Agenda - Council - 01/24/2017 - Laserfiche WebLink

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Housing & Economic Development 3-1 Vacant, Boarded, and Foreclosed Properties and Properties at Risk Abandoned residential and commercial properties can harm communities when the presence of vacant buildings results in reduced property values and increased crime. The additional public safety and code enforcement costs of managing vacant properties are a financial strain on cities. Metro Cities supports solutions to vacant and boarded properties that recognize three things: (1) Prevention is more cost effective than a cure. (2) The causes of this problem are many and varied, thus the solutions must be as well. (3)It is not simply a "city" problem so cities must not be expected to bear the bulk of the burden of mitigation. Further, Metro Cities supports: • Registration of vacant and boarded properties; • Allowing cities to acquire vacant and boarded properties before deterioration and vandalism result in unsalvageable structures; including providing financial tools such as increasing eminent domain flexibility; • Improvements to the cost assignment process to ensure that cities can recoup their costs of managing vacant properties; • Improving the ability of cities to recoup the increased public safety and enforcement costs related to vacant properties; • Improvement of the redemption process to provide increased notification to renters, strengthen the ability of homeowners to retain their properties, and reduce the amount of time a property is vacant; • Expedition of the tax forfeiture process; • Increasing financial tools for neighborhood recovery efforts, including tax increment financing; and • Year-round notification by utility companies of properties not receiving utility service. 3-J Economic Development, Redevelopment and Workforce Readiness The economic viability of the metro area is enhanced by a broad array of economic development tools that create infrastructure, revitalize previously developed property, provide incentives for business development, support technological advances and support a trained workforce. It should be the goal of the state to champion development and redevelopment by providing enough sustainable funding to assure competitiveness in a 2017 Legislative Policies 28