In South Jersey, making empty houses into homes again

Collingswood Mayor Jim Maley pulls up to a Victorian house on Woodlawn Avenue in the heart of the borough.

With its wraparound porch and gingerbread curlicues, the corner property might seem right at home on a street in Cape May.

Except that the porch ceiling sags, the railings are broken or missing, and the bold fuchsia-and-gold paint is flaking away. Folks say the place has been empty for ages.

"This house is a hangover from the recession," says Maley, whose town - along with three other Camden County suburbs - is getting aggressive about abandoned houses.

To use tools provided by New Jersey's 2004 Abandoned Properties Rehabilitation Act, Collingswood, Gloucester City, Pennsauken, and Merchantville are working with the St. Joseph's Carpenter Society in Camden.

The goal is to get control of, fix up, and sell abandoned residential properties to people who will live in them. Step-by-step judicial review and repeated legal notifications protect the rights of the current owners, however negligent they may be.

An "abandoned" property is defined by the act as one that has not been legally occupied for six months and also meets at least one of four additional criteria, such as being in arrears on property taxes, needing repairs, or having officially been deemed a public nuisance.

"This is the only opportunity we have to return these properties to productive use," says Maley, noting that regular municipal procedures, such as code enforcement, are not designed for that task.

"Left alone, this problem is not going to get better," he adds. "It costs a lot to do nothing. It affects property values around it, and we're not getting taxes out of it."

Collingswood will start with about a dozen of its 40 abandoned houses, including the Woodlawn Avenue property. The borough has budgeted $200,000 to get the process started; Maley hopes it becomes a revolving fund, replenished by the sale of properties.

"The towns are being proactive, before this is a huge problem that no one can or wants to tackle," says Pilar Hogan Closkey, executive director of the St. Joseph's society.

The respected Camden nonprofit has renovated and sold more than 600 formerly derelict houses in the city since 1985.

Statewide, suburban communities are grappling with what until the recession had been mostly an urban problem.

Audubon, Haddon Heights, Gloucester Township, and other communities also have substantial numbers of abandoned homes.

"The foreclosure crisis hit the cities quickly and hard, and has spread to the inner suburbs. And it continues to grow," says Staci Berger, president and CEO of the Housing and Community Development Network of New Jersey.

The rehabilitation act "is a win-win tool, a very low-cost tool, a flexible tool," adds Berger, who heads a statewide network of more than 250 nonprofit housing and community development organizations.

In Gloucester City, four owners of long-abandoned properties stepped up to do repairs when their houses were targeted, says Bob Bevan, an aide to Mayor Bill James.

"It's the best way to get them fixed," adds Bevan, saying that the city has about 250 abandoned homes and is focusing on those near the new middle school now under construction.

There are 400 abandoned properties in Pennsauken, and "tackling the abandoned property issue is [the] number-one priority" for Mayor John Kneib and the township committee, says spokesman Frank Sinatra.

Merchantville has targeted six of its 35 abandoned houses. "We want to get families back in" them, Mayor Ted Brennan says.

"We have had residents who are concerned about their property values because of a neighboring home that's abandoned."

Pam Capato is tired of looking at the empty pink-trimmed bungalow across from her tidy residence on Lincoln Avenue in Collingswood. She's even decorated the vacant house for the holidays.

Capato seems skeptical, but perhaps a smidge hopeful, about the initiative.

"The politicians need to do what they say they're going to do," she says. "We can't just keep decorating."

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