EDITORIAL First published: Thursday, February 27, 2003

Save the Neighborhoods
A survey of Albany's vacant buildings shows the need for an 
urgent plan of action
 

The evidence was there, anecdotally and in plain view, all along. Albany has too many vacant buildings, especially in such neighborhoods as Arbor Hill, West Hill and the South End. It's the quantitative tally taken by the Historic Albany Foundation that presents the collection of abandoned property citywide as something close to a crisis.

More than 800 buildings are empty, off the tax rolls in many cases, and magnets for almost every form of urban blight imaginable, according to the foundation's survey. That could easily add up to about 2,000 individual housing units. And it means the worst-off neighborhoods have vacancy rates 10 times higher than some of the better-off suburbs. Not since the 2000 census found that the city's population had dropped below 100,000 has Albany been confronted with such statistical bad news.

The message is obvious. Do more for the marginal neighborhoods, now. They need to be more of a priority.

The realization that so much of the city housing stock has been abandoned ought to make Mayor Jerry Jennings' determination to make an Arbor Hill revitalization plan actually happen more urgent. The message should be clear for Park South, too. That neighborhood can't be ignored any longer. And resistance to any potential plans to rid it of vacant and otherwise decrepit buildings has to be examined for its proposed alternatives, or lack of them.

The housing survey, which was the result of leg work by University at Albany graduate students, reinforces this essential fact of urban life as well. What makes vibrant neighborhoods, where the streets are safe and the housing prices stable, is owner-occupied buildings and caring, organized residents. Landlords who let their property deteriorate and then walk away are the antithesis of that. Tax delinquency and foreclosure laws and practices need to be carefully analyzed and, where they are not effective, changed. This city, and others like it, can't do enough to encourage home ownership.

As for larger lessons, the point shouldn't be to portray Albany as too empty a glass. Downtown could use more housing and a few other amenities as well. But it's still a livelier and better place than it's been in years. Not so far away, the eclectic Lark Street is about to get a much needed $2 million face-lift. And the possibilities are enormous in a city that's finally discovering its riverfront.

But neither is Albany an unqualified success story, or even one on the scale of some other cities, where the worries are so few. A collection of 800 abandoned properties in a city of about 95,000 people ought to make that clear enough. The people in power know what they need to do.