Sell City Owned Vacant Properties

The Goal: Sell City Owned Vacant Properties

The Problem: The city does not reveal how many vacant properties it owns. The vacant lots and buildings are horrible blights upon neighborhoods. They are used to store drugs, pile up trash, and conduct all sorts of illegal activity. The negative psychological effects on both young and old are immeasurable. Yet, we are living through a period during which there is great demand for real estate in Baltimore. There are many people who want to buy these properties and begin rehabilitations. At the same time, Baltimore needs new revenue sources. The property the city owns is perhaps the most valuable commodity Baltimore has that can be converted in to beneficial revenue. What are we waiting for?

The Solution: Baltimore needs to have a goal of converting empty city owned property in to at least $50,000,000 of Revenue by selling it to those who will improve the property by 2010. In order to do this the City must take the following two steps:

Step 1: The Baltimore Housing Department needs transparency now! It needs to create a Web site that lists every vacant property Baltimore owns and how much money Baltimore would require in order to sell it to private individuals/entities. This Web site needs to be the focus of a major marketing effort by the Housing Department. Once such information is made public, creative individuals and businesses can develop imaginative ways of turning the empty houses, lots, and commercial establishments into something other than vacant eyesores. Bids and proposals would be due 2 months after publication and decisions would be made a month after. For residential property, home owner-occupants would be favored over developers. Vacant lots bordering owner-occupied houses would be first offered to those bordering home owners for a minimum of $5000. There should also be a commercial section that favors those who want to bring jobs back to the city (light industry etc…). All construction must be completed 18 months from the purchase date (mega projects excluded). All purchasers must pay three years of property tax in advance. If 5,000 properties are sold for an average of $10,000 Baltimore will generate $50 million in revenue just from these sales. Future property tax revenue would also be enormous.

Step 2: The above process should not end until every vacant Baltimore property has been sold for at least the original listing price. Once the properties are back on the tax roles they will generate an incredible amount of property tax revenue that will allow the City to lower property taxes. With far fewer vacant properties, there will be far fewer places to dump trash, less opportunity to conduct illegal activity, and a drastic reduction in depressing eyesores.