New York’s legislature has passed a law giving local governments new power to seize abandoned commercial properties in their jurisdictions.
The law, which passed the Senate and Assembly in June but has not yet been given to Gov. Kathleen C. Hochul to sign, will allow municipal code enforcement departments to declare certain commercial or industrially zoned properties as abandoned, and permits the municipality to take action to reclaim that property.
Municipalities already have a process to repossess properties with long-standing unpaid tax bills, but this new acquisition process moves much faster and does not require that tax bills go unpaid for a property to be repossessed by the municipality.
The bill has broad bipartisan support, including the support of Assemblyman Kenneth D. Blankenbush, R-Black River, and Assembly Minority Leader William A. Barclay, R-Pulaski, as well as a number of Democratic state Senators and Assembly members.
In a bill memo attached to the legislation describing its need, the lawmakers argue that local governments across New York have been struggling to find solutions to the growing number of abandoned commercial properties since the 1970s, and “nuisance properties now litter upstate New York presenting particularly tough challenges for local governments.”
But one local candidate for Assembly, Republican Scott A. Gray, said that New York state’s government needs to take responsibility for its own abandoned properties dotted throughout the state.
“You have to say, if it’s in the best interests of communities to alleviate them of nuisance properties, and to clean up those properties, then what about over here, with state-owned property?” he asked.
Citing the rapidly deteriorating buildings just across from the St. Lawrence Psychiatric Center, and the nearby, now-closed Ogdensburg Correctional Facility as two examples, Mr. Gray said the state government, if it wants to really alleviate upstate New Yorkers of abandoned blight, they need to start with those.
“If you want to eradicate the nuisance properties owned by private individuals, you have to set the example,” Mr. Gray said.
Most of these properties, like the closed prisons in Watertown and Ogdensburg and the abandoned psychiatric center buildings, will likely require complete demolition. Years of no heat, power or maintenance have taken their toll on the psychiatric center, and the state does not keep utilities on at closed prisons either, leading to rapid deterioration.
But those properties, if razed, could easily be returned to local government tax rolls as developable real estate, Mr. Gray said.
“The psych center is prime real estate, it goes all the way from Route 37 all the way to the St. Lawrence River,” he said.
That could mean millions of dollars in assessed property value, all taxable by the city of Ogdensburg.
“Not having seen their financials in person, it appears that the city is struggling financially,” Mr. Gray said. “That could be helped.”
Mr. Gray said he supports the message of the bill that has been passed, but would like to see action on state-owned vacant properties as well.
“There is not, to my knowledge, an existing bill for this, but I would certainly entertain writing one that would give the state so much time to address these properties,” he said. “They should set a self-imposed time limit on structures to decide if they’re going to market them, try to do something with them, or outright demolish them.”
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