Years later, Norfolk has yet to sell vacant properties

NORFOLK

Six months after the mayor and other council members instructed the city manager to sell vacant city-owned lots, not a property has been transferred.

But city officials say they're getting closer to carrying out the intent of the Gem lot program, which was created in 2004 to get tax-delinquent properties back into the hands of private owners.

Since the program's creation, the city has seized about 450 lots but has resold only five. There's a backlog of nearly 40 residents and developers who have asked to acquire some of the parcels, some as long as two years ago, but the city hasn't taken up their requests.

Deputy City Attorney Chip Beaman said a dozen residents may finally obtain the lots next to their homes as soon as this summer.

"We're making progress."

Beaman said. "Everybody knows what the intent is, but the devil's in the details."

The name Gem describes the jewels that the parcels could become. The lots have an assessed value of roughly $5 million, and even if they all remain undeveloped, would generate about $50,000 in real estate taxes each year if they were in private hands.

Several council members, and the city manager, have argued that the Gem program should be a "land bank" effort to accumulate properties and hold on to them in anticipation of larger development years later. Selling small parcels to individual owners would only make large-scale projects harder in the future, Vice Mayor Anthony Burfoot has said.

That opposition stalled Gem lot sales for three years, frustrating residents and developers interested in building houses or expanding existing homes or yards.

The city's Redevelopment and Housing Authority requested eight Park Place properties more than two years ago. In March 2007, officials proposed combining the small parcels with NRHA-owned land to create larger, buildable lots in the neighborhood.

Transfer of properties was slated to occur earlier this year, but after a public hearing in January, the city has been silent, officials said.

"We have not heard a word," said Jim Gehman, the authority's assistant executive director for development operations. "It just seems to fall off the table.

"That's usable land that ought to be put back on the tax rolls."

Beaman said an ordinance to convey the Park Place parcels to the housing authority was one of two Gem-related bills he was finishing up. The other will allow City Manager Regina V.K. Williams to negotiate with 12 residents to sell them small parcels that sit next to their homes for use as side yards.

Both ordinances will go before City Council this summer for approval, Beaman said.

Still left to be decided are the selling prices. Many residents aren't willing to pay full assessed value - sometimes as much as $15,000 - for properties that can't be developed and often will just serve as extra lawn space. A city committee suggested more than a year ago that Norfolk sell the properties for half their assessed value, saying the tax revenues and lot-maintenance costs would make it worth selling the land at a reduced price.

Other cities, such as Wilmington, Del., have sold vacant lots for as low as $1 in the hopes of creating community spaces and putting property back on the tax rolls.

Beaman said no other Virginia city has anything similar to the Gem program, forcing Norfolk to figure out how it should work. NRHA officials, who two years ago picked designs for new houses to be built on the Gem properties in Park Place, said they have about given up.

"I guess when it's important to them they'll deal with it," Gehman said, adding that authority members had moved on to other development projects not bogged down with problems obtaining land. "We've focused our energy on other things that we can move ahead on.

"But when the city's ready, we're ready."

Meghan Hoyer, (757) 446-2293, meghan.hoyer@pilotonline.com