Abandoned Properties: Our Action PlanPAGE 1

Abandoned Properties:

Our Action Plan

UPDATED: 06/25/09

Abandoned Properties: Our Action PlanPAGE 1

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements...... 3

Abandoned Housing Initiative Mission Statement...... 4

Executive Summary...... 5

Information...... 5

Mitigation...... 6

Containment...... 6

Redevelopment...... 7

Outline...... 8

Policy Objective...... 8

Primary Roles for the City...... 8

Framework of the City’s Response: 14 Action Items...... 8

Information...... 8

Mitigation...... 8

Containment...... 8

Redevelopment...... 8

What is the foundation of this action plan?...... 9

Policy Objective...... 9

Primary Roles for the City...... 10

Framework of the City’s Response...... 10

Mayoral Leadership...... 11

Information: What is the scale of the challenge?...... 12

Importance of Information...... 12

Current Information...... 13

Improve Data...... 14

Mitigation: How to address property abandonment...... 17

Enhance Code Enforcement...... 17

Stabilize Abandoned Properties...... 26

Containment: How can we prevent more abandonment?...... 30

Engage Private Investment in Existing Homes...... 30

Collaborate to Prevent Foreclosure...... 31

Redevelopment: How do we link abandoned properties with redevelopment

objectives?...... 33

Framework for Redevelopment...... 33

First Steps for the City...... 36

Conclusion...... 38

Additional Resources...... 39

Acknowledgements

This plan could not have been completed without the contributions of the following individuals and entities:

Mayor Gregory A. Ballard, Mayor City of Indianapolis

Sherron Franklin, City of Indianapolis Abandoned Housing Director

Chris Cotterill, City of Indianapolis Corporation Counsel

Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department Crime Analysis

Moira Carlstedt, Indianapolis Neighborhood Housing Partnership

William Taft, Local Initiatives Support Corporation

Bruce Baird, Indianapolis Housing Agency

MarionCounty Health and Hospital Corporation

City of Indianapolis, Department of Metropolitan Development

Gina Radice, Consultant, Mind’s Eye Company

Riley Bennett & Egloff, Attorneys at Law

The City of Buffalo, New York

ABANDONED HOUSING INITIATIVE MISSION STATEMENT

To establish a formalized plan and implementation strategy designed to reduce the number of abandoned and vacant houses in the Indianapolis Metropolitan Area; that includes immediate, short-term and long-term actions to preserve and enhance safety and appearance of our community. To partner with our community to promote safety, crime prevention and protection of life, property, and the rights of all our citizens.

City of Indianapolis

Abandoned Properties: Our Action Plan

Executive Summary

Chronically vacant and abandoned properties represent decline and neglect. On the streets where these properties stand, they contribute to neighborhood instability, diminished public safety, and the devaluation of neighborhood property and quality of life. Indianapolis, like many communities, faces a significant challenge in dealing with vacant and abandoned properties. This challenge is exacerbated both by weaknesses in the local and regional housing markets – including an oversupply of housing relative to demand – and by the high and growing rate of foreclosures.

Mayor Greg Ballard is committed to addressing these related challenges and has outlined an action plan that is designed to identify, stabilize, secure, and promote reinvestment in chronically vacant and abandoned property throughout MarionCounty. This action plan is centered on the City of Indianapolis leading in several primary areas:

  1. enforcing the Unsafe Building Law to deter and mitigate property abandonment;
  2. providing for public safety to stabilize neighborhoods;
  3. providing leadership to leverage resources and achieve shared objectives;
  4. attending to the condition of public infrastructure to provide a positive environment for investment;
  5. securing abandoned properties through the tax sale and other processes;
  6. strategically assembling properties to meet development and redevelopment objectives; and
  7. leading, managing and coordinating redevelopment planning for MarionCounty.

The action plan presented in this document has four parts: information, mitigation, containment, and redevelopment.

