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Code Enforcement System

New research finds investment in neighborhood stabilization pays off—and more is needed

“House prices have sufficiently recovered and foreclosure activities have sufficiently abated.” That was the faulty argument made this past July to support a U.S. Senate proposal that would have rescinded federal Hardest Hit Funds – a critical source of funding for neighborhood stabilization efforts in communities hit hardest by the…

Baltimore and Detroit get aggressive with nuisance properties

Cross-posted from Next City, this article is one of a ten-part series inspired by the 2015 Reclaiming Vacant Properties Conference. With a staggering 84,000-plus 90,000 vacant properties — nearly a quarter of all properties in the city — Detroit is dealing with blight on a scale unknown anywhere else in…

How the zombie house crisis mutated and what cities are doing about it

Cross-posted from Next City, this article is one of a ten-part series inspired by the 2015 Reclaiming Vacant Properties Conference. Are there more zombies in our city than ever before, or are we just paying more attention to them? “Zombie properties” is a clever name to describe residential buildings that are neither alive nor…

How Detroit Taught Itself to Demolish Vacant Houses Safely

Cross-posted from Next City, this article is one of a ten-part series inspired by the 2015 Reclaiming Vacant Properties Conference. “It kind of used to be like the Wild West a few years ago,” Regina Royan recalls, thinking back on how buildings were being demolished in Detroit prior to 2014. The old norms, she…

Hardest Hit Funds demolition policy change on track to become a boon for distressed communities

This article was originally published in the Summer 2014 issue of Breaking Ground, our quarterly newsletter. To receive Breaking Ground in your inbox, please join our email list. For an update on the latest round of Hardest Hit Fund allocations in April, 2016, click here. In February 2010, President Obama unveiled…

Breaking down deconstruction: What Detroit gained from dismantling instead of destroying

It might not be immediately obvious, but in the rubble and decay of vacant, dilapidated properties — those that are so far deteriorated, they’ve been slated for demolition — there is much value to be found. That’s where deconstruction comes into the picture. Deconstruction is the process of salvaging the…

Raising the bar in The Big Easy: Remediating 10,000 blighted properties in less than four years

In January 2014, Mayor Mitch Landrieu announced that the City of New Orleans had not only met, but actually exceeded a major goal set back in September 2010: remediating 10,000 of the city’s more than 40,000 blighted properties by the end of 2014. The City of New Orleans reached the…

Demolition the right way: Using strategic demolition to revitalize communities

Though temperatures were in the low 40’s, spirits were high when I attended the 3rd Anniversary of the multifaceted Vacants to Value program in Baltimore last month. Over the past 3 years, Baltimore’s Vacants to Value (V2V) program has rehabbed 1,500 homes and demolished more than 700. Both blight reduction strategies were…

Can we demolish our way to revitalization?

Originally posted on the National Housing Institute’s Rooflines blog While the answer to that question in the title of this piece is obvious, there’s a strong case to be made that a lot of the buildings that make up America’s older cities may have to go, if these cities are…

Historic blight blitz is now underway in Flint, Saginaw

A historic new ‘blight blitz’ is now underway in Michigan, constituting the largest blight removal program in the state’s history. Both the state and the nation have a renewed interest in promoting urban revitalization in Michigan through thoughtfully attending to the state’s vacant, abandoned, and problem properties. Last week, the…

The Problem with Calling Neighborhoods with Vacant Properties “Blighted”

Blight is a shorthand term many people use to refer to properties they perceive as problematic in some way.

How Vacant and Abandoned Buildings Affect the Community

Vacant, abandoned, and deteriorated (VAD) properties—referred to by some as “blighted properties”—pose significant costs to public health, property values, local taxpayers, and more.

What is Code Enforcement?

Code enforcement from A to Z: when it works, when it doesn’t, and how local governments can make code enforcement systems more fair for all.

From Harm to Home: Replicating Detroit’s Make it Home Program

The City of Detroit’s innovative Make it Home program harnesses the power of the traditionally harmful property tax foreclosure process and uses it to increase affordable homeownership, improve housing conditions, and stabilize neighborhoods.

What does equitable code enforcement look like? How Louisville is taking steps to use its code enforcement process to advance racial equity

With technical assistance support from Community Progress, Louisville is reforming their housing and building code enforcement with equity in mind.

Approaches to Rural Property Vacancy in Law and Policy

This is an excerpt of Chapter 8 of Tackling Vacancy and Abandonment: Strategies and Impacts After the Great Recession, jointly produced by the Center for Community Progress, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, and the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. It has been lightly edited and condensed for the web….

A History of Ohio Land Banking 2009–2021: From Legislation to Operation

This is an excerpt of Chapter 7 of Tackling Vacancy and Abandonment: Strategies and Impacts After the Great Recession, jointly produced by the Center for Community Progress, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, and the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. It has been lightly edited and condensed for the web….

Developing and Implementing Property Remediation Strategies in Urban and Rural Communities in the Lehigh Valley: A Case Study of Bethlehem and Northampton County, Pennsylvania

This is an excerpt of Chapter 6 of Tackling Vacancy and Abandonment: Strategies and Impacts After the Great Recession, jointly produced by the Center for Community Progress, the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, and the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. It has been lightly edited and condensed for the web. In…

Bay City Allocates $3 Million to Home Repair and Strategic Code Enforcement

Cities across the United States are receiving an unprecedented infusion of resources from the American Rescue Plan Act State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds (ARPA SLFRF). Thanks to direct advocacy from Community Progress and our partners, the U.S. Treasury explicitly said communities can use ARPA SLFRF funds to address vacancy,…

Communities Across the US Are Addressing Property Deterioration and Vacancy With ARPA

States, Tribes, counties, and municipalities around the country have been hard at work determining how to use their allocations from the American Rescue Plan Act’s $350 billion State and Local Fiscal Recovery Fund – which we often clumsily abbreviate as the ARPA SLFRF. Every unit of government should have already received at least the first…