Baton Rouge weighs faster opportunities to tear down built buildings | Crime/police

If Baton Rouge's inspectors find that a smooth property is unsure, the municipal government can ask the subway council to convene a hearing to hold the owners into account and decide whether the faulty houses or buildings should be torn down.

But such conviction lists rarely happen.

“In 10 years after witnesses of Metro council meetings, I did not see any actual vote on smooth property,” said Andrew Fitzgerald, Senior Vice President for Strategy and Research for the Chamber of the Baton Rouge Area.

Now three legislative templates that have been written by the Chamber to change this process are moving by the state legislator.

Supporters say that the measures would help reduce crime and increase economic development. The proposals would shift some decision-making powers from the subway council to the mayor's office and administrative court.

The Senate Bill 236 sponsored by Rick Edmonds would use Baton Rouge an existing administrative “Blight Court” instead of hearing the METRO council for such cases to rationalize the treatment of problem properties.

According to the state law, the U -Bahn Council must vote on whether real estate should be convicted or give the owners more time for repairs. In practice, however, the individual council members usually make these decisions, and the rest of the council leaves them. Formal voices are rare.

Last year, according to the city's Ministry of Development, less than half of the 354 real estate recommended for the conviction were approved.

Proponents of legislation – which would provide an exception in the state statute for Baton Rouge, argue that the current process is broken because it is excessively political. They say that council members sometimes postpone decisions or extinguish real estate from errors, citing family disputes or because of the development of the developers.

The U -Bahn Council can only hear 25 convictions per session, and with around 800 it would take over a year and a half to eliminate the existing deficit, said Dario Scalco, director of public order for the chamber. Each shift adds the problem because the city has to pay for further inspection, while other properties on the mistake are idle.

“It is an avalanche that is not over,” said Scalco.

Daryl Hurst, member of the U -Bahn Council of District 5 District 5, often turn to the members of the Council at the council members and ask for more time to deal with one of them inherited.

“You say it is a situation in which you succeed you, and the successor lasts extremely long,” said Hurst.

Hurst said he was frustrated with the current conviction process and found that the legislation could accelerate the process by taking “the friendships from the beauty of our city”.

However, he also commented on the fact that the mayor's office would give too much control and allow real estate to be sent to the fate court with little supervision.

“Everything we do is hand over the baton from one seat to another,” he said. “And the results are driven by those who sit on this seat.”

Instead, Hurst favored to increase the number of cases the Metro Council can hear.

“We shoot ourselves into our feet by trying to limit the number of convictions that we have listed on the agenda of the Metro Council,” said Hurst. “We only have to work with the parish lawyer to find out how best to move.”

The chamber argues that the Blight Court would offer more protection and a proper procedure for landowners than elected civil servants and found that people could make decisions at the State Court.

Two other measures – house accounts 162 and 267 – would help the city and its renovation authority to build Baton Rouge and to return land more quickly to productive use after their conviction.

The country is currently being sold for a tax sale after a building has been convicted and demolished. However, buyers have often been exposed to legal obstacles for years in order to obtain “clear titles” – or full legal property – in particular if real estate have several heirs, basic lien or mortgages. Without a clear title, developers have difficulty securing financing or insurance, so that most properties are no longer idle before the renovation is no longer possible before the renovation is possible.

Hurst said the title cleaning could become “a horror story”.

“People can buy it from the city, but there is nothing they can do with it because these properties have 30 names and none of them can be found,” he said.

The estimates in the city are currently around 6,000 properties in the decision, which means that they are associated with unpaid taxes in a legal procedure.

Due to the new legislation, the city would fail or leave for immediate renovation accordingly – or legally.

“If the city designs it legally, you can sell it to a developer with a clear title,” said Fitzgerald.

Followers of this idea say that it reflects the procedures used by the state motorway department and the municipalities such as New Orleans, which used the expropriation in the four years after Hurricane Katrina to cope with more than 10,000 properties.

“This was a large part of how they came back,” added Fitzgerald.

Critics fear that legislation could undermine the owner's rights of ownership.

According to Scalco, however, the owners would continue to notify and compensate due to an assessment and could appeal against the expropriation in court. The law also makes it clear that only abandoned or incorrect real estate is justified and that land must be used for commercial living space for commercial purposes.

The chamber refers to research into the LSU and the public prosecutor's office in which neighborhoods experience more crime with many faulty real estate.

“If you look into these not invested quarters, it is the decorated properties specifically that are associated with murders and violent crimes,” said Jake Polansky, the director of strategy and research by the chamber.

Mason Batts, Executive Director of the Mayor Sid Edwards, describes Blight as an important problem, although he said that the administration still evaluates the potential effects of the invoices.

“You can do a lot of things, but if you don't clean up the city, you won't have a permanent change,” he said. “Everything that can help us remove the Blight at a faster pace, I think it's better.”