On April 4, city of St. Louis voters will be asked to approve or oppose Proposition NS, a $40-million bond issue to stabilize vacant, city-owned residential properties and make them rehab-ready.
If approved, the bond would be repaid through a property-tax increase – which would start with a one-cent annual raise the first year and eventually go up to a seven-cents increase.
“If you think of St. Louis as a boat, then we have a hole in the boat,” said Stacy Ross, a resident in Holly Hills who was also among the main group who filed the petition for Prop NS. “Until we plug the hole, then we are taking water in faster than we can bail it.”
Neighbors for a Stable St. Louis, the grassroots group of city residents who collected almost 15,000 signatures to get the proposal on the ballot, kicked off their campaign for Prop NS on March 16 at the St. Louis Association of Community Organizations (SLACO), 5888 Plymouth Ave.
Ross said city taxpayers pay millions of dollars in direct costs – increased police and fire calls and mowing the lawns – for vacant buildings.
“We lose millions more in lost property tax revenue because city-owned properties are not on the tax rolls,” said Ross, chair of the SLACO’s vacancy committee. “Vacant buildings decrease the property values of nearby homes, further decreasing the city’s property tax revenue. They are magnets for crime, and the fire department can tell you what a danger these buildings are to firefighters.”
The ordinance authorizes the sale of up to $6 million in bonds each year to stabilize vacant residential buildings that the city owns – the buildings in the city’s Land Reutilization Authority (LRA) “land bank.” Ross said these are buildings that public dollars are already being spent on to secure, maintain, and eventually tear down when nobody buys them.
The LRA, which is staffed by the St. Louis Development Corporation (SLDC), would manage the $6 million annual fund. Acting as a general contractor, the LRA would allocate up to $30,000 for a single-family home or $50,000 for a multi-family building to stabilize them and then sell them to individual rehabbers or small developers.
The construction contracts would all abide by the city’s minority participation requirements.
The ordinance specifies the funds may only be used for tuckpointing, roof repair or replacement, foundation work, complete board-up, interior demolition and similar repairs as needed to make the building stable and protected from further deterioration.
The fund would not pay for any interior rehab or systems, such as HVAC, electrical or plumbing, or building demolition, Ross said.
The city would repay its general obligation bonds with revenue generated by property taxes. It would start with a one-cent increase to property taxes, equivalent to approximately $1.90 on a $100,000 home in the first year, and then increase about a penny a year each year, up to about seven cents, or about $11 on a $100,000 house.
If the proposition passes, then leaders from the LRA and SLACO will establish a citizen-review committee, which would help devise the specifics for the process.
“Crime is the number one problem in the city, but vacant buildings are number two,” said Kevin McKinney, SLACO’s executive director. “Vacant buildings cause or exacerbate most of the problems we have, including crime. It’s a vicious cycle. The city is losing population every year, causing more vacancy.”
In too many neighborhoods, children wake up next to and then walk past vacant buildings every day, McKinney said.
He said, “They think people don’t care.”
