Minutes from Problem Properties Collaborative Meeting: Monday October 1, 2007

  1. Cathy Marcinko began the meeting with a presentation on the City of Memphis Preservation Plan. A copy of this presentation will be available on the blog this week. If you are interested in learning more or getting involved, please contact Cathy at or 901 278-3268
  1. Packaged Cases for Environmental Court: Presented by TK Buchanan.

We have packaged five cases using nuisance abatement and civil summons (3262 Park, 986 Peabody, 581 Lundee, 119 Crenshaw, and a church) for Environmental Court. These properties are on main streets, have several code violations, impact community health and safety, and have neighbors that have filed complaints repeatedly. We are pushing to nominate 12 more properties for each month moving forward; particularly those with gateway access and high impact properties. We are also looking for properties to test the new receivership and nuisance abatement policies.

For more information on submitting problem properties to the PPC and CBANA, please see the following contacts for TK Buchanan: FAX 901 678-1483, PHONE 901 678-1188, or EMAIL . Problem Property Audit forms can be accessed by visiting our PPC blog at

  1. Report of National Vacant Properties Campaign Conference: Presented by Olliette Murry-Drobot and Beanie Self.

The National Vacant Properties Campaign hosted their first annual conference this year in Pittsburg. The campaign works to bring the issue of vacant and abandoned properties to national attention. We are a partner of the NVPC and have collaborated with Joe Schilling on much of the Problem Properties Collaborative objectives. Based on what we saw at the conference, PPC is ahead of the curve in many initiatives. There were 627 in attendance.Beanie Self presented in the workshop “Strengthening Neighborhood Markets”. Phyllis spoke about data driven efforts to reduce blight. Judge Potter served on a panel for the conference. Potter has been a part of the PPC discussion for a long time. Cleveland, for example, has many vacant properties. They have prioritized their budget so that the funding for their environmental court is much larger then that of the entire judiciary budget. For additional information about the conference, please take a look at the blog for link to the NVPC website.

PPC doubled in membership. This is giving us the opportunity to work on several different things. Conference had tools for anti-blight strategies such as land banks, renovations, alternate uses for vacant properties, regulation/legislation (not sure about state but local too), environmental courts, best practices recommended by Joe Schilling. People from all over the country were there; rural communities and big city communities. There was a lot of exchanging of ideas and people demonstrating change. We originally learned about receivership here at the conference. We brought it back and after two legislative years, we finally got it passed. We also brought another idea back: rental registration. It is meant to reduce blight through more active record keeping.

  1. PPC Candidates’ Forum: Presented by Olliette Murray-Drobot

We had 160 people at the Mayoral Forum. It focused on what candidates could do and hopefully developed some informed strategies on community development.

  1. Mid-South Delta LISC Conference Presentation: Presented by TK and Olliette

Tk and Olliette presented to a group of CDCs at the Mid-South Delta conference a few weeks ago. We discussed lessons learned, the structure of PPC, and strategies. The group seemed very interested in the work of PPC. They are particularly interested in or policy work.

  1. Anti-Blight Coalition (Role of PPC): Presented by Olliette

Many of you have heard of the Anti-blight coalition (ABC) through the Clean up Campaign. Glenn, Emily, Olliette, and Phyllis are on this committee. They are the only non-government individuals on the committee. There is twenty-five million dollars to be used over a five year period time for demolition of properties. There was some back and forth steps that delayed initiatives for using the money. First, ABC went through county and we have found out that we need to go through city for legal channels. Marcus Ward, a lawyer for HCD, is drawing up a plan for us right now. There should be an update on this within the next two weeks. It’ll probably focus on residential demolition rather then commercial demolition. The city wants the Anti-blight Coalition to focus on residential because of the amount of money it takes to demolish commercial lots. We could probably get more done clearing residential properties then commercial properties. We can focus on apartments and commercial units later.

The next general PPC meeting will be Monday November 5, 2007 at the Urban Child Institute. The meeting will focus on developing the priorities for PPC for next year. We will send a survey for members to complete prior to that meeting.