By Stephen Smoot
In the past year the State of West Virginia, in conjunction with local governments and regional planning councils, has taken on the problem of dilapidated properties. Local governments around West Virginia have struggled for years with properties that look terrible, inhibit development, and attract crime.
In the decades after the Civil War, the Second Industrial Revolution crashed like a wave over the newly created State of West Virginia. As many communities surged with growth, they constructed stately homes, industrial buildings, and business fronts.
A hundred years later, by the mid 80s, the tide of manufacturing and other job creating sectors receded. Commercial buildings went vacant. Big, beautiful Victorian, Craftsman, and other beautiful homes were carved mercilessly into rentals, many of which went to complete seed in a generation.
Then, over a decade ago, economic growth and development returned to many areas in the state. Once again, jobs and wealth flowed in.
Yet many communities have found dilapidated properties a barrier to growth. Piedmont, in Mineral County, for instance, sits at a remarkably scenic point where George’s Creek enters the North Branch of the Potomac River, nestled between high ridges that cradle the town and its neighbors in Maryland. It sports a beautiful locale, rows of Victorian mansions waiting to be transformed into bed and breakfasts, and sits between the resorts of Deep Creek Lake and the less developed, but still popular Jennings Randolph Lake.
Piedmont also sports rich history in which to invest, especially as the home of black jazz pioneer Don Redman and famed Harvard professor Henry Louis “Skip” Gates Jr.
Like many West Virginia towns, it suffered from the laws concerning tax sales. When properties went up for bid, individuals or property holding businesses, often out of state, would purchase properties for pennies on the dollar of value. Then they would simply hold them, refusing to either demolish or improve the land and structures.
Piedmont found its community overwhelmed by abandoned and crumbling buildings. These structures provide a haven for criminals, homeless drug addicts, and others who frighten families and senior citizens, often living only a few feet away.
Then the State Legislature and State Auditor’s office stepped in. Earlier this month, J. B. McCluskey, West Virginia State Auditor, told The Review that “for the past three years . . . we have made reformation of our tax sale process one of the primary objectives of my office.”
He added that properties have started to make their way back into the “neighbors’ hands, the city’s hands, the county’s hands, or the economic development/land bank’s hands.” In other words, getting properties from out of state entities and into the possession of people ready, willing, and able to develop.
State law and policy had made it easy for out of state investors to acquire properties, but did not hold them accountable for use. “To be fair, we were part of the problem,” McCluskey admitted. He added that the former policy “was promoting out of state land buyers who didn’t have community interests at heart,” and “didn’t care that they were destroying communities.”
The new sale structure ensures that properties purchased in tax sales end up with buyers who will improve the land in some way. One positive and unforeseen result lay in the fact that tax auctions “are intensely more profitable than they’ve ever been in history.”
Where the State Auditor’s office and State Legislature set the table, the Governor’s Office and West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection served the meal.
John King, from the WV DEP’s Office of the Environmental Advocate and head of the dilapidated properties program, recently gave a presentation to a regional economic development and planning council. He discussed the scope of the problem and funds provided to start to tackle the dilapidated properties issue.
King explained from the start that “it’s very much a team effort” between the State of West Virginia, local municipal and county governments, and others trying to roll back the problem.
“At the start we didn’t have funding, so we developed a questionnaire,” King said. Communities could share the scope, range, and different aspects of the challenges faced.
Governor Jim Justice shifted $10 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds into the hands of the program to start phase one of the pilot project. “We are currently working with 26 communities across the state, counties and municipalities.”
King shared that the State “can adapt the program to fit local needs,” explaining that “we want to put gas in the tank, not drive the bus.”
The program mostly pays invoices for local governments as they work on solutions to the dilapidated properties program, but also provides resources such as free consultation from West Virginia University Law Clinic and experts based at Marshall University.
He warned “it’s a marathon and not a sprint,” to solve the problem statewide, as initial estimates of the total cost come in at 15 times the $10 million currently allocated. That said, momentum from the private and non profit sector could certainly reduce that cost as they push forward to acquire and develop.