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The Facts

How many vacant and unoccupied properties are there in NPU-V?

The number is staggering. There are 1296 vacant and unoccupied properties in NPU-V.

How did you come up with that number?

Members of the NPU-V Neighborhood Data Advisory Group visited each plot of land in NPU-V and coded occupancy, level of blight, and the presence of trash and illegally dumped construction debris. They counted 1296 vacant or unoccupied lots in NPU-V, which represents 42% of all properties and includes brand new homes that are boarded up and vacant. This number may actually be an underestimate.

How do you define vacant?

According to the National Vacant Properties Campaign, vacant properties are residential, commercial, and industrial buildings and vacant lots that exhibit one or both of the following traits:

  • The site poses a threat to public safety
  • The owners or managers neglect the fundamental duties of property ownership (e.g., they fail to pay taxes or utility bills, default on mortgages, or carry liens against the property)

Vacant properties include abandoned, boarded-up buildings and unused lots that attract trash and debris. In NPU-V, they also include new homes that remain vacant and attract criminal activity and illegal dumping.

Why are vacant properties a problem?

  • Vacant properties increase crime and the fear of crime
  • Vacant properties attract trash and debris, including illegal dumping by developers
  • Vacant properties are harmful to residents' mental health
  • Vacant properties are sometimes artificially valued above their true worth due to speculative development, house flipping, and mortgage fraud, while depreciating neighboring property values
  • Vacant properties reduce property tax revenue
  • Vacant properties strain police, fire, building, and health departments

Who is responsible for vacant properties?

Many people and agencies are responsible. The property owner is responsible for maintaining the property so that it meets the City of Atlanta Code of Ordinances. Some property owners fall on hard times, in particular senior citizens on fixed incomes. However, many other property owners don't live in the neighborhood and have no intention of paying their mortgages or taxes or maintaining their property. We are most concerned about this latter type of property owner.

When a property becomes a nuisance, the City of Atlanta Code of Ordinances outlines a process that gives authority to the City of Atlanta to abate (fix) the problem property, which can include boarding up the property, mowing the lawn, removing the illegally dumped trash and debris, and in some cases tearing the property down.

Citizens are also responsible. Citizens can call the City of Atlanta to report problem properties.

How do properties become vacant?

There are many factors involved, and the issue is complex. In some cases, speculative development, house flipping and mortgage fraud all work together to create vacant properties. The map to the left illustrates the change in home appraisal values for NPU-V between 2001 and 2005. The darker the area, the more the prices of homes have gone up. In fact, the very dark color means that houses have gone up by $97,000 - $400,000 in the last four years!

The chart to the left shows that housing values have increased over a 4-year period by 127% in Adair Park and by as much as 670% in Summerhill. These escalating home prices in a neighborhood with 1296 vacant properties contributes to the evidence that investors may be flipping houses between themselves. A home can be bought and sold over and over again and no one ever lives there.


What can we do about trash, construction debris, and vacant properties?

We believe that vacant properties can best be rehabilitated by community development corporations and affordable housing developers. We also believe that the City of Atlanta can do more to ensure that vacant properties are up to code. The Dirty Truth Campaign has developed a set of policy recommendations. We are calling for:

  • The activation of the power of the mayor and municipal court judges to authorize the abatement of nuisance properties without a hearing as stated in Chapter 75, Article V of the Code of Ordinances.
  • The demolition, rehabilitation, and abatement of the 100 most blighted vacant properties identified by residents and the Dirty Truth Campaign within 90 days of Earth Day (April 21, 2007) by the City of Atlanta. Continued abatement of up to 100 properties every 90 days thereafter until the existing 804 blighted properties and any future properties that are substantially and chronically (for more than 4 consecutive months) in violation of appropriate codes are brought up to code.
  • Weekly street cleaning by the City of Atlanta in all areas deemed to be possibly blighted or redeveloping, implemented on a schedule such that all streets within empowerment zones, renewal communities, redevelopment zones, tax allocation districts or similarly situated properties be cleaned at least twice per month.
  • The development of a Citizen's Commission to investigate code enforcement coordination, staff turnover, record keeping, and electronic data storage and tracking.
  • Active and assertive enforcement of code violations resulting in seizure of crime ridden and/or environmental nuisance properties to be donated to community development corporations and neighborhood-based affordable housing developers for redevelopment.

How can I get involved?

We need everyone's help. It doesn't matter who you are. We have people as young as 12 years old advocating for change in this community. If you would like to support the Dirty Truth Campaign, call us at (404) 564-6933 or email us at info@dirtytruth.org. You can also send us a message by clicking here.