CNBNews

By Bill Cleary

A friend of ClearysNoteBook, who is a real estate appraiser, sent me this list of  122 properties listed on tax records as owned by the City of Gloucester City. About 67 of these properties are vacant lots.

I had asked a City official in July for a list of city owned vacant lots  as I was writing an article about how new ideas were needed by our mayor and council to raise tax ratables but I never received it. No doubt the individual is very busy with other pressing matters.

Our CNB friend writes, “Some of the properties are listed as parks, playgrounds, parking lots, etc.  There were 2 on Kings Highway I deleted and probably should have left on - they're the 2 big lots just outside the development over there.  I ran a search on my MLS service's tax records.  I pulled all properties owned by the city.  The list is not perfect but it's a start.  It took about 15 minutes to compile.”

In recent years contractors and developers in Wildwood Crest and other communities  have been taking small lots and building townhouses with a garage on the bottom and two floors on top.

Could something similar work here on these vacant properties?

Sell the lot (s) to a builder for a $1 with the understanding that construction would have to be completed within a certain period. The finished product could be sold at a reduced price since the ground was free. And the buyer would have to live in the property for five years. I wrote recently about the Beatrice Nebraska's Homestead Act. Their idea seems perfect for our community.

And as I mentioned a few days ago Gloucester City has been talking about a similar program for over a year. In an article dated May 9, 2009 posted on CNB Mayor James stated –

"We have identified all of the City owned vacant lots and in an effort to increase the value of these parcels and to create new tax ratable we are having conversations with residential developers to generate an interest in an in-fill housing program in the west side of town. These properties have sat for years and years and right now collect nothing but trash, overgrown weeds and abandoned vehicles. This can not continue to be the norm and we feel as though this initiative shows promise".

As the mayor stated some of these lots have been sitting vacant since 1972. Think of all the money in taxes the City has lost over that 40 year period; monies that could have been used to reduce our taxes and or fund needed services. 

An interesting note, the total paid by the City (taxpayers) to purchase the 122 properties listed comes to $1,135,927. This amount does not include the $5.9 million the City recently spent for Chatham Square ($4.25 million block 256 Lot 1 and $1.65 million, for block 256 Lot 4); or the $5 million spent for the AMPSPEC property. 

Hopefully Mayor James will soon be releasing the plan he spoke of in May 2009.