The City of New London is looking to get blighted properties back online and into the housing stock, especially during what they say is a housing crisis.
"It’s tough out here for people,” Angelo Gomez, of New London, said.
“We're struggling on both sides. We're struggling having enough rental properties, and we're struggling, I know home ownership opportunities, yeah, to supply is way below the demand right now,” Felix Reyes, the city’s economic development and planning director, said.
In the city, Reyes said there are blighted properties that closed their doors well over a year ago from fire damage. He said there’s at least one or two in every neighborhood.
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It turns from, like, you know, a tragic situation, and it turns into a frustrating situation,” Reyes said.
He said they want to figure out where each blighted property is in the reconstruction process, which he says can be complicated and long due to insurance holdups and a permitting construction process.
"Then we'll determine in regard to a strategy moving forward. We're not here to, you know, slap anybody on the hand or, you know, point anybody out, but just kind of figure out, how can we help to kind of move the process along,” Reyes said.
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Some buildings on their radar include a boarded up 7/11 from a fire over a year ago, a former multi-use property from a 2021 fire on Montauk Avenue, and other properties on Greene Street and Lincoln Street.
Reyes said the housing crisis is the impetus for the blighted property inventory intake.
"To ensure that we create new opportunities that may have, you know, been degraded to, you know, towards fire and due to fire damages,” he said.
To see the City of New London’s 2022 blighted property ordinance, click here.
