Muncie City Council approves vacant and abandoned property registry

The city of Muncie now has a registry process for vacant and abandoned properties.  As IPR’s Stephanie Wiechmann reports, the city council hopes it will help fight blight, especially from neglectful out-of-state owners.

As introduced at a city council meeting last month and approved unanimously on Monday night, Muncie will require the owners of certain vacant and abandoned properties to register properties being neglected with the city.

Council member Ro Selvey is one of the ordinance’s authors.  At the meeting, council members made a few amendments, including to specify exactly what properties are included.

“And just to make it clear, that is has ‘vacant and abandoned’ in every part of [the ordinance].  So we are making sure that is specifies the property has to be ‘vacant and abandoned.’”

Last month, city attorney Dan Gibson clarified that these properties also need to be in a certain state of neglect.

“So, simply being vacant, if you’re living up to your maintenance obligations, you’re not required to register. So really, what this applies to is the property owner who’s not living up to their obligations. They have a rehab order outstanding that they’ve not taken any action to comply with. They’re behind on their taxes. It’s been declared a public nuisance.”

Realtors say Muncie has an aging housing stock and isn’t seeing the new builds as have other suburban cities closer to Indianapolis.  Local realtor Ryan Kramer says while this ordinance is good – like making out-of-state owners list an in-state property manager – the city still needs to encourage responsible investment.

“Out of town investors – I know that’s kind of a curse word to some people – but they’re not all bad.  And so I think that’s the key factor.  We don’t have enough resources in our community to take care of the problem.  We need money from outside to really help us with this.”

The ordinance imposes fees on property owners that don’t register or don’t clean up buildings as required by the city.  But when a home is sold – whether on a tax sale or by private sale – the new owner would have to pay all back taxes and fines, making cleaning up a property more expensive.