Information: The foundation of meaningful strategies to meet the challenge of property abandonment is a fully integrated, geographic and parcel-based data system that is current, comprehensive, and publicly accessible. The City will develop a comprehensive, data system that includes items such as ownership, occupancy, code violations, tax status, physical condition, zoning, current market value, geographic location and any other data that will be critical data. This data will be made available for future accurate counts to promote effective decision making. Toward this end, the City of Indianapolis is:

  • enhancing data collection methods to improve the quality of information we have about vacant and property abandonment in MarionCounty;
  • updating and reorganizing our abandoned property list and making it publicly accessible so that it can be used as a re/development tool by private investors and by neighborhood residents;
  • creating an integrated, parcel-based data system to enhance the ability of the City to proactively address problem properties; and
  • providing public access to this geographic and parcel-based data system to provide nonprofit and private investors, including home owners, with sufficient information to make informed development decisions.

Mitigation: The City will work to mitigate existing property abandonment by aggressively enforcing the Unsafe Building Law and by stabilizing and securing properties through the county tax sale and other processes. Mayor Ballard’s Administration is committed to:

  • strengthen code enforcement by using the full range of legal tools available in issuing orders to repair and orders to demolish;
  • work closely with Marion County Health and Hospital to develop a more proactive (rather than reactive) inspection process for vacant and abandoned properties – first, targeting those that are structurally dangerous or are centers of criminal activity;
  • secure properties through the county tax sale and other processes and position the Indy Land Bank to successfully hold and maintain these properties so they can be applied to achieve redevelopment objectives; and
  • evaluate the need for enhanced legal authority – through local ordinance or state statutory changes – to deal with vacant and abandoned properties.

Containment: The City will work to prevent more abandonment by encouraging investment in existing homes and by connecting families to foreclosure prevention services. Specifically:

  • The City will provide leadership to engage private investment in existing homes by identifying home repair resources and improving access to capital for major rehabilitation.
  • The City will collaborate with the Indiana Housing and Community Development Authority to connect families with comprehensive foreclosure prevention services offered through the Indiana Foreclosure Prevention Network – a public-private partnership of government agencies, realtors, lenders, community service and housing-related organizations.

Redevelopment: The City will strategically link abandoned properties with redevelopment initiatives, using abandoned houses and lots as assets that can be strategically invested to achieve redevelopment objectives. A redevelopment plan involves strategic intervention in neighborhood housing markets. The context and rationale for these strategic interventions are defined in a longer term redevelopment framework that integrates comprehensive community development plans for neighborhoods. As such:

  • The City will convene a redevelopment planning council or other similar entity that will be responsible for defining a county-wide framework for strategic redevelopment that stabilizes neighborhoods, secures abandoned properties in neighborhoods, and strategically intervenes in neighborhood housing markets.
  • This redevelopment framework will incorporate existing and future comprehensive community development plans constructed by Indianapolis neighborhood residents.
  • The framework will also incorporate the strategic use of the federal abandonment and foreclosure funds that have been allocated as part of the Federal Housing and Economic Recovery Act enacted by Congress.
  • Issues for the planning council to consider include:

1Use of federal funds

2Specific geographic priorities

3Regional supply of and demand for housing

4Options for REO/foreclosed property

5Critical role of the private sector

6State of the housing stock

7Condition of the public infrastructure

8Projections regarding land use and population growth/density

The action plan presented here offers a general proposal regarding the City of Indianapolis’ role – as a local government – in dealing with the problem of property abandonment from improving our knowledge about specific, problem properties to mitigating and preventing abandonment to strategically investing abandoned properties in order to achieve redevelopment objectives. This action plan is a living document that will be amended and improved over time.

Our Action Plan: Outline

Policy Objective: Identify, stabilize, secure, and promote investment in vacant and abandoned properties in MarionCounty

Primary Roles for the City:

  • Provide for public safety to stabilize neighborhoods;
  • Enforce code to mitigate property abandonment;
  • Provide leadership to leverage all available resources;
  • Maintain the public infrastructure to provide a positive environment for investment;
  • Secure abandoned properties to assemble property that is necessary for redevelopment or that can be sold to responsible property owners;
  • Strategically secure properties to meet redevelopment objectives; and,
  • Lead redevelopment planning for MarionCounty.

