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Havreite campaigns to clean up vacant property

There had to be something that Havre could do about the situation

A Havre woman is leading a campaign to tackle blight that would include targeting property owners who let their vacant, rundown properties disintegrate while refusing offers to sell.

Samantha Clawson, who has grown up in Havre and works at Montana State University-Northern, would like to see a VPRO - vacant property registry ordinance - be implemented.  VPROs, she said, targets property owners who don't take the responsibility to maintain their property. Similar ordinances have been passed all over the country, including one by the government of Butte-Silver Bow last year called "Vacant Buildings."

The ideal ordinance, Clawson said, would be customized to best suit the Havre area. She met with county officials Monday and presented the idea during that night's Havre City Council meeting. The responses, she said, have been "really good."

Clawson said she has been concerned about Havre's derelict properties for some time, but was recently prompted to action after she went litter collecting a few weeks ago.

The hiking and walkway promotion group Havre Trails presented a challenge to walk in the community and pick up trash, she said. During the litter-collecting walk with her husband and children, Clawson said, she walked past the conspicuous gray, 12-unit vacant row of apartments with boarded windows on Fifth Avenue.

"By the time we got to the end of the block, we'd filled a bag full of garbage - because nobody is maintaining the property. Those lilac bushes were just filled with all kinds of plastic and garbage," she said.

Clawson was bothered by more than just the trash she collected.

"My son wanted to go up the steps and take a look and I didn't feel like it was safe," she said.

Safety can be a major concern with derelict properties, Clawson said, adding that potential danger can be amplified when owners are unavailable. One day, Clawson said, one of their cats got stuck on the back porch of the gray apartments. Because there was no one on the property to contact, she said her husband climbed up to fetch the cat.

What if something graver, such as a fire, happened in those properties? she asked. Would responding fire fighters crash through the planks of an already- feeble floor? Would something that had been tenuously hanging come down on their heads? There is no telling the dangers that lurk in those buildings, she said.

Clawson said she has other concerns with those apartments, and the other vacant buildings that plague the city. They are the type of place that can foster crime, she said. And they have a devaluing effect. It doesn't take a realty genius to conclude that home values are negatively impacted if there is an ugly, abandoned property next to it, she said.

Bear Paw Development Executive Director Paul Tuss echoed Clawson's sentiment.

"That same vacant building that sits vacant for months and years becomes problematic," he said. "It significantly devalues the neighborhood. It creates an unwelcome environment for new residents and businesses."

During the day of the litter walk, Clawson said, she was reminded of a series of articles written by the Havre Daily in February of 2016 on the prevalence of and issues created by vacant properties in Havre. The gray apartments, the articles reported, are owned by a Great Falls company called Sunrise Financial Group, LLC.

Sunrise - albeit under different names - owns thousands of properties throughout Montana, including some in Hill County. They have bought many thousand more tax liens.

Part of the mystique associated with Sunrise centers on its odd management structure.

Montana Secretary of State documents showed that Sunrise is managed by another LLC, aptly called The Parent Company. The Parent Company is managed by a group called Sunset Management. And Sunset Management is managed by - Sunrise Financial. The circular ownership, former Communications Director for the Montana Secretary of State Blair Fjeseth had said, is legal, but not something she commonly saw.

Two names that were associated with Sunrise - Brion Lindseth and Jon Kudrna - both turned out to be elusive people. Both men were at the Great Falls law firm Jardine, Stephenson, Blewett and Weaver, P.C., but neither answered or returned phone calls. A Havre Daily reporter visited the Great Falls address on one of the LLC's incorporation papers. The secretary said she was told not to talk to reporters.

At the time of the articles, Sunrise had bought the tax lien to 80 properties in Hill County, most of them in the Havre city area. Sunrise had acquired the tax deed to 20 of those properties.

Files in the Hill County Clerk and Recorder's office now show that Sunrise now has its hands in 81 county properties and has sold two of them - to itself. Two tax deeds, both dated March 28, 2016, show that Sunrise sold two Havre properties to a new umbrella group, one that didn't appear in Hill County files until after the February 2016 report. Placid Rentals, LLC, Secretary of State files show, is managed by Sunset Management, who, again, is managed by Sunrise.

During the report, Havre Daily spoke to two locals - Greg Wood and Marc Whitacre - who had been interested in buying the Fifth Avenue apartments. Neither got very far. Their phone calls and emails went unreturned. Wood went so far as to drive to the Great Falls address that was listed on the deed document when he didn't get an answer. But he said he found no one and returned back home.

Wood has a remodeling business and owns the coffee shop 2nd Street Baristas in Havre. Whitacre and his wife own The 305 Building and the Historic Post Office, both of which have been greatly refurbished and are utilized by the community.

As Clawson thought about those articles, she said, she realized a year had passed and nothing has been done. She said she remembered the interest people had at the time, sometimes accompanied by fervent declarations to do something - yet nothing has happened.

"And it really got me thinking that Havre just could not have any options. There had to be something that Havre could do about the situation," she said.

She started looking into what other municipalities were doing to combat similar problems and found that just June of last year, the government of Butte-Silver Bow implemented their "Vacant Building" ordinance.

The official documents for the ordinance says the purpose of the ordinance is "to protect public health, safety and welfare by establishing a program for identification and registration of vacant buildings, determining the responsibilities of owners of vacant buildings and structures, and providing for administration, enforcement and penalties."

Clawson said a VPRO would be a comprehensive plan where members of the community would work together to identify the problems and find ways to rehabilitate the properties with responsible owners. The VPRO would include a public and accessible registry comprised of a list of vacant properties and contact information of the owner, or owners, she said.

"The idea of the registry is just to have valid contact for some of the vacant property owner. If you drive down the street and you see a vacant lot and you think you might like to buy and invest money in, sometimes it's impossible to get ahold of people that actually get ahold of," she said.

"Ideally, we'd have representatives from the bank who would be able to help," she said. "Ideally, you would have a system in place for realtors to be able to show the properties to people who would be interested in actually fixing the properties and utilizing them as housing or business. Banks would help provide financial support and getting new property owners money needed to fix up the place."

The ordinance, Clawson said, would not target anyone who lives in a home, no matter how unkempt it may be.

Clawson said she knows Sunrise isn't the sole offender of holding onto derelict, vacant properties. She said she is friends with local owners of similar properties. She considers them "awesome people." But, she said, with owning property, there is a responsibility to the community to develop it.

"Anybody who owns a property that is vacant - if they can't afford to develop that property, than ideally they should sell it to somebody who's going to do something with it," she said. "Some of these people own properties and have owned them over a decade or more and haven't done anything with them."

City and county officials said they recognize there is a problem.

Hill County Commissioner Mark Peterson said it's time to start looking at keeping every available space useful and from becoming an eyesore. He applauds Clawson for what she's doing, adding that since most of the vacant, derelict properties are within the city limits, a proposed ordinance would have to be one agreed on by the city and county.

"I think we need to look at all the options," Peterson said.

Mayor Tim Solomon said the city is definitely open to ideas that would address the vacant properties.

"There is properties that are concerns to us," he said.

As for now, Solomon said there needs to be more information and research.

City Council President Andrew Brekke said there are lots of questions he and the mayor and staff have about the topic and the information is just starting to be reviewed.

"An ordinance will definitely need to be passed to address this issue one way or the other, though as we currently have no legal means to enforce much of the concerns addressed here," Brekke said.

Clawson knows this is a battle that will require diligence, and she said she's ready to contribute any way she can.

"I don't know where it's going to go, but I do think this is an option the city of Havre and Hill County should at least look at," she said. "And if we don't do anything about it, the situation is not going to get better."

 

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