As Indiana’s economy continues to grow and improve, the sight of vacant buildings boarded up, abandoned and forlorn, is still an image we are being forced to see in many surrounding communities.
Over the summer, I worked to find solutions as to what can we do to help turn those buildings around in order to grow jobs, but also have less eyesores around town.
Granted, the legislature passed a law last session to provide tax incentives to businesses that renovate abandoned buildings in order to grow jobs and help improve the overall image of the community. I supported this legislation because I think it will encourage employers while also vastly improving many areas.
The problems we continue to run into are deciding what qualifies a property as “abandoned,” and who makes that decision.
Far too often, local communities are unable to get involved because there is no definition of what is considered abandoned. Common knowledge would say that if someone is neither no longer using nor taking care of the property, it would be considered abandoned. However, since there is not a clear definition, many inconsistencies occur.
It isn’t until a property is considered abandoned, that it can begin the foreclosure process, be sold, or begin the renovation process.
To get the ball rolling I set up a meeting with some fellow legislators and community leaders to discuss this issue, along with land banks, to see how we can address the problem. After our meeting we agreed that our overall goal would be to find a way to expedite the abandoned property process and also find ways to get more communities involved in land banking.
Land banking is the practice of acquiring abandoned, tax delinquent, and other problem properties to make them available to non-profit and for-profit developers. Through rehabilitation and redevelopment efforts, these troubled properties are returned to productive and economically viable use, eliminate public safety hot spots, and improve local neighborhoods.
All properties purchased through land banking have to be free and clear of all liens, delinquent taxes, housing code violations and any other encumbrances that would prohibit the sale, disposition, mortgaging or rehabilitation of the properties.
In 2006, the legislature passed a bill to allow county executives to more effectively address abandoned properties in their communities by use of land banks.
Land banks have been proven to be very successful in Marion County. However, throughout the years, some small issues have occurred that we feel we need address today to make the law stronger.
This process will not be quick and easy, and will likely take some time to really dive into the underlying issues to ensure we are addressing the real problems and not creating additional problems for later. But part of Indiana pulling through in this economy, is addressing the housing situations that many communities are currently dealing with.
Property eyesores are not pleasant to look at, and they can also lower surrounding property’s value. What we are trying to do is simply find a better solution to streamline the process of dealing with abandoned property in order to keep our communities nice and clean.
If you have any suggestions, I encourage you to contact my office and become part of the conversation. You can email me at H58@in.gov or call my office at 1-800-382-9841. I look forward to hearing from you.