Framework of the City’s Response:

  1. Information: Organize geographic and parcel-based data
  • Action 1: Identify abandoned properties for accurate counts
  • Action 2: Update property list and make it accessible
  • Action 3: Create integrated data system
  1. Mitigation: Address property vacancy and abandonment

Enhance enforcement of our civil code

  • Action 4: Strategically and effectively enforce the civil code
  • Action 5: Target dangerous properties as top priority
  • Action 6: Align enforcement entities
  • Action 7: Protect valuable structures
  • Action 8: Evaluate need for changes to state and local laws

Stabilize abandoned properties

  • Action 9: Secure properties through tax sale
  • Action 10: Position Indy Land Bank to hold properties
  1. Containment: Decrease and prevent more abandonment

Engage private investment in existing homes

  • Action 11: Identify home repair resources
  • Action 12: Improve access to capital for major rehabilitation

Collaborate to prevent foreclosure

  • Action 13: Market existing prevention foreclosure services
  • Action 14: Construct plan for federal HERA funds
  1. Redevelopment: Link properties with redevelopment objectives
  • Level 1:Stabilize neighborhoods
  • Level 2:Secure abandoned properties in neighborhoods
  • Level 3:Intervene in neighborhood housing markets

What is the foundation of this action plan?

Indianapolis, like many communities, is challenged by the thousands of distressed abandoned properties. Abandoned properties represent decline and neglect. On the streets where these properties are located, they contribute to neighborhood instability, diminished public safety, and the devaluation of property values and our quality of life. They impede neighborhood development and the achievement of our economic development objectives. And the challenge of abandoned homes is exacerbated both by weaknesses in the local and regional housing markets, including an oversupply of housing relative to demand, and by the high and growing rate of foreclosures.

Mayor Greg Ballard is committed to addressing this challenge, which will take time, considerable effort, and the efforts of government, non-profits, and the private sector. There is no “silver bullet.” Through a multitude of efforts, we must determine how the City can overcome this challenge. We will increase our efforts where successful and change where we are not, but all of our efforts will be relentless against this widespread, difficult challenge.

A. Policy Objective

This action plan deals with distressed abandoned residential properties in Indianapolis – both houses and lots. Thus, as the term is used in this plan, an “abandoned property” is a property that is vacant, tax delinquent and has at least one code violation.

Abandonment is different than vacancy, which simply refers to whether a property is occupied or not. Vacancy can be the result of normal turnover and can be temporary or permanent. In contrast, abandonment is characterized by long term or permanent vacancy and by the poor physical condition of a property. To abandon a house is to neglect the responsibilities of ownership related to minimal functional, financial, and physical maintenance of the property.

The action plan is centered on a key policy objective:

Identify, stabilize, secure, and promote reinvestment in abandoned property in MarionCounty.

In this plan, we identify specific short-term and long-term action items related to:

  • improving the accuracy of the information we have about property abandonment in MarionCounty;
  • dealing effectively with currently abandoned property;
  • preventing future vacancy and abandonment;
  • dealing with foreclosures; and
  • designing a robust redevelopment strategy.

B. Primary Roles for the City

Abandoned property results from a variety of factors, including private market weakness and uncoordinated civil and criminal code enforcement. Recognizing the interdependence of these factors, it is important to define our role as a city government given the extent of our legal authority, our expertise, and our ability to influence change.

As a city government, we view as our primary roles in meeting the objective of identifying, securing, stabilizing, and promoting reinvestment in abandoned properties:

  • Provide for public safety to stabilize neighborhoods;
  • Enforce code to mitigate property abandonment;
  • Provide leadership to leverage all available resources;
  • Maintain the public infrastructure to provide a positive environment for investment;
  • Secure abandoned properties to assemble property that is necessary for redevelopment or that can be sold to responsible property owners;
  • Strategically secure properties to meet redevelopment objectives; and,
  • Lead redevelopment planning for MarionCounty.

