Well, what does the City do then?

The City of Berlin is unique in the entire State of New Hampshire in dealing with the numbers of dilapidated and sometimes burnt out structures. The City is still actively working its way through a number of state inspection and enforcement laws which are complex and tedious and not often used because most municipalities don't have these problems to the extent we do. Berlin is unique in terms of the numbers of these types of dilapidated structures and in terms of the extremely low underlying value of the properties. Where the rest of the State is trying to encourage and promote "affordable" housing, Berlin has far more than its share of affordable housing which unfortunately, is in some cases, substandard housing.

In the case of burnt out properties, the City generally does not own any of these properties and therefore must proceed cautiously and under some specific state law, usually RSA 155-B or RSA 147. In almost all cases, the City must first give the property owner the opportunity to clean up the property on their own. If they don't, the procedure usually has the City, through a stringent and linear process, asking a judge to require the property owner to clean up the property. The judge will also give the property owner another chance to clean up the property on their own. If that doesn't occur, then the judge will usually grant to the City the ability to clean up the property at the City's cost. However, under RSA 155B, the City will at least have the opportunity to lien the property for all of the City's costs in the cleanup. It must be remembered however, that because property values of these properties are so low in Berlin, this is likely to leave the City with a cost that may run $20-$30,000 including legal costs on a property that may end up being worth only $5,000. In other words, every one of these properties ends up costing the City (and obviously the City's tax paying residents) significant time effort and money. Fortunately, the Mayor and Council have been very supportive financially of what has become a new and very monumental effort on behalf of the City.

In a number of cases each year for the past several years, the City has come into ownership of a number of dilapidated structures because the property owners have not paid the taxes on the property and the property is taken by the City by tax deed. This particular state law is also quite complex and detailed and confusing in terms of what the City can or cannot do once it acquires a property by tax deed. It also lays out a convoluted schedule for when the City can or cannot do various things with the property it has acquired by tax deed. In some cases, if the property owner cannot be found to be served notice or in the case of intestate properties, the City is then barred by this same state law from doing anything with the property for another three years unless a Court grants permission to do so. The State law, as one might expect, gives great weight to individual property rights and therefore gives the former owner every opportunity to repurchase the property if they so choose.

In spite of its economic challenges, the Mayor and Council of the City have seen fit to embark on an ambitious program to require that housing in Berlin be brought up to  a reasonable standard and that excess dilapidated housing gets either renovated or removed. A Housing Coordinator was hired three years ago who has overseen the acquisition and removal of a significant number of dilapidated properties. A full-time Code Enforcement Officer and a full-time Housing Inspector have also been hired to carry out a comprehensive housing inspection program. For the past several years the Fire Department has been citing and pursuing owners of burnt out and dilapidated properties.

The cost of demolition and removal of dilapidated housing structures today is very high. Once the City gets to the point where it can actually demolish a property it has taken by tax deed, it must carry out environmental studies to test mostly for asbestos and lead, which if found must be abated. Once that is done, the City, if it can find money somewhere, will bid a contract for the demolition. The typical structure the City demolishes weighs 100-200 tons. Just the disposal cost of this tonnage at the regional landfill is $67/ton for an average disposal cost of $7,000-15,000 per demolished structure. If there is asbestos contamination, the cost is $107/ton and the precautions surrounding the handling of contaminated debris drives the demolition cost up significantly. To this must be added the cost of the demolition contractor and the trucking to the landfill which would typically be in the range of $5,000-20,000 per structure depending on the complexity.