Projo 7 to 7 News Blog

City mayors from around the country shared tips about dealing with vacant and foreclosed properties at the U.S. Conference of Mayors 77th annual meeting on Sunday.

The tactics range from imposing fines on owners who fail to keep up their properties to hiring a company to acquire and manage all the vacant properties.

Green Bay Wisconsin's mayor, James J. Schimitt, said his city's program to convert multi-family rentals back to owner-occupied single-family houses is so aggressive that he knows it will cost him votes. "Those landlords will not support me in the next election,'' he said.

A survey released by the U.S. Conference of Mayors found that 83 percent of the cities surveyed reported problems managing properties due to the mortgage crisis, up from just over 50 percent last year.

The numbers ranged from just over 8,300 in St. Louis and more than 15,000 in Las Vegas, according to the 2009 Vacant and Abandoned Properties Report. And 68 percent of the cities surveyed anticipate the problems will get worse over the next year.

Providence did not participate in the survey.

 Tags  mayors

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