Hazleton police have a new weapon for cleaning up condemned properties:

Extradition.

They tested it against Lyla Younes, who let rubble remain for nearly a year after fire burned a double home that she owned at 590-592 McKinley St. on April 21, 2013.

When Younes learned that police planned to bring her to court in Hazleton from her home in Brigantine, New Jersey, she hired a contractor to remove the debris the next day.

“This is not just the cleanup of McKinley Street,” Police Chief Frank DeAndrea said while watching an excavating machine clear the lot on April 10. “It’s a shot across every landlord’s bow.”

Prodding owners to fix or demolish their properties is a key to solving a problem that has grown too big for government. Hazleton had 1,881 empty homes in the most recent U.S. Census, and approximately 59 properties were condemned as of June 16, according to city records.

Hazleton cannot afford to fix them all. So Mayor Joseph Yannuzzi stopped spending money on properties to avoid favoring one neighborhood at the expense of others. Construction companies such as Square One Home Improvement, do-it-yourself owners and the volunteers at Habitat for Humanity restore homes, but not as fast as they empty. Of 79 properties condemned in recent years, 20 have been uncondemned, and at least 11 re-occupied, including one apartment building in which the third floor remains closed.

The costs of letting properties deteriorate, on the other hand, include unpaid taxes. Owners are behind payments on 26 condemned homes and businesses. Collectively, they owe Hazleton, Luzerne County and the Hazleton Area School District more than $110,000.

As vacancies increase, so do nuisances, leading to extra work for city inspectors and greater threats to home values, health and safety of neighbors.

Weeds and garbage attract animals. Thieves steal pipe and other valuables left inside. Squatters seeking anything from seclusion for sharing drugs to shelter against the weather start fires — which happened at McKinley Street — that can spread to other homes.

In Hazleton, most of the condemned properties are residences, like a large Victorian home at 179 N. Laurel St. where the porch collapsed, but the list includes a church on which a demonic symbol has been scribbled and taverns that served their last call.

See an interactive map featuring condemned properties

Condemned houses can stand in stark contrast to those around them, as at a double home at 181-183 S. Church St. Unpainted old wood on the south side and new, blue siding on the north side leave no doubt as to which half was condemned and which is occupied. The empty side, however, was uncondemned on Nov. 14, 2013, after the owner obtained permits.

Elsewhere, vacancy spreads like disease.

In one block of South Cedar Street, a double home at 220-222 S. Cedar St. is condemned, as is a single home next door at 218 S. Cedar St. A sign at 208-210 S. Cedar St., which isn’t condemned, says the house has been winterized, and another home at 206 S. Cedar St. is for sale.

“Blight is contagious, but so is revitalization,” state Sen. David Argall, R-29. “We notice when someone would fix up a property, the neighbors would get out the paint brushes.”

Argall chairs the Senate’s Urban Affairs and Housing Committee, which on March 19 held a hearing about a law giving local governments more leverage against owners of derelict properties. A study that The Reinvestment Fund of Philadelphia presented to the committee found that average sales prices increased 31 percent in Philadelphia neighborhoods where code officers concentrated their enforcement efforts.

State law allows municipalities to place liens on the primary residence of landlords who let rental properties decline. If a landlord’s properties fail to meet building codes in Hazleton, Argall said when giving an example, McAdoo or Tamaqua could deny the owner a permit to rent properties in their boroughs.

This winter, Hazleton resident Mark Rabo started pressing city officials to put the legal squeeze on landlords. Rabo also suggested that the city re-energize the Hazleton Redevelopment Authority and a blighted property committee to monitor properties.

Another approach

A nearby city takes an aggressive approach that Rabo wants Hazleton to follow.

In Pottsville, a task force ranks vacant properties based on exterior conditions, litter, weeds, police reports and proximity to occupied places. Like David Letterman, the group compiles a top 10 list; but unlike the television comedian, Pottsville is not trying to embarrass anyone with its list of properties that need the most attention.

“We don’t want this to be punitive. We want to be preventative,” Pottsville City Administrator Thomas Palamar said.

City officials ask owners to prepare a plan, obtain permits and complete repairs at their properties.

“If somebody says: ‘I just don’t have a lot of money,’ we will work with them,” Palamar said.

When owners don’t respond or follow through, the city prods them with $25 tickets for nuisances and citations on which a judge can assess fines or Pottsville pays to demolish the structure.

Three times in recent years, the city started efforts to shift properties toward a conservator, a person who wanted to renovate and use the properties when the owners wouldn’t. Or couldn’t.

One property was owned by a man who was in a nursing home and no longer capable of managing his affairs. The second owner, who had a building with six apartments, didn’t respond to entreaties. The owner of the third property signed over control to avoid citations.

“We wouldn’t get to this point if an owner cared,” Palamar said.

