A house on the 1800 block of Fifth Avenue has become the first in Altoona to enter a newly available process by which the city can acquire a deteriorating dwelling by eminent domain, so that it can be renovated, rather than razed — even if the city can’t locate the owner, or if the owner is non-cooperative.

The process is available due to the city’s recent resuscitation of its long dormant Vacant Property Review Committee, and is key to the city’s new effort to salvage blighted homes before they deteriorate too far — an effort designed to create needed additional housing, while bolstering the tax base.

In keeping with the state’s Urban Redevelopment Law, the city Redevelopment Authority can legally exercise the eminent domain action, provided the Review Committee finds that a property is blighted, that it can be rehabilitated for housing and that doing so is consistent with the city comprehensive plan — findings made in October, then reaffirmed this week by the city Planning Commission, according to commission solicitor Patrick Fanelli.

Absent the Review Committee making those determinations, the Redevelopment Authority would lack the legal right of eminent domain, and the effort to rehab rather than raze would be confined to properties whose owners can be found and who are cooperative, according to city officials.

“This is the first one out of the box,” said City Manager Christopher McGuire. “It’s a big deal.”

It’s actually the fourth home in the overall effort to rehab rather than raze blighted homes — but the other three, one on the 1300 block of 21st Avenue, one on the 1300 block of 18th Avenue and one on the 300 block of Wopsononock Avenue — were obtained from cooperative owners, McGuire observed.

The brick house on Fifth Avenue is in fairly decent shape and is on a corner lot, according to Community Development Director Eric Luchansky.

From what code officers can see, there isn’t much interior damage, Luchansky said.

The neighborhood isn’t bad, said Codes Supervisor-Blight Manager Josh Kaufman.

The owner will have 30 days to correct the code violations, according to Luchansky.

Then the Redevelopment Authority will send a letter of taking, which the owner has 30 days to appeal, he said.

Upon the taking of the property, the owner would be entitled to the fair market value of the property, minus funds that would go to lienholders, who would receive notice from the authority of the opportunity to recoup what they may be owed.

The owner can challenge the purported fair market value in court, triggering the appointment of a three-person board of view, which would hold a hearing to take testimony from advocates for each side — usually appraisers, according to authority solicitor Patrick Fanelli.

If the authority can’t locate the owner, it would likely pay the money for the court to hold, according to Fanelli.

The Codes Department has been dealing with issues on the property for several years, and the office has been unable to get in contact with the owner, despite extensive efforts, according to Kaufman.

If the taking goes through, the authority would seek renovation proposals from private builders.

Such rehabilitations elevate the homes nearby, Luchansky said.

They also tend to inspire neighbors to upgrade their own properties, McGuire said.

Before a decade and a half ago, the Redevelopment Authority routinely acquired blighted properties, but almost invariably did so in preparation for demolitions, which were paid for with Community Development Block Grant money.

But demolishing homes on properties owned by the city resulted in many city-owned vacant lots, which the city was obligated to maintain.

It paid for that maintenance with CDBG money.

When officials learned that using the CDBG money for that purpose was not permissible for longer than a year and a half with each property, the authority quit the acquisitions and relied instead on its police power to eliminate threats to the health, safety and welfare of the community — demolishing the houses without taking the properties.

After the Blighted Property Review Committee became dormant, the Planning Commission continued to declare structures blighted, followed by those demolitions, which continued not to involve taking of property, and which continued to be based on the city’s police powers to eliminate the threat to health, safety and welfare.

Since the recent re-

establishment of the Review Committee, the committee has taken over the responsibility for blight declarations — in preparation for both demolitions, as well as for the much rarer takings in preparation for renovation.

When demolition is the goal, that blight declaration isn’t legally necessary, according to Fanelli and Sabrina Appel-McMillen, the city’s planning and development manager.

The Codes Department can exercise its police power to eliminate the threat to the community’s health, safety and welfare unilaterally, they said.

But the committee has been continuing to make its finding of blight, even when demolition is the only goal, in the interest of providing public information about what’s happening, according to Appel-McMillen.