Cleveland Council to Vote on Demolition Funds

Monday, February 2, 2009
Topics: Economy, Politics, Other
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Cleveland City Council today will consider Mayor Frank Jackson's proposal to spend more than 14 million dollars on demolishing abandoned homes. The money is part of Cleveland's 25.5 million dollar share from the federal Neighborhood Stabilization Program signed into law last July. Ideastream®'s Bill Rice reports.

The Housing and Urban Development funds are intended specifically to help cities deal with problems stemming from the foreclosure crisis.  Mayor Jackson has made tearing down abandoned and dilapidated homes a priority.  His legislation would spend 14.5 million dollars of the HUD money to demolish about 1,700 homes.  The rest would be used for other neighborhood housing programs. 

Council is also weighing a second measure - one that would mark a turning point in the relationship between Cleveland and HUD.  Anthony Brancatelli has long complained about the agency’s practice of selling condemned homes to out of town investors for next-to-nothing, without regard to those sales’ impact on property values.  Now HUD has agreed to allow the city to buy as many as 200 homes for 100 dollars each, to demolish or rehab as it sees fit.

Brancatelli:  “So now it is in our court.  We have the list, we have the inventory and we’re vetting that list right now to see which ones we want to put back to use.”

Brancatelli says 200 homes is a modest number, but hopes this is just the first round of such purchases.  Both measures will be considered today by council’s Finance Committee, with votes by the full council expected tonight. 

Bill Rice, 90.3