Agenda - Planning Commission - 10/06/2011

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ASKTHE AUTHOR jolly US ONLINE Go online during the month of September to participate in our;"AsktheAuthar"forum, an interactive feature ofZoning Practfke. Stephen Pantalone andJustin Ea' . Hollander, Al, will 6e availabte'to answer questions about this article- Go to the APA'.website at www.plcuming.org and follow the links to the Ask the Authorsecti'an From there, just submit your questions about the article using the e-mail link The author will reply, and -Zoning Practice will post the answers cumulativelyon the website forthe benefit of allsubscribers This feature will be available for selected. issues of Zoning Practice at announced times -.After each online discussion is closed, the answerswill be saved in an oniirre archive available through the APA Zoning Practice web' pages About the Authors Stephen Pantalone is a recent graduate of the Tufts University Urban and, Environmental Policy and Planning. program. His studies focused on land -use policy issues and particularly on the regulatory environment He is currently;intemingwith the Ipswich (Massachusetts) Planning Departmentand will begin a fellowship program at the City of New York. Department ofHousing Preservation and Development this fall. Justin Hollander, Aica, is an assistant professor of Urban and Environmental' Policy and Planning at Tufts University and a research scientist at the George Perkins Marsh Institute at Clark University. He is the author of three books and more than zo refereed journal articles, with most of his work focused on the challenges of planning for declining postindustrial cities. the quality of the community for the existing residents, thereby reducing the inevitable costs of would-be vacant property. In this article we will briefly review the research on declining cities and vacant properties, making the case that these properties are tremendously harmful to com- munities because of the criminal activity and disinvestment they encourage. Then we will discuss tools applied by municipalities to address their large inventories, including the utilization of the property or site for al- ternative uses. Finally, we will introduce the basics of an RZO, including its legal founda- tion, its trigger mechanism, and examples of permitted uses communities might adopt. THE PROBLEM OF VACANCY The lifecycle of vacant property often follows a similar series of events. In the instance of a residential home, an owner may be forced to leave the neighborhood to find another job as the employment market deteriorates. However, as the excess supply of housing grows, prices continue to drop, making it more difficult for that owner to sell the prop- erty without taking a loss. When the owner is not able to pay off the remaining mortgage, the property ends up in foreclosure. The patterns for rental property and commercial real estate are similar. Rents decrease; own- ers defer maintenance. And eventually the property is abandoned. Vacant properties are a significant drain to a city's resources both in terms of lost revenue from falling property values and in increased expenses from crime and van- dalism. The Center for Community Progress has issued several reports documenting the costs of vacant and abandoned property. In the zoos report Vacant Properties: The True Costs to Communities, they note that "Such properties produce no or little property tax income, but they require plenty of time, at- tention, and money." Overtime these prop- erties continue to be contaminated, further increasing the costs of redevelopment or demolition. In the past, property vacancy was con- sidered a problem confined to the old in- dustrial cities of the Midwest and Northeast. However, the recent foreclosure crisis is bringing the issue to Sun Belt cities that, until recently, were experiencing staggering growth. The same real estate speculation that fueled rapid construction of residential housing and commercial and retail develop- ment is now resulting in growing inventories of vacant properties. These cities present an opportunity to address decline earlier in the cycle. Edward Glaeser uses the City of Buffalo as an example of the strategies municipali- ties have historically used to fight decline. During the urban renewal period of the 196os Buffalo spent almost $6o million to rebuild a downtown neighborhood and redevelop its waterfront (Glaeser zoo7). The goal was to attract private development and new residents. Yet the city continued to lose population in most neighborhoods despite ®This single-family ranch home in Orlando,` Florida, exhibits signs of dereliction after an extended period ofvacancy: ZONINGPRACTICE 9.11 AMERICAN PLANNING ASSOCIATION I page 3