THE ISSUE:
A city-owned house explodes in the absence of a plan for caring for such liabilities.
THE STAKES:
Will city leaders get the message and develop a program of responsible ownership?
---
There's more than a little irony in the city of Schenectady's explanation for why it isn't able to keep up with its obligations to buildings it seized from people who couldn't keep up with their obligations to the city.
Clearly, the upkeep of hundreds of abandoned buildings is a complex, costly and time-consuming job. But like it or not, it is the city's job as the owner of these buildings. And Mayor Gary McCarthy and the City Council need to appreciate that the official neglect of possibly hundreds of buildings is far more damaging to the city than one private owner's failure to pay taxes.
Now we see it's also potentially deadly.
Sunday's explosion of a city-owned home at 310 Paige St. fortunately appears to have resulted in no injuries or deaths. But it certainly could have.
The city is now taking the right steps, as far as they go — working with National Grid to check for other leaks of gas, investigating the cause of the blast. But this problem goes beyond one house on Paige Street.
As the Times Union's Lauren Stanforth reported, the city has no policy on maintaining these buildings, which it took over through foreclosures over the last several years. Sometimes it shuts off utilities, sometimes it doesn't. It relies on neighbors to call in problems like squatters or a possible gas leak.
Sounds a lot like a disinterested absentee landlord.
Mr. McCarthy and the council didn't create all the underlying problems here — unpaid taxes, years of neglect, years of failure to enforce building codes, tight municipal finances and a lackluster housing market in which it's hard to sell off these properties to get them back on the tax rolls and in the hands of owners who will take care of them properly.
But they have inherited this problem. They own it now.
As a responsible owner, the city could take a number of steps. Shut off gas and electric service, remove any gas and oil tanks, drain water pipes to prevent them from bursting in cold weather. Demolish the buildings that are beyond reasonable hope of repair. Periodically inspect those that remain. Send a letter to neighbors, informing them that the buildings are vacant, and asking them to keep an eye — and a nose — out for anything wrong, with an emergency contact number.
It could look, too, at how the state's land bank program might be employed here. Coincidentally, just a little more than a week before the explosion, Schenectady was the site of an announcement by Attorney General Eric Schneiderman of an extra $20 million for that program, which helps communities take over and redevelop derelict properties.
The city's building inspector, Eric Shilling, says the city will "learn as we go." He, the mayor, and the council should get educated now, before they're treated, as they were Sunday, to another crash course in the consequences of poor property management.
To comment: tuletters@timesunion.com or at
http://blog.timesunion.com/opinion
Logged