A neighborhood walk

Tactics like Pottsville employs might change the scenery in Hazleton, Rabo hopes, especially in his block, where he spent three years remodeling his home at 8 W. First St.

“I took it down to the planks,” Rabo said of his house, which has new tan siding and white trim.

When Rabo walks out of his home and crosses North Wyoming Street, the homes aren’t as well kept. A garage at the corner of East First Street has double doors covered with plywood on which “No Parking” is written in yellow paint.

On the next property, the garage roof is missing.

The next house, 26 E. First St., has broken windows on the side and graffiti on the front. Taxes of $3,520 are owned on the property, which Flagstar Bank of Troy, Michigan, owns, according to Luzerne County records.

Hazleton condemned the house, a sign says, on July 17, 2010.

That’s a long time for a property to remain condemned.

Tallies

Just one property was condemned in 2010 on a list of 44 condemned properties that the city provided in response to a request made through the Right to Know Law on July 11, 2013. The list, however, did not note dates for six properties, including the home near Raybo’s residence.

Of the rest of the properties on that list, the city condemned six in 2011 and 13 in 2012. Eighteen were condemned in 2013 through July 17 of that year.

Asked for an update in April, the city listed 23 additional properties, of which 17 were condemned in the second half of last year. Five properties were condemned through March of this year. One condemned in 2011 also made the list.

Lists fluctuate as properties are condemned and uncondemned.

A list that Mike Wilfing, supervisor of Hazleton’s code and health departments, worked from as of June 16 contained 65 properties, of which 18 had been uncondemned and four demolished. The list contained some additional properties, but also excluded some properties that were on either of the other lists.

After collating the three lists, it appears that approximately 79 properties had been condemned dating to at least 2010. Twenty had been uncondemned, leaving some 59 still condemned.

In addition to the properties that were repaired and reoccupied, renovations are underway at some other properties, including 81-83 N. Wyoming St., which has storefronts and apartments and a “For Rent” sign in one of the windows.

Remodeling

Square One Home Improvement repaired and rented properties that had been condemned at 523 E. Maple St. and 528-530 W. Seventh St., and is renovating another condemned property, a house containing four apartments at 301-303 E. Beech St. The company bought it in October 2013.

Square One’s Owner Neal Forte said after he buys a home at a tax sale for about $10,000 and spends five or six times that amount on repairs and new appliances, the apartments rent fast.

Hazleton residents line up for rental homes because they lack money to buy a home, said Forte, who started Square One as a mortgage company 16 years ago and added the construction division more recently.

Some who bought Hazleton homes when prices were rising suffered the same misfortune as Americans elsewhere. The recession of 2008 made their home worth less than they owed.

A double home with a red brick porch and red awning over the front porch at 405-407 W. Oak St., sold for $113,400 in 2006. Now it’s condemned and assessed at $41,100.

Another condemned property, a gray duplex at 606-608 Peace St. with new siding and windows, sold for $167,000 in 2008, but now is assessed at $36,500.

Lofty expectations

Some buyers have unrealistic expectations about the value of properties that they buy or their own finances.

Raymond Harris, trading as Remond Remodling, bought a two-story home built of tan gold brick with a wrap-around porch at 229 E. Broad St. for $15,000 in 2000. Twelve years later, the home was advertised as a business location with an asking price of $225,000. Taxes owed on the property total $21,595.

The city listed the property as condemned in October 2013, but it is not condemned, according to a list provided on June 16.

Robert Nemeth, listed as a broker selling the property, said the home formerly was a rooming house. Harris bought the home after a fire and replaced the roof, but then suffered an accident that set back his plans, said Nemeth, who added that he no longer is with NAI Summit, the firm listed on the for sale sign at the property.

When the city condemns a building, it becomes difficult to insure and market, Nemeth said.

“Other properties are not condemned but could be in as bad condition,” he said. “Instead of making it more difficult, the city should be making it less difficult.”

He suggested that Hazleton provide incentives to remodel properties rather than using codes and citations to enrich the city but add to the owners’ expenses.

Clients looking to buy homes and open restaurants, he said, prefer locations just outside of Hazleton.

“There needs to be a public relations campaign (and) involvement with the business and property owners,” Nemeth said.

Distant owners

When trying to contact property owners, who might have gone out of business or moved, Hazleton officials frequently fail. Hazleton and Pottsville require landlords who live out of town to retain a local representative whom city officials can contact.

A company called Hazleton Homes, for example, owns two condemned homes, one at 233 E. Spruce St., and another at 612 N. Church St.

Despite its name, Hazleton Homes is not in Hazleton. The company is at 8 Amarillo Drive, Nanuet, New York, but has a telephone number in the 570 area code of Northeastern Pennsylvania. A message was left at a voice mailbox for that telephone number on June 11 wasn’t returned. A number in city records for the local representative of Hazleton Homes had been given to a different cellphone customer.

