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OPINIONS
Editorial: Cities getting help on housing problems
The property at 154 South Walnut St. is now on HuntingtonÕs demolition list to be torn down. After years of struggling with properties such as this, cities will get help demolishing abandoned buildings through a federal initiative providing funding.
After years of struggling with vacant and dilapidated housing, Huntington could soon be battling the problem on four different fronts.
Last week, the West Virginia General Assembly passed two bills that will give local governments new powers to deal with these housing problems. Meanwhile, U.S. Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., has promised to push a federal initiative to provide funding to help cities demolish abandoned buildings.
Those efforts follow the city's launch last fall of a "land bank" program that allows the city to acquire liens on properties with delinquent property tax bills. The city can secure and maintain the troubled properties while waiting to see if the owners pay the taxes, and eventually, the city could take possession of some properties.
As in many urban areas, older homes and buildings have fallen into disrepair as populations declined and businesses moved out. In West Virginia, layers of red tape made it difficult for local governments to take control of troubled properties, and resources for demolitions have been in short supply as well.
For Huntington and other cities, the result has been hundreds of dilapidated and vacant properties that drive down property values, attract crime and discourage development. The situation creates missed opportunities, too. Despite all of the decay, the city has struggled to find spots for new schools and ball fields.
While none of these new measures is a silver bullet, we hope that in combination, they will help local governments get the upper hand on the problem.
One of the bills passed by the General Assembly would allow municipalities to start a registry of vacant buildings and collect fees while the building is vacant. The penalties would increase the longer the building is left vacant and would hopefully motivate owners to do something productive with their properties.
The other bill provides access to fire insurance money to help with removal of burned-out buildings. Too often owners take the money, and the public is left to deal with the unpleasant and often dangerous structures.
The federal legislation would provide $100 million per year for three years to cities, and half of the money would go to smaller cities. It could be used for demolition, code enforcement and developing reuse plans.
In a perfect world, market forces should take care of these problems, and run-down properties would be converted to new uses. But for cities such as Huntington, where the population dropped from more than 80,000 in the 1950s to just under 50,000 today, the decline has been too much.
We hope these new tools will help us begin to take control of the problem and improve our neighborhoods and our future.
