Reprinted from www.timesunion.com
Guilderland
The town cracked down on vacant properties Tuesday night by unanimously adopting an ordinance that requires o
wners of vacant structures to register them, keep them neat and put up a $5,000 bond that the town can tap into if the property needs to be cleaned up.
“These properties don’t generally become public health issues, but they become unsightly and rundown,” said Town Supervisor Ken Runion.
Reprinted from Detroit Free Press
A new, five-year program to pair up entrepreneurs and property owners looking to repopulate Detroit with small businesses kicked off today with pledges of $2 million a year in grants to encourage redevelopment of vacant commercial space across the city.
The Motor City Match program will award $500,000 in grants quarterly to building owners and small-business startups, a key part of Mayor Mike Duggan’s 2013 campaign pledge to foster growth and jobs in neighborhood storefronts long vacant amid years of business flight from Detroit.
Reprinted from Detroit Free Press
Detroit’s fight to reduce blight has begun to focus more on vacant, dilapidated business properties marring the city’s landscape, with city lawyers quietly taking dozens of property owners to court in recent months to get them to either fix up or demolish their buildings.
A team of six lawyers in Detroit’s Law Department has brought more than 50 lawsuits in Wayne County Circuit Court against commercial property owners in the last nine months, many targeting blighted buildings that help tarnish neighborhoods.
Targeted so far have been the owners of properties ranging from a large, dilapidated apartment complex on the city’s west side, to a downtown high-rise and even a two-family duplex near Indian Village, one of the Detroit’s more stable neighborhoods.