SCHENECTADY City to sell houses with tax bills Owners who owe to get foreclosed BY KATHLEEN MOORE Gazette Reporter
The city plans to foreclose on 220 properties and get 15 to 20 of them demolished in a new arrangement made possible by the state’s approval of land banks. Under the land bank system, some foreclosed houses would be sold to new owners. The money would be used to pay for demolition of houses that are considered unsalable. The entire process, including transferring ownership of the properties to a new land bank agency, will take about a year. That amount of time used to be a serious problem because the city had to pay thousands of dollars in school and county taxes for each property. But with the land bank system, those taxes are only paid for a short time, even if it takes years to sell the property. The question now is whether anyone will be willing to buy deteriorating houses or vacant city land. If no one buys, there’s no money for demolition. “A lot of these properties are in bad shape,” Zoning Offi cer Steve Strichman told the City Council at its committee meeting Monday. “Some of them are going to have to be demolished. If we let them stand up, they’re going to continue to blight the city.” He specifically cited burned-out houses as among those that would be demolished by the land bank. That’s music to many residents’ ears, particularly those who have spent years living near a blackened heap of timbers that used to be a house. There are dozens of burned-out husks throughout the city. But not all of them will be removed, Strichman said. City officials plan to seize 20 or fewer blighted properties rather than be stuck maintaining properties they can’t afford to demolish. Strichman believes about 200 of the properties will sell. His best estimate is that the Schenectady land bank will make $2 million, if all the properties sell for what he thinks they’re worth. The fi gure works out to an average of $10,000 per property. In a worst-case scenario, in which nothing sells for more than $3,000, the land bank would lose only $91,000 on the entire project. “And I’m sure we’ll do better than that,” he said. Earning $2 million in sales sounds like a lot of money — but it will cost about $400,000 to demolish 20 houses. Larger buildings will cost much more. And all the houses will need basic maintenance — it will take months to get them sold, so the land bank must mow the lawns, board up broken windows and otherwise keep them from further damage. Legal expenses will add up, too. Foreclosure isn’t cheap, and even though properties in a land bank are tax-exempt, the land bank must pay taxes for several months before the exemption begins. But Strichman thinks there will be enough money left over to begin the demolitions that many residents want. “I would hope we would be able to do 15 to 20. But it’s all [real estate] market driven,” he said. “Obviously, anything good enough, we want to sell quick, but there’s months to a closing. I don’t see anything getting demolished before next summer … more likely fall.” For years, Strichman and other city officials have lobbied the state for a system in which municipalities could foreclose without being forced to pay property taxes to the school district and the county. The cost of taxes and maintenance are prohibitively expensive, making it economically wiser in some cases to let the building rot. ....................>>>>......................>>>>...........................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....r00903&AppName=1
Has Mr. Strichman been to the neighborhoods lately? Maybe he failed to see the vacancy rates in the Gazetto puff pieces as of late. Who is going to buy a home in a high crime, high tax area?!
The City keeps avoiding the REAL issue - you HAVE TO LOWER HOMEOWNERS TAXES!! If you don't, the vacancy rate will climb, people will continue to leave the City, slumlords will continue to run the show and homes will have no value.
Once you lower taxes, there will be hope. Right now, these ideas are fruitless.
The City keeps avoiding the REAL issue - you HAVE TO LOWER HOMEOWNERS TAXES!! If you don't, the vacancy rate will climb, people will continue to leave the City, slumlords will continue to run the show and homes will have no value.
Once you lower taxes, there will be hope. Right now, these ideas are fruitless.
These DEM "planners" come out with every half baked idea except the one that would work-REDUCE PROPERTY TAXES! 200 houses will sell to who? Be repaired by who? This is another DEM free rent for small business fiasco. No one wanted that either. No one wants houses in the GE Realty Plot-because of the DEM taxes.
Another stunad money losing scheme. If you want to clear out the huge amount of surplus housing slash property taxes and use the general fund to demolish eyesores. This can't be done because the City DEMS squandered every penny on working together schemes. Roger Hull has a plan to slash taxes 20% in 4 years-he's the last hope for the City.
