Council subcommitteee wrestling with when 'historic' sites can be demolished

[thelakelander]

By Max Marbut, Staff Writer

In the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, "blight," in the urban blight context, is defined with three words. "Historic," in the context of buildings, is defined with 10 words.
Based on a conversation Tuesday at City Hall, it won't be nearly that simple for the City Council Special Ad Hoc Committee on Jacksonville's Neighborhood Blight Special Subcommittee on Abandoned Structures.

The subcommittee, chaired by council member Warren Jones, is charged with clarifying proposed legislation, 2014-427, that would allow the city to revise the legal definition of "unsafe building or unsafe structure" and authorize demolition of a non-historic structure that has been boarded up and had no water or electric service for more than 24 months.

Jones said the legislation will "balance the need to remove structures that need to be removed while preserving structures that can be occupied."

It likely won't be a short process.

Full article: http://www.jaxdailyrecord.com/showstory.php?Story_id=543640

[whislert]

This posting (as distinct from the longer article) perpetuates the fallacy that 427 does not threaten historic homes. At the end of the currently proposed legislation, it is stipulated that historic properties "shall" also be demolished if they have not obtained approval of a "mothball" Certificate of Appropriateness (COA) within 60 days of notification from the City to the owner that it will be demolished. Sixty days. To apply, revise and receive approval from a bureau of City government effecting  engineering and construction of repairs to secure and stabilize structurally deficient derelict buildings. Get real. 

Part of the "problem" that is being encountered with sanitizing this bad public policy initiative is that the City has no definition of "historic" in City code, though generally it is considered at a minimum to mean buildings 50 years or older. The bigger problem is the absence of a plan for managing the empty lots that will be left. As Kimberly Scott (former Code Enforcement Chief/current Enforcement Division Manager) herself acknowledged the City cannot simply foreclose on abandoned properties because they don't have the resources to then manage them. Nobody does. But demolishing a building then leaves the mess with the original owner, though now the property is encumbered with a demolition lien and has been stripped of its primary capital value. This is a recipe for perpetuation of blight, not its remediation. This increased lien burden is one reason that, for instance, 88% of homes demolished in 2006 remain vacant lots today, nearly a decade later.

Some homes should probably be demolished but the utter lack of sensible discretion displayed by the City heretofore provides no comfort that it is capable of targeting the "right" homes for destruction, or that it will attend to all the legal notifications and procedures that rightly attach to such an extreme imposition of City police power. As written, sound and unsound homes "shall" be demolished indiscriminately. The City does not have the tens of million of dollars needed to conduct these mandatory demolitions. Since no criteria are included in the proposed legislation to prioritize which of the tens of thousands of eligible homes will be destroyed, it will create an arbitrary system for targeting properties that is fertile ground for political and economic corruption.  Does Jacksonville, a political entity created in part as a response to unbridled corruption in its past, really need this new opportunity to abuse civil and private property rights in communities that house its most vulnerable populations?

The City already has the power to demolish truly dangerous buildings. Rather than putting energy into making this process easier and more prone to abuse, wouldn't it be better to spend the same amount of money to secure derelict buildings; protect them from the elements and wait for the market to make their complete renovation economically viable? Ultimately it is the private market that will provide the vitality so desperately needed by our most neglected communities. Erasing them before the market has the opportunity to effect their recovery is premature and wasteful. Look at La Villa. Just as demand for urban neighborhoods is reviving there is nothing but a hole to the west of downtown. Imagine what could have been if that historic neighborhood had simply been secured against the day that people would pay millions to rehabilitate the old buildings. Let's not do this again to the next ring of pre-war housing stock in west Jacksonville.

[IrvAdams]

^^^+100%. Well put. I didn't realize so many structures would be touched by this badly-worded punitive legislation city-wide.

Why not take the money that this city receives from the Feds and spend it shoring up or mothballing the most environmentally damaged of the properties by assisting the existing owners? I do not believe that an overblown public danger of falling buildings is something that should cause any alarm among our Council, neither should the fact that a building is without utilities for some period of time be some sort of defining criteria for destruction.

