Derby officials say tweaking the city’s blight rules would allow them to tear down abandoned properties faster and encourage investment from buyers trying to turn around rundown houses.
Blighted properties are dilapidated homes or buildings that have been put on a list — after repeated attempts to work with the property owner — by the Derby Board of Aldermen.
The properties, which drain the value of surrounding homes, face fines of $100 per day.
The problem is that long-abandoned houses sit in disrepair regardless of the fines. It doesn’t matter if the fine is $100 a day or $1 million — the properties just sit.
Take the house at 196 Derby Ave. It was badly damaged by fire in March 2010. The owner, according to city officials, walked away from his rental property.
It was placed on the city’s blight list in August 2010, and has blight fines well over $77,000, not to mention a huge bill for back taxes.
More importantly, it’s a quality of life nightmare for people such as Frederick Picroski. He lives down the street, and appears constantly at Aldermen meetings to remind elected officials about the property.
Picroski said over the last few years he suspects vagrants have been entering the home. Plywood has been removed from windows. There is graffiti inside.
Meanwhile, there’s a school bus stop across the street. It’s a situation that bothers Picorski, who purchased his home on Derby Avenue in 1996.
“I haven’t seen any tracks in the snow from the recent storms, but the back door is accessible even though it is ‘locked,’” Picorski said. “The board for that door disappeared years ago.”
Change?
At a blight subcommittee meeting Feb. 11, corporation counsel Kevin Blake walked Aldermen Carmen DiCenso, Felicia Monaco and David Anroman through two pieces of local legislation meant to target Derby’s most blighted properties.
Both measures will be under consideration by the full Board of Aldermen later this month.
The “ordinance to demo/repair hazardous and dangerous buildings” would allow the city to tear down dangerous structures — without owning the property.
The city would pay for the demo up front, and send a bill to the property owner.
If the property owner doesn’t pay, the city can start the foreclosure process, Blake said.
“This allows you to get rid of blight quickly and not have to wait through the foreclosure process,” Blake said.
If a property owner wants to appeal a building official’s recommendation to remove a dangerous structure, the owner could take his appeal to a new “Building Codes Board of Appeals.”
The new committee would listen to the property owner’s appeal and render a decision. The property owner would still have many venues to appeal, including the state’s court system.
Blake said the procedure was used in Ansonia several times. Owners of blighted properties opted to allow the city to wreck the problem property because it was cheaper to do so.
The Aldermen will consider creating the new Building Codes Board of Appeals at their next meeting.
Policy Shift
In addition to the local legislation meant to quickly erase dangerous properties, Alderman DiCenso suggested a policy shift on how Derby deals with blight.
Essentially, DiCenso said the Aldermen have to be willing to work with new investors who want to purchase blighted properties and make repairs, but are thwarted by blight fines accrued by the previous owner.
The issue has been sensitive in Derby, because the blighted properties are often available to buyers at bargain basement rates.
DiCenso said when investors back out, the blight continues, the neighbors continue to suffer and Derby doesn’t collect its blight fine.
At the Feb. 11 blight committee meeting, which DiCenso chairs, its three members met in executive session to negotiate a deal with the lawyer representing a blighted property at 199 Caroline St.
Executive sessions are meetings closed to the general public, and are allowed in specific cases under state law, such as when legal strategy or real estate deals are being discussed.
According to public records, the property is owned by Cela Realty, LLC, a company with an address on Minerva Street. The company’s principal is Artur Celaj of Brookfield.
The large, multi-family house was purchased in April 2013 for $175,000, according to assessor records.
At the end of the Feb. 11 executive session, DiCenso recommended a deal in which Cela Realty agreed to fix all blight problems under the eye of the city’s building official.
The property does not owe any back property or sewer taxes, but the pending blight fine is $58,900.
Assuming the full Derby Board of Aldermen agrees, the city would waive the blight fine attached to the property, but the property would remain on the blight list for three years.
If at any point the property goes back to being a problem, the blight fine would continue where it left off.
The goal is to get Derby’s most problematic properties back on track, DiCenso said.
“Our goal here is to alleviate blight, but we want to do it in a way where we do not turn investors away,” he said.
Blight Is ‘Poison’
Over the last few years, Derby City Treasurer Keith McLiverty has been the most vocal public official regarding blight in the city.
McLiverty has repeatedly urged the Board of Aldermen to recognize how blight causes neighborhoods to sink and how it spreads. He has repeatedly urged elected officials to stick to their guns regarding blight fines.
At the start of last week’s meeting, he reminded elected officials there are about $2 million in uncollected blight fines in Derby.
In addition, there is $200,000 in the Derby budget Aldermen put aside for demolition and density reduction in the city. On top of that there’s about $77,000 in blight fines the city has managed to collect.
McLiverty called blight a “poison” to neighborhoods.
He described a situation not far from his house where a property was “split” and now people are parking cars on lawns. It’s the beginning of the slippery slope toward blight.
Click here to read a previous column penned by McLiverty touching upon his views on blight.
He urged the Aldermen to continue to use blight fines as a way to enforce blight rules — and to leverage existing blight-related money into a revolving fund that can eliminate blighted properties and address the city’s underlying density problem.
Contacted by e‑mail Feb. 19, McLiverty said “any step taken to rid the city of blight is a step in the right direction.”
“The proposal under Mr. DiCenso’s sub-committee is allowing a blighted property to be corrected, but also protects the city and the neighbors by holding the investors accountable for a defined period of time,” McLiverty said.
Still, McLiverty said the city must continue to fine landlords who allow properties to fall into such disrepair.
“For the neighbors and the city has had to live with seeing the shot out windows and boarded up windows each and every day, and their property values are what has suffered. No one wins with blight being present,” he said.
Aggressively fighting blight in especially important today, given the housing market.
“One-fifth of all homeowners with mortgages are still underwater, in that they owe more then their property is worth,” he said. “Then add a blighted property to the neighborhood, and ones property value sinks a little further. This is in addition to seeing the eyesore each and every day.”
In 2012, the Derby Board of Aldermen voted to foreclose on several long-blighted properties. However, at a meeting last month, officials said court papers had never been filed starting the foreclosure action against 199 Caroline St. and 245 Francis St.
Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified two members of the Aldermen’s blight committee. The information was corrected.
