Kansas City Blight Fight Deets Exposed

Again, apropos for #TBT, this is an ongoing effort that hasn't shown much progress over MOST of the modern era . . . Check a breakdown of new legislation . . . 

The first two ordinances target a practice that city leaders and advocates call “demolition by neglect.”

That’s when a property owner is prohibited from bulldozing a historic building, so they neglect the property and purposefully let it deteriorate. 

After a while, the property begins to crumble. The ceiling leaks, pests chew holes in the walls, and the structure becomes unstable. At that point, the property owner asks the city to list it as a “dangerous building,” which allows them to bulldoze it, regardless of its historic status.

The third proposed ordinance targets absentee owners of empty lots and buildings to hold them accountable for whatever blight the properties may cause.

Read more via www.TonysKansasCity.com link . . .

Empty lots, collapsed roofs and abandoned homes: KC tries to prevent more hollowed-out neighborhoods

'When you have widespread vacancy,' said Alana Henry, the executive director of the Ivanhoe Neighborhood Council, 'it's reflective of a dying community, and that feeling of stagnation or death can be absorbed by the inhabitants.'