Ford City Borough Council discussed charging property owners a fee if they let their building stand empty.
Ford City Borough discussed their participation in the Armstrong County Land Bank, which currently includes municipalities of Apollo, East Franklin Township, Ford City, and Kittanning. The Land Bank is one tool that uses adjusted property taxes to assist with rehabilitation or demolition of blighted properties.
“One of the big problems in Borough is that we have properties that are blighted - properties that are in decline, partly because our economy is in decline, but it is also because we have a high number of rentals with absentee landlords (property that is owned by people outside of the community),” commented Ford City Council President Carol Fenyes.
“I would like us to consider a Vacant Building Fee such as the one enacted in Tarentum,” Fenyes proposed. “Buildings that stand vacant for a specific period of time would be registered and pay a fee. Hopefully that would be the genesis of some demolition funds for us to fight the blight.”
Fenyes shared the Tarentum fee structure.
“Building owners register their vacant building. In Tarentum, their fee starts at $150 for buildings empty for less than a year. It then doubles to $300 for the first year, $500 at two years, $1,000 for each of third and fourth year, and increases to $2,500 for years five through nine, and tops out at $5,000 for buildings empty for ten years.”
The concept was met with immediate opposition by resident Greg Dinko, who asked what constituted a vacant building verses a building that the owner was using as storage. Specifics were not addressed during the meeting.
“I read about these homeowner associations and how crazy these people get. Council changes every couple of years. What I think is blighted might not be (by other Council members),” Dinko said.
Solicitor Alyssa Golfieri addressed changes in laws that are giving more authority to municipalities.
“There was nothing wrong with ordinances that were written several years ago. But we have to understand that laws change and the Borough can only do what the State gives you the authority to do. There was a huge overhaul of blight statues in the last five to seven years. You have so much more authority now,” Golfieri said.
Golfieri said that the idea of a Vacant Building Fee is something under consideration, but not ready to be enacted yet.
“This is just an idea that was brought up by Council. We will have to explore it before it is adopted to make sure it is well within the confines of the law. We would have to create a definition for ‘vacant’,” the Solicitor said. “There is a difference between a fee, a penalty, and a tax. You cannot have fees that are actually taxes. Therefore you can’t charge a building owner a fee if he is choosing to not rent a building or was trying to rent it.”
Fenyes said the future of Ford City is becoming brighter as the town moves ahead with vision and planning.
“We have the comprehensive plan that we are getting ready to move forward on, we are having some rezoning done, and that will make the community look better to the outside. If we show a concerted effort to reclaiming properties and taking care of the blight and making the community a better place to live, it will help our future growth,” Fenyes said.