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,~ .~, CITY OF NORTH OLMSTED RESOLUTION N0.2006 -10 By: Mayor O'Grady and All Members of Council ~_ A RESOLUTION IN SUPPORT OF HOUSE BILL NO. 294 TO AUTHORIZE COUNTY BOARDS OF REVISION TO CONDUCT ADMINISTRATIVE FORECLOSURE PROCEEDINGS UPON TAX LIENS AGAINST STATUTORILY DEFINED "ABANDONED LANDS, " AND DECLARING AN EMERGENCY. WHEREAS, for years, vacant, abandoned and vandalized properties in our communities (particularly urban areas) have proven vexing to cities and neighborhood development groups. Every year, cities spend hundreds of thousands of dollars cleaning, demolishing and pursuing the elusive owners of these properties, and, year after year, these blight-ridden properties diminish the property values of the surrounding neighborhoods thereby perpetuating the decay on a broad scale; and WHEREAS, a preponderance of these properties are real estate tax delinquent properties, which, thus, in addition to perpetuating neighborhood blight, also contribute to a loss of much needed tax revenues to our cities and schools; and WHEREAS, the normal judicial tax foreclosure process is dauntingly long for vacant, abandoned and vandalized properties undergoing tax foreclosure-- sometime lasting two years or more, as a result of heavy court dockets, statutorily imposed procedural impediments, human resource issues, and attorneys adept at prolonging the process by artful use of the court rules of procedure; and WHEREAS, House Bill 294 would provide for a very limited select group of real estate tax foreclosure cases involving real property statutorily-defined to be "abandoned lands," to be prosecuted administratively in the County Board of Revision where the property is located; and WHEREAS, such administrative process established by House Bi11294 would protect the due process rights of the owners of such abandoned lands, and would further provide for administrative appeals from final orders in such administrative foreclosures to the courts of common pleas, pursuant to R.C. Chapter 2506; and WHEREAS, it is the expectation of the sponsor of House Bill 294 that it will shorten the foreclosure process for tax liens against vacant, abandoned and vandalized properties from the current two-three year period to, instead, 90-180 day periods; and WHEREAS, it is anticipated that the benefits of House Bill 294 will be far-reaching. Municipalities and neighborhood development groups will immediately be able to assemble clean title to abandoned properties, stop the crippling decay of such properties in surrounding neighborhoods, and get such properties more quickly back onto the tax-paying duplicate; and WHEREAS, the State County Treasurers Association has officially given its support to the passage of House Bi11294;