C. Framework of the City’s Response

The framework of our response to the challenge of property abandonment is straightforward and has four elements:

  • Information: Develop an integrated, parcel based data system that is publicly accessible so it can be used as a re/development tool by the City, private investors, and neighborhood residents.
  • Mitigation: Address existing property abandonment through enhanced code enforcement and stabilizing abandoned properties through the tax sale process.
  • Containment: Prevent more abandonment by encouraging investment in existing homes and through foreclosure prevention.
  • Redevelopment: Strategically link abandoned properties with redevelopment objectives.

D. Mayoral leadership

The scale of problem property abandonment in Indianapolis necessitates a city-wide strategy in order to mitigate and contain abandonment and to design a response that strategically links abandoned properties with redevelopment objectives. This city-wide strategy requires mayoral leadership that can engage community leaders and leverage resources of all kinds to truly affect change.

Mayor Ballard has taken the lead in dealing with this long-term problem. Abandoned properties can be community liabilities, or they can become community assets – and much of this depends upon a community’s ability to cooperatively and strategically invest their authority, expertise, and resources. Transforming abandoned properties from liabilities to assets involves the partnership of corporate, real estate, philanthropic, government, academic, and neighborhood leaders who will actively address the distinct but intersecting problems of property abandonment, foreclosures, and redevelopment.

Information:

What is the scale of the challenge?

Successful markets and effective government both depend upon quality information. Access to quality information about Indianapolis’s land supply is vital for public officials who make planning and development decisions. To make more effective investment decisions regarding the reuse of abandoned properties, it’s important that this information is available to developers, real estate brokers, nonprofit organizations and other community partners.

The City and its community partners understands the problem and scale of property abandonment in Indianapolis which will help align sufficient resources to address the challenge in its entirety. It is important that the City have access to information about the types and locations of abandoned properties. This access to information is critical to recognize specific needs and ripe opportunities where strategic intervention can transform these properties from community liabilities into community assets.

A. Importance of Information

The City, working with relevant stakeholders, will strive to consistently identify, organize, and track the community’s abandoned and vacant property inventory. This data will serve as an important tool and a substantial community resource. In making decisions about how to recycle individual abandoned properties or groups of them, the City and its community partners can be well served by having the answers to fundamental questions about each of those properties such as:

  • ownership;
  • occupancy;
  • geographic location;
  • physical condition;
  • tax status;
  • code violations;
  • zoning;
  • current market value;
  • location in strong or weak markets; and
  • location in designated redevelopment or revitalization areas.

Access to this information on a parcel level is a critical tool for successful code enforcement, identification of properties to secure through the tax sale process, abandonment prevention, and redevelopment.

B. Current Information

At present, the City requires a comprehensive, parcel level and geographic information about abandoned properties. However, there are several measures of vacancy and abandonment, at the aggregate level, which should be considered.

Based on the 2000 U.S. Census for MarionCounty, we know the following:

Occupied housing units352,164

Vacant units35,019 (represents 9% vacancy rate)

Vacant units for rent17,778

Vacant units for sale 4,355

Vacant units rented or sold2,390

Units for seasonal use1,326

Units for migrant workers12

Other9,158 (indicator of abandonment)

Since the 2000 U.S. Census, the City has built on this data in two ways:

  1. Securing parcel level data on property condition:
  • In 2003, the Department of Metropolitan Development (DMD) conducted its first vacant housing inventory that included parcel level descriptions of property condition according to an “A” through “E” rating scale.[*]
  • In 2008, the Department of Public Safety identified 12 of its beats experiencing the highest levels of crime and property abandonment. IMPD officers have been collecting and mapping parcel level, baseline data in these 12 geographic areas.

2.Securing updated county level data on property status:

  • In 2008, the Ballard administration recognized the need for both more information and improved data collection methods.
  • In the last several months, Mayor Ballard’s newly-formed IndyStat initiative has identified distressed abandoned properties based on a combination of real-time information, rather than a one-off inventory.

C. Improve Data