EDITORIAL: Gary's new approach to blight

But the city can’t stop and wait for a few hundred properties to be demolished using these funds. That’s a mere drop in a mighty big bucket.

During Mayor Karen Freeman-Wilson’s first term, volunteers looked at buildings throughout the city — a process that took two years — and identified the condition of each building. They found 6,900 derelict buildings that needed to come down.

With blight that extensive, waiting on the government to demolish those properties or provide the funding for contractors to do so isn’t practical. Turning the city around requires private buy-in, both in terms of commitment and capital.

Gary officials have found a smart way of attracting that investment. MaiaCo LLC is one of two entities that responded to a Gary Redevelopment Commission request for proposals for partners in redeveloping the city.

The other proposal came from Jim Nowacki, a thorn in the Freeman-Wilson administration’s side. Redevelopment Commission director Joseph Van Dyke didn’t consider the handwritten proposal because, he said, it lacked supporting documentation and didn’t spell out the resources Nowacki would be able to provide.

It is important to remove derelict buildings to make the city safer and more attractive to economic development. But that’s just the first step.

MaiaCo proposes to help fund the city’s acquisition of blighted properties and then help market them to developers that would rebuild on the sites. It would split profits from the sale of that property with the city.

Contract negotiations are still underway, so it would be premature to say this will work as intended. But the city has little to lose and a lot to gain through this kind of public-private partnership.

The properties that would be cleared and redeveloped are public safety hazards, luring criminals to the city. Need we remind anyone of the bodies found in abandoned buildings in the city?

Gary’s leaders must continue to be creative and innovative in pursuing other resources to deal with blighted properties that number in the thousands. The MaiaCo proposal, a public-private partnership, is showing some promise in this endeavor.