A community-based campaign against zombie properties came to Schenectady on Wednesday, enlisting private citizens and public servants alike in a common effort to stop community decay.
The good news is that unlike the human zombies of popular fiction, which need to be bashed over the head with a heavy object, all it takes to fight zombie houses — those that have stood vacant for an extended period — is a little community spirit and some research.
Assemblyman Angelo Santabarbara, a Rotterdam Democrat whose district includes parts of Schenectady, is gradually expanding the “Be A Good Neighbor” campaign he started earlier this year in his hometown and later expanded to Amsterdam. The kickoff target in Schenectady on Wednesday was two houses overlooking Central Park, at 260 and 262 Bradley Blvd.
The two seem in nice enough condition, with trimmed greenery and mowed lawns, and no smashed or boarded-up front windows. But they’ve been vacant at least a year, neighbors say, which puts them at increased risk of rapid deterioration and for spreading blight to the surrounding area. Neighbors say water came pouring out under the front door of 260 Bradley Blvd. earlier this year after a pipe ruptured inside, prompting the city to cut water service and quite possibly causing mold inside.
This is one problem with zombie properties, said Schenectady Mayor Gary McCarthy, who attended an afternoon news conference outside No. 262 on Wednesday — even those that look good from the outside can develop problems overnight. And there’s no single solution.
“Every house has a different story,” the mayor said. “You have to walk through the whole process.”
Corporation Counsel Carl Falotico has estimated there are as many as 1,000 vacant homes in the city. Determining who holds the mortgage and deciding whether or how to take or force corrective action takes time, money and persistence on the city’s part.
Santabarbara’s Be A Good Neighbor plan is one approach that has produced some results: Local residents or municipal officials can give his office the address of a vacant home, and his staff will try to track down the mortgage holder and press it to improve the upkeep. If a little encouragement is needed in the form of negative publicity, he or a staffer will plant one of the blue-and-white signs advertising the program in the front yard and write the name of the bank in the provided space on the sign, with a black marker.
On Wednesday he carried with him a thick folder of data on properties he’s targeted in Rotterdam, some of them vacant as long as a decade.
The program relies on neighbors to report problem sites, Santabarbara said, but also directly benefits them.
“When [houses] begin to deteriorate year after year they start to impact the surrounding neighborhoods, and that’s what we’re trying to stop,” he said.
Bradley Boulevard resident Paula Skalwold is among those worried about the two vacant houses down her street, which she said have had a succession of residents in recent years.
She and her husband, John, have lived on Bradley for 36 years and raised four children there. It’s an attractive and good neighborhood in a great location, she said Wednesday, and would be best served by getting families back in the zombie houses.
“I’d like to see a great big ‘For Sale’ sign on it,” Skalwold said of No. 262. “People could see it and recognize it’s a great family home.”
The two Bradley Boulevard houses are far from the worst vacant properties in the city, McCarthy said — the exteriors are intact and the taxes are paid up, limiting some of the city’s options for dealing with them.
He said it’s a win-win situation if banks themselves deal with zombie houses promptly, rather than pretending there’s no problem as the property deteriorates.
“The banks make more money the sooner they deal with it,” he said.
Santabarbara noted the recent passage of state legislation strengthening regulations on zombie properties, such as banks being required to notify the state when a house on which they hold a delinquent mortgage goes vacant, and to inspect and maintain such properties.
McCarthy said this should help the city.
“It’s clearly a step in the right direction.”
Reach Gazette reporter John Cropley at 395-3104, [email protected] or @cropjohn on Twitter.
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