You Must Register Your Vacant Home After 180 Days

The City of Salisbury wants to charge a $25.00 registration fee for any home vacant after 180 days. They followed up by stating that Officer Gordy knows of an additional 100 homes in the N.E. portion of the City that are also vacant but not on record with the City.

I happen to know of quite a few homes in the N.W. portion of the City that are vacant as well and none of these figures include businesses that are vacant, hence the photos above. Who will voluntarily send the City a check for $25.00 once their property hits 180 days old without someone living in it? It seems to me that the City is doing everything they can to find ways to take back these properties without it costing them very much and auction them off to FOB's?

Now I'm not saying this is a bad thing, them taking back properties that should be torn down or rebuilt. I'm also not saying Investors shouldn't get a great deal to do so in neighborhoods that won't draw much in return financially. It is a big risk. However, I believe they need to be far more creative by having an entire package from beginning to end before they start doing so.

What I mean is, these should be "start up builders" and not developers. These should be minority builders and not bigger, more successful builders. Make this an honorable thing where there's a win, win for everyone involved. Let the little guy grow so there's more competition down the road and with that, prices will start to come down because there's more competition.

What about the Commercial side of things too? Why isn't the City going after all of these buildings as well? I read today in the Grapevine, are they going to charge the Old Mall this fee?
Why is the City pampering the Commercial Owners? Will the City be registering the vacant bathrooms outside the Salisbury Zoo near Ben's Red Swings?

Forgive me for bouncing around on this post so much but there's so many questions as to why all of a sudden this has come up and where they're truly going with this. I agree that something needs to be done but I also believe much more thought needs to go into it and a final plan needs to be reached before they simply start a program like this.