There are professional structural engineers that can assess stability and repair potential, an arbitrary unrelated rule needn't be created. Spend money stabilizing and assisting, not demolishing.

I too am saddened over what should have never been touched in the cohesive neighborhood of LaVilla. Heart breaking.

[strider]

Interestingly enough, there are only two states that have laws stating that it is unlawful to take personal property (houses) due to blight only.  Utah and Florida.  Of course, the real purpose of the laws are not to prevent the taking of a single house but rather the wholesale demolition like occurred in LaVilla so that the land can be given to someone to use for a proposed and assumed higher financial purpose.

This is why ordinances such as this (2014 - 427) first make the property unsafe before they take it.  The loop hole seems to be the ability to make blight unsafe.  Then they take them over a longer period of time and then give it to someone else to use federal funds to build a new house.  The same end result.  The poorer communities among us lose out.

[sheclown]

There is a new draft of this ordinance out -- I'll try to scan and post here.  If anyone else can get to it before I do...

Historic is defined.  There is also an option to donate to a non-profit or a for-profit provided the value is less than $25k.  Blight is defined.

[Ocklawaha]

Say! I've got a great alternative idea. Let's demolish the whole damn place from the Atlantic to Baker County, and from the Nassau River to Clay and St. Johns County lines. We'll leave Andy on his horse downtown and seed the whole thing in turf grass and declare Jacksonville a 'National Historic Site.'

Sorry, it would appear that my sarcasm knows no bounds.

[JaxUnicorn]

After my Ramifications and Alternatives comments is a direct copy/paste from the substitute bill 2014-427, with all revisions noted (underlined for additions, strikethroughs for deletions).  I still do not understand how tearing down structurally sound buildlings just because they are vacant, boarded, have unpaid Code fines, and have no electricity for more than 24 months helps the city.

Ramifications of tearing down structurally sound buildings:

• The City must find the funds to pay for the demolition - very costly - and risk lawsuits.
• More often than not, taxes are paid via Tax Certificate sales. By removing the structure from a parcel, the City reduces the value of the property on which taxes are paid (less money for City/County).
• The City is left with a vacant lot with even MORE liens tied to the property that the owner is even less likely to maintain.
• The City must spend more money to abate the property when it becomes overgrown because the owner will not maintain it (more land to take care of too now that the structure is gone).
• The additional demolition lien makes it even harder for someone to sell the property if they wanted to do so.
• We lose homes that could potentially be used to house the homeless or low income persons.
• We unnecessarily add waste to our landfills.
• The cost to build new is WAY more than the cost to renovate an existing structure.

Alternatives:

• Utilize funds marked for demolition to make primary repairs to the property (stop water infiltration (roof) and the structure will stand for years).
• Place a lien on the property for the repairs (or maybe it can be added to the property taxes as an improvement?).
• Foreclose on the existing or the new repair lien and donate the property to a non-profit to provide housing.
• I am sure there are others...what suggestions do you have?

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Council Members Anderson, Boyer, Crescimbeni, Jones, Lee, and Love offer the first substitute to file no. 2014-427:

Introduced by Council Members Crescimbeni, Lee and Jones &
Co-sponsored by Council Member Redman:

