Citizens Invited to Blight Elimination Community Meeting

From the office of Evansville Mayor Lloyd Winnecke

Mayor Winnecke invites all interested citizens to join him on Monday, March 30, at 6:30pm at Central Library in the Browning meeting room, in his effort to address the number of vacant and abandoned properties throughout the City of Evansville. The Center for Community Progress (CCP) will be in Evansville to assist with evaluation of current processes and to provide insight regarding “best practices” of other cities with these same concerns. CCP is the foremost national authority in working with cities throughout the country to advocate reuse of vacant, abandoned and blighted properties to revitalize city neighborhoods, much of it through land banking.

“To continue the work of eliminating blight, it is imperative that action be taken to rejuvenate neighborhoods, strengthen the community and maximize limited financial resources,” Mayor Winnecke said. “We have been very successful in eliminating blight and utilizing land banking techniques to revitalize the Haynie’s Corner Arts District, and I believe we can emulate that success in other areas of our city.”

The City currently expends valuable financial resources to address crime, fires, pick up trash, mow weeds and demolish blighted and abandoned structures. In addition, tax base is being lost through lower assessed values of properties in proximity to blighted structures. Every year hundreds of properties in Vanderburgh County are “no sales” at the annual tax sale, which underscores the lack of reinvestment in these properties. These “no sales” force the county to either maintain the properties or allocate valuable resources to dispose of the properties, while millions in potential tax revenues must be written off annually.

For more information, contact Kelley Coures, executive director of the Evansville Department of Metropolitan Development (DMD), or DMD Brownfield Coordinator Carolyn Rusk at 812-436-7823.