Explanation
BACKGROUND: This legislation enacts Chapter 4519 of the Columbus City Codes to create a Foreclosed Property Registry.
Foreclosed properties pose a danger to the public health, safety and welfare. Several studies have demonstrated that foreclosed properties can quickly become blighted and are at greater risk of becoming vacant and abandoned properties than other properties in the city. Locating the person in control of the property or responsible for the care and maintenance of the property is often an impossible task, mired in disputes between the mortgagee, mortgagor, servicer, and subservicer. Accordingly, citations for property maintenance are routinely ignored at these properties, placing properties at increased risk for becoming unsecured, vandalized, and hazardous.
The proliferation of these foreclosed properties has caused blight to flourish, providing havens for criminal activity; destroying the safety of neighborhoods; posing dangerous risks to the city’s firefighters, police officers, and code enforcement officials; depleting already scarce city resources; diminishing property values throughout the city; undermining the city’s ability to enforce its criminal laws; and interfering with the city’s duty to protect its citizens from unsafe and harmful conditions.
The purpose of this chapter is to ensure that foreclosed properties are protected and maintained and that city officials are alerted to the location of these vulnerable properties. This chapter is enacted in order to address the problem of blighted properties that are a direct result of foreclosed properties and that pose a threat to the public health, safety, and welfare.
FISCAL IMPACT: No Impact
Title
To enact Chapter 4519 of the Columbus City Codes to create a Foreclosed Property Registry.
Body
WHEREAS, foreclosed properties pose a danger to the public health, safety and welfare; and
WHEREAS, foreclosed properties can quickly become blighted and are at greater risk of be...
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