbestos inspection should be done for every structure that has an order to be demolished/de-constructed.

i. The inspector will make every effort to enter all structures except under uncompromising conditions.

ii. The inspector will take a sample of any suspect material found, to be analyzed.

iii. All or any Regulated Asbestos Containing Material (RACM) identified in a structure to be demolished/de-constructed, is contracted to a licensed asbestos removal contractor (Special Waste Handler).

iv. If it is deemed necessary, a structure will be adequately wet down during demolition/de-construction to ensure any friable or non-friable asbestos material does not become air borne.

v. A notification will be generated by the City with the appropriate information sent to IDEM prior to issuance of Notice to Proceed.

vi. Revised notifications will be appropriate in the following instances and re-submitted along with the revised notification:1.) If the contractor cannot start on the demolition/de-construction start date and 2.) If asbestos is detected during demolition/de-construction; demolition/de-construction will cease. The property will be continuously wetted and secured until a special