Hazleton Homes owes $7,681 in taxes on the two condemned properties and more than $40,000 on other properties in Hazleton and West Hazleton that are not condemned.

At 69-71 S. Poplar St., an owl decoy perches on a plank protruding from an attic window, as if to scare away other birds from the opening.

Next door is St. John’s Primitive Methodist Church, which owns half of the home that the owl guards.

John McNeal, president of the board at St. John’s, said the church would like to buy the other half of the home and demolish the entire structure for parking, but the owner, Anthony Wilson of Brooklyn, N.Y., won’t return telephone calls any more.

“At one time, we were in conversation. He wanted too much money for his half,” McNeal said. “It’s so close to the church. God forbid if it would ever catch fire.”

When St. Paul’s United Methodist Church closed at 133 W. Green St., Ganiju “Gianni” Vucetovic purchased it for the nominal fee of $1 in 2005 and planned to open a youth center.

Now the property is condemned. Vucetovic owes $8,039 in taxes on the church and the manse next door and $6,376 in taxes on two other properties in Hazleton. Police who looked inside St. Paul’s found a devil’s pentagram scrawled on a wall, beer cans and other trash left by trespassers. Vucetovic’s cellphone is “temporarily not in service,” a recoded message says when the number is dialed, and the telephone for the former American Legion building that he owns is disconnected.

Wilfing, the code department supervisor, said the city has several addresses for Vucetovic, but cannot find him.

Mayor Joseph Yannuzzi said some buyers think they’ve scored a bargain at a tax sale but realize later that they don’t have the money to restore the buildings.

He mentioned a former night club called The Phoenix, a sprawling building from 241 to 247 E. Chestnut. The Phoenix isn’t condemned, but a padlocked side door along South Poplar Street is open enough to admit mice and birds, and the mythical bird has faded out of view on the sign.

“It’s a dump,” Yannuzzi said.

City involvement

Previously, the city government spent money on real estate, demolishing or renovating properties. Most notably, contractors hired by Hazleton tore down former factories and warehouses near the Pine Street Playground. The city obtained grants to build energy-efficient townhomes there during the administration of Mayor Lou Barletta.

During Yannuzzi’s administration, the Hazleton Redevelopment Authority purchased homes near Lehigh Valley Hospital-Hazleton to stabilize the neighborhood and attract hospital employees to homes within walking distance of their workplace. The authority renovated homes at 426 and 40 E. Cranberry Ave., which are for sale, sold a home at 450 E. Walnut St. and demolished another on East Cranberry Avenue. A home at 501 E. Cranberry Ave. was demolished, but the city plans to install and sell a modular home there.

Away from the hospital, the redevelopment authority renovated and, in January, agreed to sell a formerly condemned home at 654 N. Locust St.

Fire in April 2013 damaged an apartment building at 115-117 E. Chapel St., and the city demolished the ruins.

The former Tranguch Tire Service at 23rd and North Church streets, the epicenter of a gasoline leak that the federal government spent years cleaning up, also has been demolished after being condemned.

Now Yannuzzi scaled back those programs, saying Hazleton doesn’t have the money to raze or rehabilitate all the run-down properties.

Fallon Fermin, the city’s Community Development director, said the city offers forgiveness loans to home-owners with low incomes to fix roofs, heating systems and sewers. In an emergency, such as when pieces of a building fall and could endanger pedestrians, the city has funds to alleviate the hazard, Fermin said.

What’s fair?

Lacking the funds to fix all troublesome properties, the city faces questions of fairness.

If the city demolishes a building on one street, could residents of another street sue because an unsafe building remains standing on their street?

“How do you pick and choose?” DeAndrea asked.

DeAndrea said it took time for police, city Solicitor Chris Slusser and Luzerne County District Attorney Stefanie Salavantis to research how to pressure landlords living elsewhere to maintain properties in Hazleton. During the wait, the city faced pressure to demolish 590-592 McKinley St. quickly with public money. By showing patience while verifying their authority to extradite Younes, however, officials induced her to pay for the demolition. She probably will pay thousands of dollars to the city, too, in fines which are being negotiated.

Now the city should be able to employ extradition to speed other owners to action, the chief said.

Yannuzzi said he recently has said “No” to owners who offered to give Hazleton properties to avoid fines if the city would incur costs to demolish or make those properties safe.

Habitat for Humanity also refused gifts of homes that are beyond repair.

“Until recently, I was turning down at least five homes for every one we would take,” Tony Sulkevich, who runs Habitat in the Hazleton area, said.

Thieves have stripped copper pipe from most houses that Sulkevich reviews, but he said Habitat continues to work with volunteers and families to save one house at a time.

kjackson@standardspeaker.com