Crackdown on Blighted Properties Paying Off

By Sue Ellen Woodcock

Nobody wants to live next to a blighted property or one that has been taken over by a bank and left to fester. To combat the problem, Al Legee, head of the Inspectional Services Department and his staff have been working together with police and fire to get a grip on these properties.

Police Chief Terence Delehanty is credited with starting the receivership program with a property on Moore Street being the first on the list. Since then there have been 49 cases in Winthrop, with the first one being a house with a hoarding problem. The program was able to help the elderly woman and get her into a nursing home.

In the three years since the formation of the Task Force, Delehanty and Fire Chief Paul Flanagan have investigated numerous properties. Working through this program reduces the number of calls to the police and fire departments, as well as children partying in a vacant home and using candles.

Often times taking care of the blighted properties prompts neighbors to start sprucing up their own property.

Right now, the group is working on six home possessions and eight other properties in receivership. Some homes don’t meet the sanitary code, or had unsafe exits from the home.

“The process works well and it keeps the neighborhood from blight,” Legee said. “Many of them are bank-owned property, foreclosures. We work with the people.”

Tips on problem properties come into the Inspectional Services Department from a general complaint, the police, fire and medical aid calls. Each property is tracked and problems recorded. The Task Force, which formed a year ago, meets once a month to discuss problem properties.

“We have no tolerance for vacant, bank-owned property,” Legee said, adding that they not only cut grass, fight rats, deal with hoarding and more.

The properties are often subject to multiple fines in hopes that banks will react. Some houses can be in limbo for three to five years.

“We’re not in this to make money, but many communities do. No one wants blight,” Legee said. “The objective is not to take the house, but to make it compliment.”