Rome on cutting edge for dealing with zombie properties – Utica Observer Dispatch

Samantha Madison

ROME Rome is setting an example for the rest of the state on how to handle zombie properties under a new state law passed last year.

In a recent meeting with the Rome Common Council, Chief Code Enforcement Officer Mark Domenico said the city is getting ready to take action against Bank of America for a property it owns at 107 N. Jay St. This is the first action in the state to be taken under the new law.

Believe it or not, Rome, New York, is the model figuring this thing out for the state, Domenico said. I called (someone from the state) the other day and said, Were ready to prosecute this. Enoughs enough; its been a month, no action. Lets test it and see what we can do.

Zombie properties are vacant and abandoned homes that are not maintained during a prolonged foreclosure proceeding.

City officials were aggressive in finding information about the new law afterGov. Andrew Cuomosigned it, as well as learning how it applies to Rome, said Mayor Jacqueline Izzo. That law requires banks and lending agencies to keep up properties that are in foreclosure, and also will establish a state registry of foreclosed properties so the public knows who owns them.

The city wanted to find out how to create the database required by the new law and how they would be allowed and expected to enforce it, she said.

Rome already has a Real Property Committee, which has moved more than $1 million in foreclosed and abandoned properties back to the tax rolls through general sales and rehabilitation agreements, Izzo said.

This is an offshoot of the closure of Griffiss Air Force Base, Izzo said. Our community had to react differently than maybe other upstate cities did because we lost so much population and so many rentals all at once. So we really had to be on the forefront of figuring out how to deal with this problem of a lot of surplus property coming onto the foreclosure list.

Those successes encouraged the city to apply for a $150,000 grant to help establish the database. The grant was awarded to the city and then partnered with Rome Main Streets Alliance to go through the city and document all of the zombie properties and those that are abandoned.

From there, Rome Main Streets has created two positions that are responsible for going through each street, neighborhood by neighborhood, and finding houses that match the zombie property classification. As of last week, the pair had made it through wards one and two and part of three.

The pair is looking at every vacant property in the city.

The only thing that is eligible to be under this zombie law, its only for one-, two-, three- and four-family homes, anything else its not eligible, Domenico said. The other thing is it has to have a bank interest in it in the way of a mortgage. If its a bank-owned property, its not a zombie. It has to be a property that the bank has a mortgage interest in, period. That is critical.

David Amidon, president of Rome Main Streets, said the citys ability to be on the forefront of this zombie property legislation puts Rome in a positive light. He said having the two staff members go around and audit the citys vacant properties will hopefully help boost the city and get more people paying property taxes.

Well hopefully start to see some action in some of these vacant properties being at least brought up to codes and hopefully if we can get ahold of them, make them livable and get people in there, contributing to our tax base, Amidon said.

Follow OD_Madison on Twitter or call her at 315-792-5015.

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