Town Hall Press Release: Berland Spearheads Anti-Blight Legislation

Huntington, NY – The Huntington Town Board recently enacted Councilwoman Susan A. Berland’s anti-blight legislation, which established a procedure to combat the presence of blight in our community.

Councilwoman Berland’s anti-blight legislation creates a list of blight conditions with a specific point value attached to each. These conditions include, but are not limited to, past summonses on the property, illegal activity, fire hazards, boarded windows and entranceways and graffiti.

Once a property earns a blight point value of 100 or more, the property owner is required to pay a fee of $5,000 for commercial property and $2,500 for residential property, and that property is then placed on the Blighted Property Inventory List. A property owner may enter into a restoration agreement with the Town wherein they agree to complete specific repairs or improvements on a fixed timeline in order to be removed from the list.

An individual that purchases a property registered on the Town of Huntington’s Blighted Property Inventory List may be offered certain incentives from the Town, including but not limited to a 25% reduction of certain permit and or application fees.

“Anti-blight legislation is essential to maintain the public health, safety and welfare of residents in the Town of Huntington,” commented Councilwoman Berland. “This legislation will help protect our quality of life and is an important step in keeping property owners accountable for their code violations. Blighted areas draw crime and have a negative effect on surrounding properties. This legislation will confront this problem head-on and require property owners to clean-up their property.”

Author: Megan E. Lavery
Article Date: 07/28/11