1st house demolished under fed program

DAVE MOSIER/independent editor

The culmination of months of work came Friday as a house at 421 N. Market St. was demolished as part of the Neighborhood Initiative Program (NIP). A second house across the street is slated for demolition on Monday.

The program, part of a $500,000 housing demolition award to Van Wert that is funded by the United States Department of Treasury and administered by the Ohio Housing Finance Agency, will stretch into 2019.

The NIP enables the newly-established Van Wert County Land Reutilization Corporation (land bank) to acquire, demolish, and improve the properties of what today are tax delinquent or abandoned residential homes. The program will allow for the removal of at least 20 houses in five approved target areas: the city of Van Wert and the villages of Convoy, Middle Point, Ohio City, and Willshire.

“The goal of the program is to stabilize property values by removing and greening vacant, blighted properties,” said Van Wert Area Economic Development Corporation Executive Director Stacy Adam at the demolition site, while indicating well-kept houses in the neighborhood. “I think it’s going to do nothing but improve the value of those properties.”

Adam noted the NIP was initially available only to large municipal areas, with communities the size of Van Wert not able to qualify.

“Just recently, communities the size of ours became eligible,” she added. “That’s when the (local) group got together and established the land bank and applied for the program, and were approved.”

Adam added that the North Market Street house was only the third property so far to be demolished in a smaller community now eligible for the NIP.

The land bank works with local communities in the target areas to identify properties, beyond the standards for rehab or repair that would be appropriate for the NIP.

“The houses that are slated for demolition are beyond saving,” Adam said. “Unfortunately, they’ve sat empty for so long that it makes it very difficult to restore.”

After demolition, Van Wert County homeowners with a land bank-owned vacant lot adjacent to their home may have the opportunity to purchase that property as a side yard for a nominal cost. It is the land bank’s intention to merge such parcels with adjacent owner parcels, so that the property owner’s land value is enhanced and such vacant lots are restored to the tax rolls.

Local residents who own a troubled house in one of the target areas, or are interested in learning more about reutilization of land bank lots, can contact Adam or JoAnne Simmerman, program manager, at the Van Wert Economic Development office at 419.238.2999 for more information.