Albany Considers Measure to Secure Vacant Properties

ALBANY – The owners of Albany’s hundreds of vacant buildings would be required to post at least a $10,000 bond to protect the city against the costs of stabilizing or demolishing their aging structures under an ordinance being proposed by city lawmakers.

The measure, which could be introduced to the Common Council as soon as next week, is based on similar efforts in New York City and Springfield, Mass., that would require banks foreclosing on properties to post a bond to make sure the buildings are secure.

But the Albany proposal, sponsored by 1st Ward Councilman Dominick Calsolaro, goes even further and would force the owners of all vacant buildings to post the security as part of the paperwork logging the address on the city’s Vacant and Abandoned Buildings Registry.

“It’s time that the city gives some protection to the taxpayers,” said Calsolaro, whose ward stretches from the Mansion Neighborhood to the Normanskill. “If it gets demolished, the bond gets forfeited to the city and then the city at least gets some money.”

However, Calsolaro said the primary goal is avoid demolition and encourage building owners to abide by the city’s registry requirements, which include an escalating series of registration fees and the filing of a plan on whether the building is to be demolished, left vacant or restored to use.

The measure comes just four weeks after Trinity Church, a South End historic landmark, began to collapse, prompting the city to order an emergency demolition that at the time was estimated to cost as much as $141,000.

The 163-year-old church, designed by famed architect James Renwick Jr., had been bought at a county foreclosure auction in October by a Bronx woman, Amanda Indarpaul, for a mere $500.

Indarpaul, according to city and county officials, filed only a cursory and dubiously realistic plan for the Trinity Place building, saying she planned to spend $30,000 over the next year to turn it into a center for cultural events.

Indarpaul never registered the vacant building with the city after the sale closed, according to Fire Chief Robert Forezzi,.

Calsolaro’s proposal — which already has co-sponsors in fellow council members Richard Conti, Lester Freeman, Leah Golby and Anton Konev — could loom large over future county auctions,

The bond requirement could chase away potential speculators, who are known to gobble up tax-foreclosed properties for a song and sit on them waiting for the market to change even as the buildings continue to deteriorate.

“It could instill more responsibility and less speculation,” said Conti, who represents the 6th Ward around Center Square.

In the case of Trinity Church, the costs of the demolition — once fully accounted for — will eventually be billed to Indarpaul. If she doesn’t pay, the city will add them to the property’s tax bill and the costs could, if unpaid, ultimately become a vehicle for the county to reclaim the property through foreclosure.

Notified of the proposed ordinance on Monday, county spokeswoman Mary Duryea said officials reviewing the law had initial concerns that the bonds could deter auction shoppers and, ultimately, redevelopment of property back onto the tax rolls.

“We wouldn’t want to have people not bidding on properties because of this,” Duryea said, noting that a lot would depend on how much cash property owners would actually be required to pay relative to the total bond amount.

The legislation implies that bigger bonds could be required for larger buildings.

Those details, as well as who will hold the bonds and determine the size of the security, have yet to be worked out.

City attorneys are still researching the proposal, but Calsolaro said he did not believe the city could impose the same bond requirement on the county, a higher level of government, for all of the properties it owns in the city, but he added: “I wouldn’t mind doing it.”

Calsolaro also said that if the bond were a deterrent to speculation, that would end up helping the city.

“If you can’t afford a $10,000 bond,” he said, “then why are you buying a building that might need $50,000 worth of work to fix it up?”