184145741
If you took a stroll down the 1500 block of South Taylor Street, you wouldn’t think South Philly is booming like it is. There are a total of 10 vacant properties with boarded up doors and windows, and five of them bear orange warning signs courtesy of the City’s Department of Licenses & Inspections.
“No Trespassing,” they read, “[L & I] has cleaned and sealed this property. Imprisonment for 2 years and/or Fine $5,000.00 Each Offense. Enforcement by the Philadelphia Police Department.” One such address, 1522 S. Taylor St., is high up on a list of the top 20 most dangerous vacant properties, according to a report released this month by the City Controller’s office. It ranks 15th with three other South Philly zip code addresses on the list: 1214 S. 18th St. (fifth), 1227 S. 24th St. (13th) and 1013 S. Seventh St. (16th)
However, the list is based on L&I inspections, data and outdated records. The South 24th Street house is renovated, a “For Sale” sign appears on the door. A neighbor said she thinks it was an elderly resident’s death that left the house vacant for years, incurring 10 L&I violations before refurbishments. And dozens of properties around Point Breeze don’t have those L&I orange signs and should: abandoned houses with open doors and windows invite crime and arson and threaten physical safety.
The Controller’s report says there are a total of 1,215 vacant properties in violation of code, 791 of them are “Open and/or not in compliance with City Code.” 101 of them are the most dangerous, “considered Unsafe, Imminently Dangerous or Hazardous with conditions that were not in compliance.”
Their zip code breakdown of vacant properties is particularly fascinating. Of the 47 zips in Philadelphia, the top seven zip codes are all in Northeast Philly: 60 in Frankford’s 19124 leads the pack. The following six are spread throughout Port Richmond, and the zips along Frankford Avenue up to Olney and Fox Chase. South Philly’s 19146, characterized by Point Breeze and Grays Ferry, is the highest on the list south of South Street, ranking eighth with 31 properties; 19148 is 14th with 23; 19145 is 18th with 18; and 19147 is 37th with only nine listings.
“L&I has been a constant target for us, but we recognize that they’ve been starved for resources for over 10 years. We have a long history of being on this issue,” City Controller Alan Butkovitz said.
He added that NBC 10 sent a list of questions to his office in December, and they decided to investigate and report on privately-held vacant properties (they issued a report in 2010 that addressed publicly-held lands, and Butkovitz said “it wasn’t dramatic as this report”).
“We worked cooperatively with L&I to exchange information and to prioritize the properties that needed to be demolished,” the controller reported, adding “when we got closer to the conclusion [of the report] they started to be non-responsive.”
Despite numerous phone calls and e-mails, L&I never responded for comment.
“Under the City of Philadelphia’s Code, the owner of a vacant structure or lot is required to obtain a license with the Licenses and Inspections Department,” the report reads. Applicants for a license have to provide a contact name, address and their Philadelphia Business Income and Receipts Tax Number. The cost is $150 per year, and it must be obtained no more than 30 days following vacating the building. “City Code also requires owners to take measures to prevent unauthorized entry to the premises,” the report notes, “including securing windows, doors, or any other openings accessible to trespassers or vermin.”
There are hundreds of open windows throughout Point Breeze. There are boarded up properties without orange signs at the corners of 21st and 23rd and Federal streets and several along the 2300 block of Federal Street. But a real sight is the former home of the Barrett Educational Center at 1300-1304 S. 24th St. Caution tape dangles from the handrails along its front steps, and windows are broken open everywhere — inexplicably, one such second-floor window has a tree growing out of it.
Butkovitz’s team “interviewed a guy who lives next to one of those imminently dangerous properties who told of laying in bed and hearing it creak and shift, and he wondered if the building was going to come crashing down on him.” He also cited a relative in Northern Liberties who hung on to their vacant house, in hopes of its rise in value, “for a lifetime. It took them about 40 years. I think that is representative of the mindset in all of this.”
It makes sense. If one has the right to hold on to a vacant house for $150 a year, why not let it accumulate worth in a growing city?
“It raises a good question — how many continuances do they get, and how many violations are there?” Butkovitz said. “How the system gets played the way it does.”
The controller’s office and its report looked to Baltimore and Chicago for better practice techniques.
“They treat this as something that’s really serious,” the controller said.
Cheron Porter, the director of communications for Baltimore Housing, said they addressed namely code enforcement and the way their office runs.
“Someone might try to purchase a property from us, and that might take a year — that’s not effective or attractive. We changed the way we did it we were able to issue greater fines for people who were not compliant,” Porter said, adding “I believe the folks in Philly have been in communication with us.”
One of the biggest problems is easily the program and software used to maintain inspection records. Butkovitz said “it started with Oracle. It’s gone on for all of the years that I’ve been here. It’s been a long-term to goal to be more integrative, and there have been numerous failures on that front – I assume it’s contributed to by technology and bureaucratic turf,” he added.
Baltimore has a system called CHIP.
“We created a software tool that tracks all of our properties so we can just type in an address and see the inspection report or any complaints that have been made, what the follow-up has been and with pictures and notices,” Porter said.
The vacant status fee in Chicago is $250 to $500, Chicago’s Department of Buildings’ spokeswoman Mimi Simon said.
“The fee is higher if the City finds it to be in violation before it registers,” she said, and added that they’ve established a unique “court call” explicitly to tackle this issue. “We have a special vacant building court call that allows the City and the courts to take a more systematic approach – they’re streamlining the vacant building cases into the vacant building court call and not getting it mixed up with other cases going through circuit court. It processes things a little bit quicker.”
Staff Writer Bill Chenevert at bchenevert@southphillyreview.com or ext. 117.
184082651
184082651
184082491
