READING, Pa. \u2013 Reading City Council voted Monday night to adopt an ordinance that will mandate a vacant property registry (VPR) for the owners of vacant buildings.<\/p>\n
Earlier this month, Community Development Director David Barr pitched the concept to council, saying that local governments have been enacting VPR ordinances to identify and account for unoccupied properties and to ensure owners maintain the properties to community standards.<\/p>\n
Reading started a VPR list in early 2024 but limited it to only be used for foreclosed properties.<\/p>\n
Barr had told council that the estimate is that there are 2,500 vacant properties that will be added to the system.<\/p>\n
The new law now requires the property owners of abandoned or vacant buildings to register those properties within 10 days of the property becoming vacant.<\/p>\n
The ordinance also requires the owners to ensure that the vacant or abandoned properties remain secure and compliant with city codes.<\/p>\n
The VPR will require owners to pay semiannual fees on a sliding scale beginning at $500 every six months for the first two years.<\/p>\n
But those fees would rise as much as $5,000 every six months for a property vacant for more than 10 years.<\/p>\n
Councilmember Chris Miller wanted to clarify that the program is only meant for properties that are vacant for a considerable amount of time.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis\u00a0isn\u2019t meant for people that are renovating a house that isn’t habitable until they can move in, or if a property that goes under contract that is vacant until it goes to settlement,\u201d Miller said. \u201cThis is for properties that are vacant a year or two years. There’s a difference.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Beekeeping<\/p>\n
In other business, council adopted a zoning amendment to\u00a0add regulations for honeybee apiaries and allow them in all zoning districts, providing they are compliant with the Pennsylvania Bee Law.<\/p>\n
As part of the regulations, existing beekeepers who own pre-existing apiaries will have six months to apply for a zoning permit.<\/p>\n
Hives may not be located in a front yard and are not permitted within 10 feet of any buildings on adjacent properties.<\/p>\n
Home occupation permits<\/p>\n
Council also approved a zoning amendment to require a fee of $150 for both major and minor home occupation zoning permits.<\/p>\n
Both currently require a zoning permit, but the fee is waived for minor home occupations.<\/p>\n
Tax abatement program<\/p>\n
Also Monday, council voted approve a bill to extend the Local Revitalization Tax Assistance (LERTA) for an additional ten years.<\/p>\n
The LERTA was originally adopted in 1985 and was extended three times.<\/p>\n
A\u00a0LERTA is a standard tax abatement program to help incentivize economic development.<\/p>\n
The LERTA exempts a portion of the assessment attributed to new construction or improvements on sliding scale for a 10-year period.<\/p>\n
The first year, the assessment percentage is exempted at 100% and is lowered by 10% each year, from the second year until the tenth year.<\/p>\n
Personnel<\/p>\n
At the conclusion of Monday\u2019s meeting,\u00a0Managing Director\u00a0Jack Gombach announced that Barr has announced he is retiring from the position of community development director, which he held for over one year.<\/p>\n
Gombach said Barr\u2019s last day will be on Friday and that Mayor Eddie Moran appointed Gombach as interim director.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"READING, Pa. \u2013 Reading City Council voted Monday night to adopt an ordinance that will mandate a vacant…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":271757,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[1089,2004,2001,2005,114440,3066,64868,128,1095,130,129,109843],"class_list":["post-271764","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-chris-miller","tag-community-development-director","tag-david-barr","tag-eddie-moran","tag-honeybee-apiaries","tag-jack-gombach","tag-lerta","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-council","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-vacant-property-registry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271764","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=271764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271764\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/271757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}