Oct 21, 2022
A discussion about a blighted property on Locust Street brought to light some “gray area” on how the City of Warren responds to these properties.
Staff brought 58 Locust St. before the city’s Blighted Property Review Committee on Tuesday.
The property, subject to a litany of complaints, property maintenance and nuisance violations, sold to a new owner at a tax sale earlier this year.
The committee had previously declared the property blighted under the old owner and city staff made the decision to bring the property back with a new owner.
Scott Taylor, the city’s zoning and ordinance and enforcement officer, said the grass was chest high but has been cut.
He said issues with the property started in 2016 and “started out small” but “have increasingly got worse.” The property is gutted, he added, and is not inhabitable.
The committee highlighted its prior blight declaration which stays with the property. But, given the property chance, issues of notice were in play.
“(We) wanted to err on the side of caution because of the new property owner,” Randy Rossey, the city’s director of codes and planning said.
Action against the property had been tabled by the RDA earlier this year in advance of the tax sale.
“We do have properties this has happened with,” Taylor said, that has “sat stale for more than a year.” He asked at what point the process should be re-started.
Rossey said he believes the RDA does not “have a plan” for the property. “We can adhere to the fact that it’s already gone through the process…. It’s a gray area.”
Taylor said there has been no movement since the tax sale, though the owner told him he has had no luck securing a contractor.
He added that he hears that concern “every day.”
Rossey said that the city would consult the solicitor on the legal standing of the prior blight designation in advance of the next meeting.
“I did not want to step on his rights as a new property owner,” he said.
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