ORDINANCE 2014-427

AN ORDINANCE RELATING TO PUBLIC SAFETY AND NUISANCE ABATEMENT; AMENDING SECTION 518.111 (DEFINITIONS) TO AMEND THE DEFINITION FOR "BLIGHT, BLIGHTING INFLUENCE OR BLIGHTING FACTOR" TO ADD CRIMINAL FACTORS; TO ADD A NEW DEFINITION FOR "HISTORIC STRUCTURES"; TO ADD A NEW SUBSECTION "(M)" TO ADD AS AN UNSAFE STRUCTURE THOSE NON-HISTORIC, BUILDINGS THAT HAVE BEEN BOARDED UP, THAT HAVE UNPAID CODE ENFORCEMENT, NUISANCE OR DEMOLITION LIENS, AND HAVE NO ACTIVE WATER OR ELECTRIC SERVICE FOR A TIME PERIOD THAT EXCEEDS 24 MONTHS;AMENDING CHAPTER 122 ORDINANCE CODE (PUBLIC PROPERTY); SECTION 122.461 (DONATION FOR RESIDENTIAL HOUSING) AMENDING SUBSECTION (A) TO ADD SUPPLEMENTAL LANGUAGE  THAT ANY CITY-OWNED BUILDING THAT HAS BEEN VACANT AND/OR BOARDED-UP FOR 24 MONTHS MAY BE DONATED TO A PRIVATE ENTITY/CORPORATION OR THE ADJACENT PROPERTY OWNER;PROVIDING AN EFFECTIVE DATE.

WHEREAS, a non-historic, blighted building that has been boarded up for more than 24 months contributes to blight conditions in Jacksonville neighborhoods; and
   
WHEREAS, the Stand Up for Your Neighborhoods Ad Hoc Committee on Blight seeks to eliminate such blight conditions, and during its duly noticed meeting on June 13, 2014, approved this Ordinance for introduction to the Jacksonville City Council [A copy of the minutes of the June 13, 2014 Committee meeting is attached hereto as Exhibit 1]; now therefore

BE IT ORDAINED by the Council of the City of Jacksonville:

Section 1.      Section 518.111 (Definitions.), Ordinance Code, amended.  Chapter 518 (Jacksonville Property Safety and Maintenance Code), Part 1 (General Provisions), Subpart B (Definitions) is hereby amended to read as follows:

*  *  *

Blight, blighting influence or blighting factor means either: that which endangers life or property by fire or other causes or that which substantially impairs or arrests property values or the sound growth of the county or city and is a menace to the public health, safety, morals, or welfare in its present condition and use. This may include, but not be limited to, the following factors:

(a)   Faulty lot layout in relation to size, adequacy, accessibility, or usefulness;
(b)   Unsanitary or unsafe conditions;
(c)   Deterioration of site or other improvements;
(d)   Tax or special assessment delinquency exceeding the fair value of the land; and
(e)   Diversity of ownership or defective or unusual conditions of title which prevent the free alienability of land within the deteriorated or hazardous area.
(f)   Dilapidation of real or personal property.
(g)   Residential and commercial vacancy rates higher in the areas than in the remainder of the county or municipality;
(h)   Incidence of crimes in the area higher than in the remainder of the county or municipality;
(i)   Fire and emergency medical service calls to the area proportionately higher than in the remainder of the county or municipality;
(j)   A greater number of violations of the Florida Building Code in the area than the number of violations recorded in the remainder of the county or municipality.

*  *  *

Historic Structure shall mean any structure, fifty years old or older, and that is designated a City of Jacksonville landmark; a contributing property in a City of Jacksonville historic district; listed on the United States Department of Interior, National Park Service's National Register of Historic Places or a contributing structure in a National Register district; or has been determined as eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places, individually or as contributing to a potential district based on the Florida Master Site File or with respect to any other structure over fifty years old as determined by the Jacksonville Planning and Development Department to be eligible for such listing.

