The Bancroft Betterment has taken on Housing as its priority. In October, representatives from the Northeast Nebraska Department of Economic Development held a community meeting in Bancroft. They suggested that Bancroft talk to Lyons to see how they are dealing with vacant buildings in need of repair.
Ron Daberkow and Alan Steinmeyer were guest speakers at the December Bancroft Betterment meeting Monday.
Ron described the three step process they went through to put their program in place.
Step 1- Adopt a building code
Step 2- Adopt a village ordinance
Step 3- Appoint a Housing administrator, a Building Inspector, and a Health Department representative.
Copies were provided on the Lyons code and ordinances.
The Building inspector is responsible for determining if a building is in need of repairs, based on the building code, and how much the cost of repairs will be. If the repairs will cost less than 50% of the value of the building, then it is yellow tagged. The property owner is notified by certified mail and has 90 days to fix the building.
If the building repairs are greater than 50% of the value of the building, the building is red-tagged. The building becomes a city responsibility and the city pays to tear down the building. There is also an emergency Red Tag if a building becomes damaged due to fire or weather.
Owners have an appeal process.
Step 1- A hearing with the Housing administrator.
Step 2- Appeal the decision to the Village Board
Step 3- Appeal the decision to the courts.
Lyons budgets $10,000 a year for dealing with building in disrepair. They tag 3-4 houses per year. The process can take over 3 years before a building is tore down. Removing a house typically costs $6,000-7,000 to tear down and haul away.
The next step will be to do a housing study in Bancroft. This will include a community survey. Survey information will be used to determine if Bancroft is eligible for any Housing grant programs. Cuming County Economic Developer Garry Clark has been working with Northeast Development on the Housing study.He anticipates having information to share at the January 3 Betterment meeting.
Bancroft is in the Three Rivers Housing District. Three Rivers will put together some information on programs Bancroft may be interested in. This information will be shared at the Bancroft Betterment meeting January 3. Pam Thompson, of Three Rivers, has been invited to attend the February 7 Betterment meeting to talk about the different programs.
Several community members have volunteered to be on a Housing committee to develop a housing action plan to present to the community members and the Village Board. A meeting date for the committee has not been set.
