Prince William County officials are calling on residents to report the growing number of vacant, troublesome homes in the latest effort to combat rising foreclosure-related neighborhood blight.
“We have so many vacant homes, there is no way the county can go out and find them all,” said Michelle Casciato,” the county’s director of neighborhood services. “We are calling on the community to take on ownership and stewardship of their neighborhoods.”
While residents are reporting between 25 and 50 new violations every day, from unkempt lawns to trash and vandalism, county officials want a better grasp of the problem the data show could be devastating.
The county is Virginia’s hardest hit by foreclosures, with nearly 7,000 homes in some part of the foreclosure process. While more than half will be regularly maintained, officials expect about 2,700 will require county oversight, including lawn mowing and other maintenance, costing about $1 million.
“Just keeping lawns of vacant properties within code may require more than 8,100 visits in a season, well beyond the current capacity of staff and the budget to deal with,” a county memoon the issue said.
The county has added additional staff for the summer months to handle yard, graffiti and vandalism complaints, as well as to consider any changes to laws.
The damage to property values would be far greater, officials fear.
“A vacant home in and of itself is not a danger. It’s when it starts to demonstrate signs of deterioration, those are the things we want to know about,” Casciato said. “Seeing homes where there are broken windows and long grass doesn’t encourage any investment in that neighborhood,” she said. “You would want to go somewhere else.”
dgenz@dcexaminer.com