Private sector tears a house down for $5,000 and the public sector needs to spend 20,000. Now I know why they have $500 hammers and $1,000 toilet seats. Aren't you glad they are so efficient and sooo smart! Oh those wonderful bureaucrats are so great, we adore giving them our money to piss away!
"While Foreign Terrorists were plotting to murder and maim using homemade bombs in Boston, Democrap officials in Washington DC, Albany and here were busy watching ME and other law abiding American Citizens who are gun owners and taxpayers, in an effort to blame the nation's lack of security on US so that they could have a political scapegoat."
Banking on foreclosures Schenectady will use a new law to fight its urban blight By LAUREN STANFORTH Staff writer Published 12:00 a.m., Sunday, August 14, 2011
In 2004, the city's decision to start selling millions of dollars worth of tax bills to a collection company saved Schenectady from financial disaster.
But there was one problem -- selling the tax liens didn't mean anything was done to physically improve the properties, many of which were boarded up and dragging down property values.
Meanwhile, private companies are no longer willing to pay big bucks to chase hard-to-collect taxes in uncertain economic times. Now, Schenectady is again staring its biggest problem in the face -- what to do with more than 700 vacant and blighted properties.
City officials are going back to the old practice of taking title to properties through foreclosure, which can take upwards of six months. To do that, Schenectady will use a new law passed by the state Legislature in June. It allows municipalities to place problem properties into a nonprofit land bank. Cities can pump money from reselling the sites into demolition, and they no longer have to make other government entities "whole" on the unpaid taxes.
"If you continue to let these properties go, it just keeps on keeping worse," said City Zoning Officer Steve Strichman, who heads a new effort to foreclose on 185 properties by next summer. "We hope we'll get enough from selling the good ones to start demolishing the bad ones."
The land bank law, sponsored by Sen. David Valesky, D-Oneida, and Assemblyman Sam Hoyt, D-Buffalo, is based on a program in Flint, Mich., where residents are offered neighboring vacant lots for $1 to use as yards and the land bank rents or sells up to 50 renovated homes a year. The New York law noted the importance of such a bank when looking at cities like Buffalo, where some 4,000 buildings are vacant.
Schenectady's problem is not as severe as Buffalo's, but boarded-up houses, weed-strewn vacant lots and burnt-out shells are visible in the city's struggling neighborhoods.
The city was already trying to assemble properties for redevelopment through its urban renewal agency. But that agency's oversight is limited to specific areas, entire neighborhoods chosen based on economic need and difficulty in attracting private enterprise -- currently downtown, Hamilton Hill and land along the Mohawk River in Schenectady's northwest section.
Strichman said the city will foreclose on properties whose owners have not paid taxes since 2008. Some are in good condition and could be renovated and resold. Others need to be knocked down. The city is also targeting some properties that are vacant and next to each other so they might be sold together.
For Schenectady's budget, one advantage of a land bank is that the city will not have to pay the school district the taxes on foreclosed properties. Also, up to 50 percent of taxes paid by owners who buy land-bank properties must go back into the bank in an account to pay for demolition or upkeep on other city-owned houses. Before 2004, profits from auctioned city buildings went into the general fund to cover the costs of whatever officials deemed needed.
Strichman said it's possible that only some of the 185 foreclosed properties can be resold. But even if the city spends $90,000 on foreclosure costs and property maintenance, it would save about $200,000 a year by not giving the Schenectady City School District the taxes on those properties. School board President Cathy Lewis said such a hit would come at the start of the property tax cap recently enacted by the state Legislature -- the ramifications of which aren't known yet.
"It becomes another hurdle we have to encounter," Lewis said.
Strichman has mapped the addresses of properties targeted for foreclosure, many of which are sprinkled throughout the Hamilton Hill, central State Street and Vale neighborhoods. The city wants to foreclose on three properties in the Moyston and Hilderbrandt block, a more than 200-year-old struggling tiny settlement sandwiched between State Street and Vale Cemetery. Schenectady already owns two vacant houses on Hilderbrandt Avenue, one that is charred and roofless and the other has its front porch caving in....................>>>>.................>>>>................Read more: http://www.timesunion.com/business/article/Banking-on-foreclosures-1976408.php#ixzz1V616BIcG
Gee, DV. all these properties in tax foreclosures.
