CHARLESTON, W.Va. — City of Charleston officials are happy with the direction of the new Land Reuse Agency.
Charleston Mayor Amy Goodwin and other leaders held a press conference on Tuesday in front of an abandoned home in North Charleston, the same place where the program was launched in August.
As the house, sitting on 605 21st Street, was being torn down Tuesday Goodwin said the agency and updating the Vacant Structure Registry is a long-term strategy for neighborhoods.
“Far too long we’ve been putting a bandaid here and putting a bandaid there,” Goodwin told the media. “Yes, you’re going to see a house come down today (Tuesday), but what is most significant about what we are going to do today is launch a plan of action.”
The city said the agency was created to give greater ability to confront the problems caused by vacant, abandoned, and tax-delinquent properties.
The group will help manage blighted properties throughout Charleston, and while demolitions would continue, it would also encourage the rehabilitation of dilapidated buildings.
City Attorney Kevin Baker, who was among the officials on hand Tuesday, said the overall plan is to uplift the communities.
“I know that folks who live around buildings that are in deplorable shape have their property values decrease as well, there is great risker of crime and fire in the community. By taking these down, we remove those risks,” Baker said.
Baker said the agency plans to meet for the first time later this month. Councilmembers Will Laird and Ben Adams will serve as City Council representatives on the agency while Chris Campbell and Marylin McKeown will serve as citizen representatives.
According to Baker, the plan for the first meeting will be to get organized and start looking at the parcels all over the city that either city has torn a house down in the past or potentially going to be donated to the city.
As far as the Vacant Structure Registry, the city said letters are being sent to all property owners that had listings on it before September 1 of this list.
Goodwin said Tuesday’s update on the working group is part of the bigger picture to improve the city’s infrastructure.
“Here we are today on a crisis point,” she said.
“We’ve needed to spend more time and attention to our infrastructure. Not just houses, we’ve needed to work on our roads and paving and it’s because they have been dormant for so very long.”