Hammering away at blight

August 25, 2008 12:33 pm

— THE TRIBUNE-DEMOCRAT
We empathize with responsible homeowners who agonize over blighted properties on their streets and in their neighborhoods. Run-down structures attract vermin, create fire risks and deflate property values – and that’s just part of it.
But in the case of the city of Johnstown, at least, we believe officials have done remarkably well in addressing a very costly, never-ending and what at times can be an almost impossible task.
That doesn’t mean they can’t do more. They have to.
“If the city’s going to revitalize itself, it’s got to clean up its act,” so succinctly observed one Minersville resident interviewed for a recent two-part story in this newspaper.
Seldom does a week pass that someone in our newsroom doesn’t receive a call, a letter or an e-mail from a frustrated property owner perplexed that his or her top blight pick hasn’t been torn down or its owner taken to court.
It’s just not that simple.
“Yes, we should do better,” said Ron Shomo, Johnstown’s codes and permitting director. “But it’s not for a lack of effort,” adding that those efforts – property inspections, mailings, meetings, court dates – still end fruitlessly far too often.
But for those efforts, the city still can roll out some eye-opening statistics, among them a 37 percent drop in the number of blighted properties since 2006, while houses that are vacant and/or blighted have decreased by 57 percent.
Its annual demolition efforts, financed mostly with ever-shrinking federal tax dollars, have led to 32 structures being razed during those same years.
That adds up to a lot of legwork and investigative man-hours and a huge expenditure.
While we compliment city officials on their efforts, we also urge them to work even harder. They already know some of the things they need to do, such as:
• Put more teeth into its latest ordinance regulating rental properties. Recommission a board of homeowners and landlords to assist.
• Convene on a regular basis its Vacant Property Review Committee, which, to this point, has been far too inactive.
• Step up code enforcement.
• Bolster efforts to find new owners for vacant houses by directing them to low-interest loans and offering tax breaks.
• Develop a long-range strategy for dealing with blight.
Three times in the past six or seven weeks blighted structures, including the former Johnstown Planing Mill, have partially collapsed. Luckily, no one was injured, and fortunately no lawsuits apparently re- sulted.
Obviously, much work remains in addressing a serious problem that never will go away. Residents often complain that “nothing is being done,” but in most cases, somebody’s trying to do something.
It might not work quickly, or at all in some cases. It’s just not as simple as many think.
They should understand, however, that their officials are not standing by idle.