Are you happy that people in the city are going to lose their homes while the millionaires downtown are lavishing with their fat bank accounts courtesy of YOUR buddies who forced the homeowners to pay the property and school taxes of the rich downtown.
Optimists close their eyes and pretend problems are non existent. Better to have open eyes, see the truths, acknowledge the negatives, and speak up for the people rather than the politicos and their rich cronies.
"While Foreign Terrorists were plotting to murder and maim using homemade bombs in Boston, Democrap officials in Washington DC, Albany and here were busy watching ME and other law abiding American Citizens who are gun owners and taxpayers, in an effort to blame the nation's lack of security on US so that they could have a political scapegoat."
"There are dozens of burnt out husks throughout the City". WTF! Thank you DEM working together progress crew. Things are going peachy with Acting Mayor McCarthy. So what if he refuses to leave his County job/City Council seat? The City don't need no checks and balances nor professional full time Mayor. Re-elect the DEM imploding together crew and you will have the highest taxes in the Nation!
SCHENECTADY Land bank idea before board Tax revenue loss worries school BY KATHLEEN MOORE Gazette Reporter
Schenectady’s best chance to get rid of abandoned and burntout buildings hit a snag Wednesday when the school board proved skeptical. The city’s zoning offi cer, Steve Strichman, took the city’s land bank proposal to the school board in hopes of getting the board to sign on. He touted the positives: A land bank takes tax-delinquent properties and sells the most valuable, with much of the money used to demolish others. The idea received wide support from residents when it was debated at neighborhood meetings before the November elections. But Strichman had to lay out the painful truth: Properties seized for the land bank do not pay taxes until they are sold, meaning the school district could lose that revenue for a year. And properties that are demolished may never be rebuilt. In essence, the school district — and the city — are giving up some tax revenue to get rid of blight. Board members didn’t like the idea of losing taxes. Although the properties in question aren’t paying taxes now, the city is supposed to pay the delinquent taxes to the school district, so the district usually doesn’t feel the pain. That changed this year, when city officials said they didn’t have the money to pay the school district, but school officials said they still don’t want to see those properties seized. “Your positives have nothing to do with us,” school board member Gary Farkas said. .........................>>>>..........................>>>>............................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....r01301&AppName=1
Bravo School Board! Don't approve this nit wit idea. The City has to take over because no private business wants anything to do with this City Hall. The City properties have no value. Total eyesores that any other City would have demolished years ago. The City balanced it's budget by screwing the schools and County. And no one said anything about it because of imploding together.
Of course they don't have any value. If they did, they would have all been picked up by every private investor in a 500 mile radius of the city. The city can't even give the properties away. So what exactly does the city government think they are going to accomplish here? NOTHING!!
More and more and more properties are going off the tax rolls in the city. Either by default or through government tax exemptions or non-profits!!! The truth of the matter is.............the city is broke and the taxpayers are too!!
Even with the high taxes, increased fees of all kinds, parking tickets etc............they still don't have enough $$$$. And now an already substandard school district is again being forced to do with less!!!
Just can't make this stuff up!!
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
And City Council thought this was a brilliant idea! Further evidence of complete implosion that is laughable to anyone paying attention. Bravo to Gary Farkas for finally standing up to this ongoing crap. They can't sell the Armory, they can't fill Gillen's Gulch, no one wants Olender's but the City idiots are going to sell the old fire house, traffic office and 800 abandoned properties to balance the budget? Huh? After the law office the Mayor elect should clean out the finance department.
Logged
These DEM "planners" come out with every half baked idea except the one that would work-REDUCE PROPERTY TAXES! 200 houses will sell to who? Be repaired by who? This is another DEM free rent for small business fiasco. No one wanted that either. No one wants houses in the GE Realty Plot-because of the DEM taxes.
"There are dozens of burnt out husks throughout the City". WTF! Thank you DEM working together progress crew. Things are going peachy with Acting Mayor McCarthy. So what if he refuses to leave his County job/City Council seat? The City don't need no checks and balances nor professional full time Mayor. Re-elect the DEM imploding together crew and you will have the highest taxes in the Nation!
