Altoona officials Monday bandied about several possible strategies for better dealing with blight at a City Council work session dedicated to the subject.

Suggestions include selling properties the city has liened to recover funds spent to rectify code violations that owners failed to correct; taking $1 million from reserves to ferret out issues with blighted properties whose owners have died or that are owned by uncooperative banks; accelerating the pace of demolitions to provide relief to neighbors who take care of their properties; starting a program to help low-income owners make needed repairs; and pursuing city takeovers in the form of conservatorships on problem properties that are otherwise intractable.

“We have blight everywhere,” said Interim City Manager Nate Kissell, who called for the session in hopes of coming up with alternate ways “to sort of tackle this monster.”

The Department of Codes and Inspections, with its six code officers, is constantly busy, and the problem properties are highly frustrating to the officers, said director Rebecca Brown.

“We’re not getting the compliance we need to see,” Brown said. The situation calls for “flexible, creative remedies,” and in many cases, a change in “mindset” among owners whose property maintenance standards don’t measure up, she added.

The department handles about 50 hearings per month on what now are two designated hearing days.

Each hearing requires lots of time to prepare lists of citations and notices of violations, permit histories, email conversations and pictures, Brown said.

The day before those hearings, regular inspections by code officers cease, she said.

“(And) court day is crazy,” she said. “It’s ridiculous.”

Repeat offenders

There are currently more than 3,200 open codes violations for non-rental properties, representing 1,200-plus structures, Brown said.

There are 987 active citations on such properties.

The focus was on non-rental properties, mainly because the city’s rental inspection program gives code officers a tool that isn’t available to the non-rentals.

Ninety percent of the problem is caused by 10% of the population, Kissell said.

Brown provided several highly frustrating examples of difficult, lengthy cases.

The department’s dealings with the owner of a church building on Fifth Avenue began in 2019, starting with a lighting issue and continuing with a hole in the steeple, Brown said.

There have been 14 hearings and nine continuances; two guilty pleas, one resulting in a $25 fine and one in a $300 fine; one permit drawn just “to appease us”; and claims that it was hard to find a contractor.

The department’s dealings with a brick building on Fourth Street began in 2018, Brown said. At one point, the building was on the list for demolition, but a few weeks before the work was to begin, someone bought it at tax sale, which meant the code process needed to start again from scratch, Brown said. There have been 18 hearings, unfulfilled promises, orders to repair or raze that were ignored, two permits that expired and excuses about COVID and contractors who quit, Brown said. The owner hired a design professional to draw up plans, but the owner isn’t following them. “It’s been a mess,” Brown said. The building looks “awful,” but it isn’t an actual threat to the public, so there is no call for an emergency demolition, she said. Still, the Fire Department has posted a “Do Not Enter” placard for its employees. Brown’s department is waiting for a new hearing date.

The department has been dealing with a Fifth Avenue “ghost property” since it was purchased at a tax sale in 2018, seemingly by a limited liability firm based in Delaware — although someone at the number associated with the firm denied being the owner. Further efforts to track the owner have been “exhausting” but so far futile, Brown said. The owner may live in Florida, she said. There is no water or gas service to the property, and the city has been cutting the grass — and at one point trimmed brush to keep the sidewalk open. There’s a warrant for the owner’s arrest, but it’s unlikely it will be served, given the travel distance, Brown said.

The department has been contending in recent months with a house on 21st Avenue whose owner died, after which that owner’s heir also died, leaving the house to the first owner’s son — who said he doesn’t know who’s living in the house, Brown said. The son has been trying to get the occupants to leave, unsuccessfully, Brown said. The city has been pressuring him to keep trying, even as the house and surrounding property deteriorates rapidly. The house is now red-tagged as unfit for habitation. City officials don’t have the right to simply go in and take over, officials said. It would take a court order to get the occupants removed, one official said.

There are two or three dozen vacant properties in the city owned by banks, based on reverse mortgages taken by owners who have since died, according to Brown. Those properties are problematic, because it’s invariably difficult to get in touch with a responsive bank official who can get maintenance issues resolved, she said. The banks usually invest in a “cheap lock” and arrange for the grass to be cut once a month, she said. They tend to show “no sense of urgency” in getting such situations resolved satisfactorily, seemingly content to let them drag on for half a year to two years, she said.

Not easy to address

Bad houses are a scourge on neighborhoods, officials said.

The city could use its leverage with liens, suggested finance director Jim Gehret.

Unlike businesses or individuals, municipalities can move to sell properties that they’ve liened, he said. That can get the attention of recalcitrant owners quickly, especially when the liens are expensive.

In such cases, the properties go to upset sale, and if there are no bids, to a sale free and clear of liens, said the city’s codes solicitor Dan Stants.

In many cases, the city would end up owning those properties, although the process strips off all liens, including mortgages, he said.

It might be costly, but it might be worth it to pursue in some cases, given the expense the city is routinely incurring in dealing with problem properties, said Councilman Ron Beatty.

If the city took $1 million in reserves, it could help deal with the perhaps 30 properties on a list produced by Brown whose owners are dead or that are owned by banks that can’t be reached, said Councilman Dave Ellis. The blight problem is “insanity,” he said, referring to one property on Bell Avenue that is infested with rats. Some of those bank properties especially would become desirable targets for would-be homeowners if they were simply “shined up” a bit, Ellis said.

The city should also step up its pace of demolitions from the current dozen or so per year to 50, in keeping with one of the recommendations in the new comprehensive plan, officials said. There are many blighted properties that even if they’re not blighted beyond repair are unlikely to be successfully marketed for homeownership, according to Brown. Currently, they are turned into rentals, in most cases, she said. The city would do well not to let the percentage of rentals get much larger than the current approximately 35%, according to Councilman Dave Butterbaugh.

Many property owners who run afoul of the codes department do so because they simply can’t afford to make repairs, which suggests that a program to help them would be welcomed, Brown said.

Conservatorship, as permitted by the state’s Act 90, the Neighborhood Blight Reclamation and Revitalization Act of 2010, requires a court order, Stants said. It was initially an appealing idea, but in practice, it has proven difficult, he said.

Severe cases can be prosecuted as criminal misdemeanors, but the requirements for such criminal prosecution are relatively steep and can be tricky, so the tool is limited in its usefulness, officials said.

The city has used the method half a dozen times, Brown said.

Two summary convictions on a single offense that constitutes an immediate threat can result in prosecution for a second-degree misdemeanor, and three summaries on the same sort of offense can result in prosecution for a third-degree misdemeanor, one official said.

One of the major components of success with blight will depend on establishing a way to catch problematic properties before decay goes too deep, Beatty said.

Overall, the city needs to be “cauterizing the wound to stop the hemorrhage,” said Councilman Bruce Kelley.

Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 814-949-7038.