BY TIMOTHY LAROCHE
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CLAREMONT -— A proposed fund for the cleanup of blighted properties will advance to the City Council this month after more than a month of Finance Committee deliberation.
Finance Committee members approved a motion on Tuesday to present a noncapital reserve fund for code enforcement to the City Council at a meeting March 28.
If the fund passes council vote, city staffers will have access to a funds for demolition, cleanup or other costs associated with rehabilitating blighted properties. Money for the fund would come from the sale of properties taken by tax deed.
“I think it does everything that we were looking for it to do,” Assistant Mayor Allen Damren said of the proposal.
The proposal saw several revisions as it meandered through three Finance Committee meetings. The initial resolution proposed at the Feb. 15 City Council meeting was redirected to the Finance Committee after it drew criticism from councilors about unspecific wording.
At a meeting on Feb. 21, committee members requested more information about the sale of city properties before the resolution could move forward.
Revised wording of the resolution specifies that the fund will be replenished from the sale of properties taken through tax deed — a tool that the city can use when homeowners neglect to pay taxes for several years.
However, revenue from the sale of tax-deeded properties in excess of the amount owed to the city in back taxes is returned to the property owner. With sales also happening infrequently, Finance Committee members opted not to cap the fund to allow it to grow to usable amount.
Since March 2014, the city has taken in $325,056 from sale of 17 tax-deeded properties. With $505,779 owed to the city in taxes on the properties, the sales recouped almost 65 percent of the back taxes.
About 25 percent of the revenue from the properties came from the sale of 54 Windsor Road for $82,000.
After significant deliberation through the Finance Committee, the resolution will not move to the policy committee for input.
“I think we beat this horse into the ground pretty good,” Councilor Jeremy Zullo said.
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