City Needs to Clean Up Old Messes Instead of Creating New Ones

EDITORIAL - by JIM ALBERT - Wednesday, July 15, 2009 - Several years ago Steve Frank suggested to the City Commission that the City of Ironwood partner with Gogebic Community College's Building Trades Program; area Realtors; and local contractors to acquire blighted properties throughout the City; rehab them; then sell or rent them.

The City has an over-abundance of blighted houses and other buildings. It makes little sense to expand the City by developing green-space, when so many blighted, abandoned properties exist within the City limits. Currently the City budgets $30,000 to demolish severely blighted buildings. Many times, the buildings the City is demolishing are not owned by the City. A prime example of this is Sharon's Place on East Aurora Street. The City will be spending almost half of their "demolition" budget to raze a building on land that is currently held by the State of Michigan for back taxes. The best the City can hope for is that someone buys the property at minimum-bid auction in August so that they can recoup some of their expenses. If nobody purchases the property in August, it is possible that someone could buy it for as little as $1.00 in the October no-minimum-bid auction.

Few would argue that a building like Sharon's is worth saving, and most would agree that the building needs to come down. But there are literally hundreds of abandoned houses in Ironwood that could be saved; remodeled; rehabbed; then sold or rented.

Gogebic Community College Building Trades students learn how to build new homes, but they experience very little remodeling or rehabbing. With the current economic downturn, more and more contractors will become more and more reliant on remodeling than new construction.

If the City developed an aggressive plan to attack severe code violations, it could easily obtain ownership to the most neglected properties. Instead of paying to demolish these dilapidated buildings, work out contracts with the college; local contractors; or even private individuals that will deed them ownership provided they (1) raze the building by a specific deadline; and (2) construct a new home on the existing lot.

Likewise when houses are structurally sound, they can be deeded to the college; local contractors; or even private individuals providing they (1) correct any and all code violations by a specific deadline; and (2) agree to rehab the home to an acceptable standard.

When lots are undersized and it is not possible to rebuild, several options exist:

When a blighted home (represented as slanted black above) is sandwiched between two occupied and maintained properties (white above), the City could raze the blighted home and deed half of the lot to each of the adjacent homeowners.

Each homeowners property would be improved by having the blighted home removed, and they would each increase the size of their yards. Larger lot sizes would eventually mean slightly higher taxes and an increased tax base.

When two blighted homes are located next to each other (black slanted above) and are on undersized lots, the two buildings can be razed and a single new home can be built on the property.

The City should also work aggressively to eliminate congested neighborhoods. There are several neighborhoods in the City of Ironwood where homes are dangerously close to one another.

Incentives for current homeowners and programs for vacant buildings should be created that will encourage relocating homes from congested areas. Moving the vacant home to an existing, but larger lot makes sense.

Other communities have greatly improved they're housing profile by approaching existing problems in innovate ways. The very fact that there are so many homes in such bad condition within the City shows that Ironwood's approach at the problem needs to be re-examined. Our population continues to decline. Every year more and more houses are abandoned and left to decay. It makes no sense to keep traveling the same road to nowhere. We need to start exploring new avenues so that we can truly move forward.

Jim Albert