PINE BLUFF -- Mayor Shirley Washington's move to restart blight removal efforts in the city hit a stumbling block last week.
Members of the City Council's administration committee rejected three resolutions that would transfer the job of razing dilapidated structures from the Urban Renewal Agency to the Code Enforcement Department, as a way of getting blight removal efforts moving again in the city's urban renewal zones.
The mayor subsequently withdrew the resolutions that she planned to present to the City Council on Monday. Her office said the proposals might surface Monday or wait for a later time. The resistance to her plan potentially delays the city's push to continue revitalizing neighborhoods.
Dilapidated houses, vacant lots and abandoned buildings -- whether in cities or small towns -- affect public health, safety, property values and population growth, said James Brooks, director of the Washington, D.C.-based Center for City Solutions at the National League of Cities.
"The blighted building, whether commercial or residential, tends to impact the quality of life in the neighborhood," he said. "It usually becomes a hazard to health, an invitation to criminal activity, there's a high cost in the end to municipal governments in tracking these properties, prioritizing which ones are in complete disrepair, and then the demolition. All of those things are a part of the downside of blight."
Cities have tackled the issue in various ways.
In New Orleans, city government officials have attempted to strengthen enforcement powers, streamline the process to fix or tear down dilapidated buildings and more efficiently track code enforcement.
Memphis, during the mid-2000s, declared urban blight a top priority and pledged to fine negligent property owners.
And in Detroit, periodic efforts have included turning over one residential neighborhood at a time, rather than one structure here or there.
Pine Bluff, like Detroit, suffers from a long-term declining population and tax base. The southeast Arkansas city has identified more than 600 dilapidated structures.
WHAT HAPPENED?
Pine Bluff has an entity called the Urban Renewal Agency. Its work has focused on three urban renewal zones in the heart of the city.
The agency acquired a truck, roll-off dumpsters and other heavy equipment at a cost of $385,000 to tear down condemned properties in those three zones. The agency also hired two employees to operate the truck and equipment, paying each one $41,000 a year.
On May 20, the agency director, Maurice Taggart, stopped blight removal activities after a legal opinion from Althea Scott, the city attorney for Pine Bluff. Scott said the Urban Renewal Agency did not have the authority to raze structures without first acquiring the property through purchase, contract, eminent domain or donation.
Until then, the agency used a list of condemned properties provided by the city's Code Enforcement Department to tear down structures and place liens on properties in an effort to collect the costs, the same process used by the Code Enforcement Department.
Taggart said that until the issue is resolved, his agency will not engage in any further blight removal activities.
He also said the agency has suspended efforts to recoup what it has spent on razing structures before May 20, and the employees hired to run the equipment have been reassigned to work on properties that the agency has purchased for renovation.
From December to May, Taggart said the agency had razed 14 structures at a cost of $60,548.
In her May 20 opinion, Scott said the city's Code Enforcement Department, acting on the city's authority as an arm of the city, can raze and remove structures, place liens against those properties to recoup the cost of demolition and can collect those liens from the county tax collector.
The Urban Renewal Agency, she said, as an autonomous entity governed by a separate board that is not controlled by the city, cannot use the same process and must acquire the properties it seeks to improve.
So, the mayor introduced resolutions to transfer heavy equipment purchased by the Urban Renewal Agency and the two employees hired by the agency to the city's Code Enforcement Department.
The transfer would have created a new position within that department to supervise nuisance abatement activities.
That didn't sit well with some council members.
THE DEBATE
Last week, at a City Council administration committee meeting, Alderman Bruce Lockett characterized the move to transfer equipment from Urban Renewal to Code Enforcement as an effort to circumvent Scott's opinion.
"It's two things that's happening," Lockett said. "One, Urban Renewal is not a department of the city. Therefore, the city cannot administer the duties and the prerogatives of Urban Renewal. Two, I don't think demolition is something cities should be doing."
Alderman Glen Brown Jr., one of three aldermen in attendance who were not members of the committee, disagreed.
"But the city is allowed to demo properties," Brown said. "If Urban Renewal is unable to demolish homes and the city actually is, why wouldn't those personnel and equipment come to the city?"
Lockett said he is not opposed to the Urban Renewal Agency razing structures, but it should be limited to those acquired by the agency for the purpose of rehabilitation and redevelopment, and the equipment obtained by the agency should stay with the agency to accomplish that purpose.
"This council did not establish Urban Renewal to be a demolition arm of the city," he said. "That was not the intent. Rehabilitation and redevelopment is what the agency is to do. Blight removal from my standpoint is that they would take out a loan, do a bond or condemn the property, and all the powers that they have to redevelop property, acquire the property, demolish the property, then work with the developer to redevelop the property."
"But our goal is to clear the blight so that we can redevelop," Washington said. "We're trying to get enough consecutive mass lots so that we can come in with some housing redevelopment. We can't do that with all the blight that we have so that's what we're trying to aggressively address."
Scott said she saw no problem with what the mayor proposed.
"They can transfer their equipment if they want to," she said. "I don't see an issue with that. I don't see a legal issue, you just disapprove of the fact that they are doing it."
Other objections included the fact that the resolutions to add personnel to the Code Enforcement Department were not accompanied by budget figures.
"We're taking the positions and the equipment without all the documents," said Alderman Ivan Whitfield. "If we're going to pay for these slots, the insurance and everything else, we should have that before us now."
Washington told the committee that by the time the resolutions are put before the council, the budget numbers would be finalized and included in the packet.
Washington said she may reintroduce the proposals at Monday's City Council meeting if all of the budget numbers can be put together in time. Otherwise, she said, she will reintroduce the resolutions another time.
SOLUTIONS
In Arkansas, cities handle the problem by generally choosing to deal with blight removal internally or by contracting the work to private companies.
North Little Rock, for instance, does a combination of both, said city spokesman Nathan Hamilton.
In Morrilton, condemned structures are razed by street department crews and equipment, said Stephen Fletcher, compliance officer for the city.
In Jonesboro and Searcy, blight removal efforts are handled by bidding the work out to private contractors.
According to the website for the city of Little Rock, the Department of Housing and Neighborhood Programs awards contracts for the demolition of dilapidated structures and supervises the demolition to ensure that the site is put in full compliance with city ordinances.
Brooks, the official with the National League of Cities, said municipalities must bear the cost of declining properties through upkeep, public safety and, in many cases, the cost of removal itself.
"Whether it's commercial or residential, it tends to take that property out of usefulness," he said, adding "that's the first loss.
"If it's not being used, it imperils the tax collections. And not only does it remove income from the city, but it now becomes a cost to the city."
Brooks pointed to an example of a city that has made strides in addressing the issue of blighted neighborhoods despite budget woes. He said in Gary, Ind., Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson, who succeeded former Little Rock Mayor Mark Stodola as president of the National League of Cities, used a combination of technology and volunteerism to map out the northern city's blighted neighborhoods.
"She got volunteers from the city and students from the nearby university to go out and use smartphones to geotag and inventory their blighted property," he said.
"They mobilized the community to identify the vacant and abandoned buildings that they had and the conditions in which these buildings were."
Brooks said noting the condition of the abandoned properties has enabled the city to classify what properties can be saved and which ones should be razed.
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