*  *  *

Unsafe building or unsafe structure includes the following buildings and structures:
(a)   Those whose walls or other structural members sag, list, or buckle to such an extent that they are in danger of collapse.
(b)   Those with structural members which are overloaded, or which have insufficient strength to be safe for the purpose used.
(c)   Those damaged by fire, wind, deterioration, or other causes to such an extent that they are dangerous to the general health or safety of the occupants or the public.
(d)   Those not having exits or fire protection required by the building code or the fire prevention code.
(e)   Those having any piece, part or attachment which is so insecurely fixed as to be in danger of falling or being dislodged by the elements so that it may injure any person or property.
(f)   Those which are in violation of the minimum housing code, building codes, electrical code or plumbing code of the city.
(g)   Unfinished construction for which the building permit has expired.
(h)   Those which constitute a fire or windstorm hazard.
(i)   Those which have become or are so dilapidated, decayed, unsafe or unsanitary or which so utterly fail to provide the amenities essential to decent living that they are unfit for human habitation or are likely to cause sickness or disease, so as to work injury to the health, morals, safety or general welfare of those persons living therein.
(j)   The remains, debris, walls, chimney or floors of or left from a building or structure which has partially or completely collapsed, fallen or been torn down.
(k)   Any abandoned swimming pool, excavation or any septic tank which threatens or endangers the health, safety or welfare of the public.
(l)   Those which have been used in whole or in part for the unauthorized manufacture, processing, refinement or creation of any illicit drug wherein hazardous chemicals are used in such process. This shall include, but is not limited to, single-family residences, individual units of multi-family structures, hotels, motels, or other public lodgings, storage units, trailers intended to be pulled behind a motor vehicle, motorized vehicles, manufactured housing, or any shop, booth, structure or garden.
(m)   Any non-historic, blighted, vacant, unoccupied building or is occupied by transient persons, that has been boarded up, has unpaid code enforcement, nuisance or demolition liens, and has no active water or electric service for a time period that exceeds 24 months.

*  *  *

Section 2.      Chapter 122 (Public Property), Ordinance Code, amended.  Chapter 122 (Public Property), Ordinance Code, is hereby amended to read as follows:

CHAPTER 122  PUBLIC PROPERTY

*  *  *

PART 4. REAL PROPERTY

Sec. 122.461. Donation for residential housing.

(a) The Purchasing Division and Real Estate Division may donate property, which has a current fair market value of less than $25,000, or any building that has been vacant, and/or boarded-up for 24 consecutive months without water or electricity, to a not-for-profit corporation, a private entity/corporation or the adjacent property owner which has been qualified and specifically listed herein below and has an objective of creating residential housing for persons of low or moderate income (as such income is defined and approved by the Jacksonville Housing Authority).   The not-for-profit corporation, the private entity/corporation or the adjacent property owner must be approved by the Planning and Development Department as an entity or person whose efforts at redevelopment or constructing housing for low or moderate income individuals meet reasonable standards as to the quality of construction and compliance with income standards. The following listed not-for-profit corporations are found to be qualified and may receive property donations pursuant to this Subpart:
    (i) Habitat for Humanity of Jacksonville, Inc.
    (ii) Community Housing Development Organizations (CHDO) as identified by the Planning and Development Department City's Community Development Division.

(b) Prior to any donation, the Real Estate Division shall investigate whether or not there is a need by the City or any independent agency or, if deemed appropriate by the Real Estate Division, any other governmental agency or unit of government; provided that no written inquiry shall be necessary when the Real Estate Division has been informed previously or otherwise is aware of a need or no need to retain the property for governmental use. If, as a result of its investigation, the Real Estate Division determines there is a need for the subject property by a governmental agency or unit, then no donation shall be made.

(c) The Mayor and Corporation Secretary are authorized to execute and deliver all documents necessary to convey the property to the not-for-profit corporation.

(d) The Chief, Real Estate Division shall execute on behalf of the City an agreement, with the not-for-profit corporation, containing the following conditions: (i) The property be used solely for the construction of affordable housing for low or moderate income individuals; (ii) That construction of such housing begin within 12 months of the donation, unless such time is extended by the Chief, Real Estate Division; (iii) Construction completed within 18 months of donation; (iv) The not-for-profit corporation will assume full responsibility for construction of the homes in compliance with appropriate building codes; and (v) If construction is not feasible, the property will be conveyed to the City, at no cost to the City. The form of the agreement shall be approved by the Office of General Counsel.

Section 3.      Effective Date.  This ordinance shall become effective upon signature by the Mayor or upon becoming effective without the Mayor's signature.

Form Approved:

/s/ Margaret M. Sidman
Office of General Counsel
Legislation Prepared By:   Cherry A. Shaw
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