Another strategy in blight fight

The elimination of urban blight in Memphis is a long-term goal of Mayor A C Wharton, who’s getting a useful assist from state Sen. Jim Kyle.

The Memphis Democrat is a member of the Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, which he has asked to find out what’s being done around the country to overcome various barriers to the acquisition and rehabilitation of abandoned property.

“We’re at the start of the process,” Kyle says. “You know, nothing just happens. The rules we have and the restrictions we have didn’t just come about. There were reasons behind them all. I want to go back to the genesis question: Why are we doing it like this?

“Something’s wrong when people are living under bridges and there are empty houses.”

Some progress in the war on blight was registered in March when the City Council approved a vacant property registry proposed by the Wharton administration that required mortgage lenders to register abandoned single-family homes and condominiums that are delinquent on city property taxes.

But blight is a long-term problem in Memphis that became even more difficult during the recession and the wave of foreclosures that hit some areas of the city like a sledgehammer blow.

In a 2010 audit by the University of Memphis Center for Community Building and Neighborhood Action Citywide, about 43,500 residential properties failed to meet the city’s anti-blight housing code.

Whether a solution lies in tax forgiveness or government assistance or something else remains to be seen.

Evidence that barriers to action still exist was revealed during a recent tour of Frayser by Kyle, Tennessee Housing Development Agency Executive Director Ralph Perrey, along with Steve Lockwood, executive director of the Frayser Community Development Corp., John Baker, executive director of the city’s Health, Educational and Housing Facility Board, and executives with ALCO Management.

Progress has been made in the area, but difficulty finding the owners of abandoned, blighted houses that have accumulated a heavy tax bill is still holding back some rehabilitation plans of willing developers.

The rights of property owners must be respected, but along with those rights comes the responsibility to be good stewards of the land. Whether property has been abandoned through hardship or neglect, the path toward rehabilitation should be smooth.

Not meeting that responsibility infringes on the rights of others to enjoy the benefits of a neat and orderly neighborhood, stable property values and fewer magnets for crime.