Local lawmaker to introduce bill that would charge property owners who don’t fix blight

ALLEGHENY COUNTY, Pa. — Drive through most western Pennsylvania communities and you’ll see some form of blight.

“We want to see things upgrade and improve in our area and it’s not going to improve when you got 637 blighted properties, that’s a lot,” said North Braddock Mayor Cletus Lee.

It’s a big problem for North Braddock as the code violations stack up, and the curb appeal isn’t attracting new people to the community.

“You don’t want to have a gray cloud over you, you want to see the sun hit your face, and what I mean is that we feel good about the area we live not that it’s just there,” Lee told Channel 11.

But it’s not just a North Braddock problem, it’s statewide.

“We primarily are trying to target bad actors and bad LLCs buying properties and leave, and these small towns are left with these properties that are vacant and dangerous in some capacity,” said Representative Brandon Markosek, who represents parts of Allegheny County.

Markosek is proposing a statewide blighted property database run by the PA Department of Community and Economic Development. Municipalities would upload their major code violations to this public system.

“When we can tackle blight and help some of these vacant properties, we can attract small businesses to the area and attract people to build homes as well,” Markosek said.

Part of the proposal is that after 12 months of no action on these properties, the owner would face a $1,000 fine that would go back to that town.

While Lee thinks the database is a good idea, he thinks that the timeline for the fine should be shorter.

“I think it should be 60 days or 30 days to get things fixed up, then the fines be implemented because they aren’t doing it now and you give them a whole year and it could escalate into more,” Lee said.

Markosek told Channel 11 he already has several co-sponsors and interest on passing this bill from both sides of the aisle. He hopes to get it out of the Housing Committee and to the full floor later this spring.

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