Blackstone officials ramp up efforts against blighted properties

BLACKSTONE – The town is ramping up efforts to get tough on eyesore properties and is hoping to place seven of the town’s most blighted and abandoned properties in the state attorney general’s Abandoned Housing Initiative in hopes the agency will use its enforcement authority to turn those properties around.

At a meeting Tuesday, the selectmen voted to support Acting Code Enforcement Officer Colleen M. Strapponi and Board of Health member Kevin J. Ryan’s list of properties for placement in the pro- gram. The properties are 26 Miller St.; 45 County St.; 1239 Social St.; 1618 Ives St.; 10 Ives St.; 40 Federal St.; and 648 Rathbun St.

The AG’s Abandoned Housing Initiative employs the State Sanitary Code to seek out delinquent owners of distressed and abandoned residential properties and to have them bring those homes back into code compliance. If an owner refuses, assistant attorneys general within AHI can petition the court to appoint a receiver to complete the needed repairs, with a lien placed on the home for the value of the work. The receiver is then compensated when the property is sold.

The initiative was started in 2014 to address the lasting impacts of the foreclosure crisis.

Strapponi says the seven Blackstone properties in question are the worst of the worst, but that there are many more that need to be addressed.

The town began ramping up efforts to get tough on blighted properties and recoup delinquent fines about four years ago when it began seeing a increase in abandoned, vacant properties, many of which were foreclosed on and owned by the banks.

When a property is foreclosed on, it’s up to the banks to hire a local property management com- pany to keep up the property. But that hasn’t always been the case in Blackstone where town officials have had to force compliance from lenders who often are large national corporations from out of state.

Strapponi told selectmen Tuesday that the health department has had some success, citing two particular properties it was able to turn around.

“We have been successful contacting the banks and mortgage companies that are maintaining some of these properties and having them work towards bringing them into compliance,” she said.

Two such blighted properties - 6 First Avenue and 4 Carol Lane – were some of the worst town health officials had ever come across.

“There was so much garbage and refuse in the the backyard at one of the properties it took two 40-yard dumpsters to clean it up,” she said. “We contacted the mortgage companies that foreclosed on them and now they are in compliance.”

Strapponi says her office monitors the Worcester County Registry of Deeds daily.

“Once the banks take possession of a property, that’s when we can move forward,” she said.