In early September, Sheri Davis-Faulkner, of the WCA, participated in the Center for Community Progress’s Reclaiming Vacant Properties Conference in Philadelphia, PA with the support of the Ford Foundation. The conference offered best practices and tools for assessing vacant properties and blight in communities across America that have been hit hard by the foreclosure crisis. There were sessions about addressing blight through community land trusts and land banks, community programs to maintain vacant properties, data collection tools for quantitative and qualitative assessments of vacant properties, and more. There were representatives from City of Atlanta Planning Office and Code Enforcement, Fulton County Land Bank, HELP.org, Occupy Our Homes, Rights to Da City, and the Westside Communities Alliance.
Learn more about the 2013 Reclaiming Vacant Properties Conference: http://www.communityprogress.net/2013-reclaiming-vacant-properties-conference-pages-356.php
The WCA held a follow up meeting with the two community organizations from Washington Park and English Ave./Vine City interested in community land trusts to discuss ways that we might be supportive with their assessment. We are continuing to explore community land trust models with our partners and invite graduate students and faculty to share their expertise in this area. Learn more about
A month later, Davis-Faulkner and fellow WCA staff member Mackenzie Madden, attended the Piece by Piece Neighborhood Investment Conference in Atlanta. The half-day event convened institutional investors, regional government leaders, affordable housing stakeholders and others for a collaborative discussion about recent real estate investment trends and strategies to ensure long-term health and viability of metro Atlanta neighborhoods. It was broken up into five panels:
– Understanding the Issues and Context
– The Role of Private Equity Investors
– Learning from Phoenix, AZ
– The Role of Code Enforcement
– Vision for the Future of Atlanta Neighborhoods
Some interesting facts they picked up were:
– 52% of Metro Atlanta resale homes were purchased by investors.
– Most PEIs (private equity investors) deferred the definition of “affordability” to a consultant underwriting service.
– Public/private partnerships are successful in making a neighborhood look more attractive to investors.
– There are currently 3,100 active/open cases in Atlanta for Code Enforcement.
- 800 of those have been forwarded to In Rem
- 25 cases are vacant/dilapidated
– The biggest challenge in Code Enforcement is locating absentee landlords – almost $50,000 a month is spent on this.
– It costs the City upwards of $25,000 to demolish a property.
– The second biggest challenge is the state law and available resources.
– 2,020 properties are currently on the Vacant Property Registration.
Find links to all of the presentations (slides and audio) here: http://www.piecebypieceatlanta.org/nic/index.html