Marion aggressively fighting blight, tearing down 500 houses in 5-6 years

When he campaigned in 2003, Mayor Wayne Seybold promised to reduce blight in Marion.

"Once we're done with the grant money ($1.4 million) we should be close to having all blighted properties torn down," he said. "Had we not been working this for the last 11 years we wouldn't have that situation. We could have a couple thousand blighted properties if we were not staying on top of it."

Building Commissioner Larry Oradat said demolishing blighted properties costs a pretty penny. He said debris usually fills about 12 dumpsters at 10 tons and that each dumpster costs $600 to $650. Depending on the size of the house, contractors get $2,500 to $7,500 for their efforts. Then there is the manpower to backfill basements, remove concrete and plant grass and the costs for erosion control, rat control and so forth. Oradat said one financial benefit is the City owns a crane and that cuts the overall expense nearly in half.

Before state-mandated property tax caps reduced funds, the City spent anywhere from $200,000 to $500,000 annually to demolish blight. Oradat recalled one year in which the City spent about $550,000 to tear down 90-some properties.

In recent years, the total spent on blight elimination has dropped to $100,000 annually. Seybold said the funding for the Blight Elimination Program will reduce the timeframe for the City to demolish all of the properties by at least 15 years.

One of the prerequisites to receive the grant was that the City already own the properties scheduled for demolition. The City initially condemned and tore houses down, but that only partially solved the problem and subsequently created another. The City was left to take care of properties owned by others.

"My contention was how do we get control of these properties?" Seybold said. "And that's when we dove into state statute and came up with this program where we went to the county and said, 'OK, most of these houses no one's paying property tax on. Why don't you go after these people and if they don't pay seize the house?' They said, 'We don't have time or money to do that,' so we said, 'OK, we'll do it. Deed all the houses over to us and we'll go through the process,' and they did - about 800 properties."

Commissioner Mike Burton (R-District 3) said there is a noticeable decline in blighted properties in certain sections of Marion. He described the cooperative effort between the commissioners and City as producing positive results in the fight against blight.

"The feedback we've received is all positive that it's accomplishing the goal of the program," Burton said.

A significant number of companies or individuals that lived outside of Marion or Indiana for that matter owned the blighted properties. Seybold said companies bought the properties at tax sales just to increase the number of properties in their land portfolios. The mayor decided to aggressively attack the issue by condemning the houses, tearing down the structures and sending the companies the bill. Seybold said that drastically reduced the number of companies that bought properties on tax sale.

The City turned some of the demolished properties into community gardens, and in a few instances, a neighbor bought the lot. In some instances, the City left the structure up and sold the property to individuals at a discounted rate.

"There are people who never thought they'd have a home ownership who were able to buy houses and fix them up and now they have home ownership," Seybold said. "We've had cities from all over the state come and look at our program."

Janet Pearson, assistant director of community development, reported the City has spent about $300,000 to purchase blighted property and has sold $450,000 worth.

Oradat said the number of vacant lots is about 250. That is burdensome for the City mowing crew, which to this point has mowed about 40 percent of the properties.

Inmates provide their services for mowing, and the City budgeted $50,000 to hire an outside contractor.

"Inmates can't do it all. They have other duties they need to help with the City," Oradat said. "... The bid on the parcels was $55 a parcel or lot. That'll mow about 220 properties four times. I'm going to try and do that and then everything else mow with the inmates."

According to Seybold, the burden of taking care of the lots is worth eliminating blighted property in the City.

"We went from having all of these abandoned properties to becoming the largest code violator in the city," Seybold said.

Unkempt lawns aside, Oradat said Marion is prettier, cleaner and safer than when blighted properties numbered in the thousands. Marion Police Chief David Gilbert agreed with Oradat. He credited the demolition of abandoned properties for easing the burden on his department.

Oradat suggested anyone unsatisfied with the local blight elimination effort drive around Anderson, Kokomo and Muncie and check out the thousands of unsightly structures that remain upright.

"Not very many communities can say they've torn down 500 houses in five or six years," Oradat said. "No one can."