By Brenda Flanagan
Correspondent
Code enforcement officers led us in through the basement — with two cops walking point for safety — as East Orange officially inspected an abandoned house on Sanford Street. They found wiring ripped, pipes stolen, holes punched in the ceiling and floors.
Everywhere garbage and the litter of upended lives — like a mural of photographs.
“She’s the owner, listed as the previous owner,” said Will Swanson. “Either the bank or the investment company she got the lien through [took over the house].”
Inspector Swanson quickly searched his iPad, located the investment company in Ocean County and they’ll be getting a phone call. Property Maintenance Director Dwight Saunders developed a nine-step plan using a year-old state law that holds banks responsible for foreclosed properties by imposing fines.
“We’ll notice the bank, give them 30 days to fix the problem. If they don’t fix the problem, we’ll go in and fix it, and then fine them. We’re really taking a proactive stand and getting all these properties addressed and it’s been working,” Saunders said.
“We’re four square miles. We’ve identified over 600 properties that are vacant and abandoned in our city,” said Mayor Lester Taylor.
Taylor wants to aggressively attack East Orange’s long list of foreclosed and derelict housing. His intent: to spark a renaissance here, boost civic pride by rescuing blighted homes. So far, they’ve identified 30 percent of the absentee owners.
“That’s really helping us track down people, get them to enforce or comply with our ordinances so we can clean up our city and have a high quality of life for the people who are here,” Taylor said. “We have issued fines. I would say my goal, I don’t want your money. I want you to clean up our city.”
Examples — one vacant house formerly used as a dump for contractors’ debris now looks spick and span, after the city issued summonses. Another once-dilapidated structure, now offers two apartments.
“They said this house was sitting for four years or something like that,” said Rosa Phanelson. “[It was empty and a mess.] Yes. And we came in. It’s beautiful, the floors are beautiful.”
Saunders now conducts seminars to teach other towns how to run a vacant and abandoned property program.
“A lot of these towns really don’t have a clue, they don’t have a plan, they don’t know what to do,” Saunders said.
Back on Sanford Street, neighbors say their quality of life’s degraded by the derelict property.
“It’s rat-infested, raccoons, possums — you name it, it’s over there. As you can see, it’s nasty. It’s trifling,” said Hakim Lewis.
You might call the city’s program, “Look ‘em up, run ‘em down, make ‘em pay.” In the end, a rescued house helps renovate the entire street.