There’s a push to start charging property owners who have vacant buildings or undeveloped land in Sacramento, but some are concerned that new fees could discourage development. It’s a debate that is now in the hands of Sacramento city leaders.
Jeff Kessler, founder of the Vacancy Fee Project, says boarded-up buildings and vacant lots are a blight on Sacramento neighborhoods.
He lives by a fire-damaged home on F Street and said it’s looked that way for years.
“I’m going by this daily,” Kessler said. “It’s just upsetting.”
And the problem is growing. Sacramento officials say there’s currently more than 5,100 vacant lots across the city, which is 800 more than there were just six months ago.
The properties often get complaints about illegal dumping and overgrown weeds, and many are owned by corporations or out-of-town investors.
“There appears to be no activity by an owner to do anything other than probably take a write-off on their taxes,” City Councilmember Roger Dickinson said.
Owners of undeveloped parcels in Sacramento currently must register them and pay a $70 annual fee, but the city says only half of the owners are complying with that requirement.
“What we’re doing now is not enough,” Dickinson said.
This week, Sacramento city leaders considered new regulations that would impose fees of $690 on vacant lots and $887 on vacant buildings. The money would go towards a dedicated code enforcement team.
“I think it would actually encourage them to turn their land into something good,” Kessler said. “The goal is to make it tougher to just hoard land and do nothing with it.”
But the proposal is getting strong opposition from some business and real estate groups.
“It paints all property owners with a broad brush instead of just going after the bad actors,” said Matt McDonald, with the California Apartment Association. “There’s nothing surgical in this proposal. It’s an obvious cash grab.”
After more than an hour of discussion and debate on Tuesday, city leaders decided not to move forward with new fees and tried to come up with other incentives to develop and maintain properties.
“We sit here so mad at them, they haven’t done anything with their lots, and there might be something in the middle,” City Councilmember Caity Maple said.
Cities like Vallejo, Alameda, and Santa Rosa have similar vacant property fees, and in January, Citrus Heights passed a vacant business registry program.
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