Bothered by blight: No community immune to problem of vacant homes

A national ranking service this year rated the Chesterbrook section of Chester County as the best suburban community in the country in which to buy a house.

So, understandably, neighbors are upset about what has happened to a property on the Armstrong Court cul-de-sac. They believe the house has been vacant since at least 2012, although on occasion they have witnessed people they didn't know using the house at night.

High grasses and weeds overtook the property on which the two-story home is situated. Neighbors say the siding is damaged; they fear that their own meticulously manicured properties might lose value.

Sylvia Ganz bought the house in Tredyffrin Township for $450,000 in 2005, property records show. She died six years later at 94. It is unclear whether she ever lived in the house; records list her son at the address for about seven years.

Vincent Donohue, the township solicitor, called the situation "highly unusual" in an area where the median home value is more than $450,000, but municipal officials and housing advocates say that when it comes to vacant properties, no community is immune.

"We like to say blight is the common denominator in Pennsylvania," said Cynthia Daley, policy director for the Housing Alliance of Pennsylvania, a statewide coalition that supports policies that help communities reclaim blighted properties. "It's pretty much everywhere."

Cities and towns across the state that once were dominated by steel mills, coal plants, or family farms lost residents when jobs vanished.

Cities and towns such as Coatesville, Norristown, Chester, and Bristol long have battled blight. But even affluent communities can have what is known as "transactional blight," said Alan Mallach, a city planner and senior fellow with the Center for Community Progress, a Washington-based nonprofit.

Houses across the country in all types of communities stand vacant, sometimes for years, for a variety of reasons. People die without a will or have children who don't want to deal with the homes; several individuals end up in squabbles over ownership; a fire guts a structure and the owner doesn't want to spend the money to renovate; homeowners become unemployed or ill, and their houses deteriorate as banks foreclose - so-called zombie houses.

In the spring, RealtyTrac, a California-based service that tracks foreclosures, reported that Pennsylvania had 572 such zombie houses; New Jersey was top in the nation with more than 4,000.

Pennsylvania has taken steps to address the issue. A state blight task force was formed in September 2007 and pushes for legislation. A bill passed by the state House in May would reduce the amount of time the buyer of a blighted property has to correct code violations from 18 months to a year.

A bill in the state Senate would allow counties to impose a fee of up to $15 for each deed and mortgage they record, to be used to demolish blighted buildings.

State law allows community members to ask courts to become conservators of blighted properties, so they can take control of them, make repairs, and return them to use. Municipalities of more than 10,000 people also can create land banks, public agencies that acquire properties and clear their titles. Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Harrisburg have such land banks.

A 2010 law authorized the creation of housing courts and provides more tools for local governments to enforce zoning laws to compel owners of properties to fix them or pay fines.

But enforcement - given the bureaucratic procedures - can take a while, said Thomas Micozzie, mayor of Upper Darby Township, Delaware County.

"In these particular incidents, it's not an easy process to get a pain-in-the-neck property off the rolls and into a usable property," he said.

Tredyffrin officials started issuing violation notices on the Chesterbrook property in May after vegetation sprouted out of control and neighbors alerted them, but the title owner's children have not responded, said Donohue. The township can charge fines of up to $500 per day, he said.

A $360,000 mortgage against the property remains unpaid, although the property taxes are current, he said.

Township officials hired a contractor in May to cut the grass and trim the shrubs every couple of weeks, and plan to recuperate the money they spend, Donohue said.

"The township is committed to pushing this to resolution for the neighbors the fastest legal way possible," Donohue said.

Representatives from Wells Fargo, which holds the mortgage on the house, told township officials they plan to pursue foreclosure.

mbond@philly.com

610-313-8207@MichaelleBond