The Greensboro City Council passed a resolution giving the city the right to take people’s property rights away and give them to a “receiver” if the vacant property is in a bad state of repair and the property owner won’t repair it.
The receivership program represents new authority given to municipalities by the North Carolina General Assembly in 2020. Greensboro would have to go through the courts, but it gives the city much more power in handling property that is in disrepair.
Councilmember Justin Outling described the receivership program as “giving the city another tool in the tool box” in dealing with dilapidated buildings.
Two things that are remarkable about this new receivership program is that the City Council has not discussed the receivership program at a public meeting and that it was passed on the consent agenda.
The consent agenda is a list of what are supposed to be “routine and housekeeping type” items that don’t require discussion. Items such as setting the date for a public hearing, along with minor adjustments to the budget and minor change orders to contracts are usually found on the consent agenda. All the items on the sometimes lengthy consent agenda are passed with one vote.
Starting a new program that gives the city the authority to go to court and take rights away from a property owner because a building is in a state of disrepair and give it to a receiver, who will repair and can then sell it, is a much bigger deal than setting the date for a public hearing on a rezoning request.
Outling agreed that it was somewhat odd to have the program on the consent agenda, “In terms of it being a substantive item that really is progress for the city.”
But he added that it did make sense from the standpoint that no one was going to vote against it.
The City Council has not held a work session on this program, nor has it discussed it at a regular City Council meeting.
Outling said that he saw the receivership program much like the changes to the minimum housing code in 2016 that gave the city the authority to go in and repair buildings and place a lien on the building for the cost of those repairs.
Outling said that with the receivership program it would be a third party, not the city, spending money to make the repairs the buildings, so the receiver would be taking the financial risk.
Outling also noted that the final decisions on whether or not a receiver was appointed and how much authority the receiver was given was up to the courts, after a petition was filed by the Minimum Housing Standards Commission.
According to the information provided by the city, the receivership program is for vacant dilapidated buildings, but in actuality if a building has one major or five minor building code violations the city could start the process. Minor violations include such things as peeling paint and cracked plaster.
The resolution that was passed was, according to a city report, for a pilot program for 20 properties. However, there is nothing in the resolution that says pilot program or limits the city’s program to 20 properties.
Yeah, this wont be abused. It always starts out like this, “hey, these are dilapidated buildings!”
But once the camels nose is under the tent you quickly find the whole herd in the tent with you.
Look people to get pushed off their property, with no compensation, and their land given to developers ( who coincdently provided a nice wad of money to local officials) with vague justifcation given about people not taking care of their land.
I mean, this already happens, but now that criminal behaviour has been given legal justification.
This is a gateway drug to communism. People think that the commies are people who want to redistribute property to everyone.
in reality, the commies are a front for powerful financial interest who use fake morality plays and fake concern for “the people” to drive property values down so that speculators can swoop and buy them out for pennies on the dollar.
In this case, the commies in the government are litterally GIVING your property away.
They are doing wrong once again takeing things from folk who might not have the means to get it fixed. This is what we been speaking bout
Outrageous! What’s the stop contractors from coming in and bidding on a property where does that money go to? It should go to the taxpayer if they’re going to sell it for profit. I understand there’s a lot of variables in that with landlords not taking care of their property, but to take it from them. They should at least get the tax assessment value. Oh my welcome to the state of North Carolina were they don’t follow standard operating procedures
It would be a bonanza for developers if our Mayor and council would actually protect folks and their properties instead of funneling violent protesters into narrow corridors with zero consequences for vandalism and violence. How many arrests from the initial George Floyd protests that turned violent downtown and at Friendly?
This is very disconcerting. The fact it was approved by the NC General Assembly earlier this year is problematic itself.
Your local BB DemGov at (in)action.
Bust up da Coop.
Sounds like slum lords in the other statements. A much needed program in so many areas.