City to tackle vacant structures

The City and Borough of Wrangell plans to address the old and often dilapidated homes and properties sitting on vacant lots throughout town.

Wrangell resident Janell Privett addressed the Borough Assembly at its Feb. 28 meeting, asking if there was something the city could do to deal with these “dangerous” properties.

“We have a lot of homes that, for one I consider, in my opinion, dangerous, [and] that are not homes anymore,” Privett said. “They are dilapidated properties, places that are no longer livable, rentable [and] can’t be occupied.”

Assembly member Bill Privett, who is Janell’s husband, agreed the properties posed a problem in the community. He said derelict structures are unsafe to the general public and serve as a breeding ground for feral cats, rats and other animals.

“The bottom line is it is a serious problem, and we ought to address it and there is no reason not to,” Bill Privett said at the Feb. 28 Assembly meeting.

City Manager Timothy Rooney is now tasked with exploring the city’s options on how it can address these properties. Rooney said he would present his findings to the Assembly at a future meeting.

Rooney told the Sentinel he estimates there are about 20 problematic properties in town currently where vacant structures sit. He sees cleaning these properties as a positive change for Wrangell.

“I love going after projects to clean up the community,” Rooney said. “I have no problem with that at all.”

He said he would take a look at the city’s nuisance code, and see if that can be applied to these vacant structures. If the properties are defined as a nuisance, the property owner is then notified and given a certain amount of time to clean it, Rooney said.

Typically, he said, if the property owner fails to clean it up, the city will, and whatever costs the city then incurs in doing so will be filed against the property in the form if a lien.

The city has undertaken cleaning up such properties around town in recent years, knocking down several rundown structures, Rooney said. For instance, there was the building on the corner of Front Street and Campbell Drive, which formerly housed a coffee shop, that was taken down last spring.

That building was leaning, Rooney said, and the city bought the property and knocked down the structure. The lot is now used as a staging area for the construction equipment for the city’s main street improvement project.

Rooney said, ideally, the city would like to use that space as a parking lot and place to possibly hold farmer’s markets in the future.

After addressing the vacant structures around town, Rooney said the bigger problem may be with dealing with cleaning up lots being used as storage sites.

“Once we get to the structures, you have to touch on people using residential space for commercial storage or personal storage,” he said.

Whether these cluttered lots or decrepit old homes are posing a threat to neighboring property values is not an easy question to answer, according to Wrangell Economic Development Planner Carol Rushmore.

Those properties could hurt the potential sale of a neighboring home, but it doesn’t necessarily hurt the property values of nearby lots, she said.

“At the same time, it does impact the perceived value, or if you’re trying to sell it, because no one wants to look at junk next door,” Rushmore said.

However, there are many factors that come into play when dealing with the value of a home, Rushmore said. A nearby lot with clutter or an old structure on it, may not pose any threat to a home’s value, she said.

Also, Wrangell is in the unique situation of not being able to expand its limits very far, Rushmore added. Because it is an island town surrounded by national forest land, there is only so much space the city can use, she said. Consequently, the demand for homes and land increases.

“A lot of times, people are more forgiving at what is next door, because sometimes there is a demand for land,” she said.