Authorizing the City Council of Philadelphia to investigate the non-enforcement of the Real Estate Non-Utilization Tax and to find ways to improve the current legislation to provide for additional revenue to offset the cost of City services to maintain abandoned and vacant land and to encourage the sale of abandoned and vacant land.

WHEREAS, In a unanimous vote the City Council of Philadelphia approved the Real Estate Non-Utilization Tax; and

WHEREAS, The provisions of the ordinance became effective on June 10, 1982; and

WHEREAS, The Ordinance provided for a revenue stream to help fund the “greater demand on essential city services such as police and fire protection and some services performed by the Department of Licenses and Inspections than do occupied properties comparably assessed for real estate tax purposes”; and

WHEREAS, The owners of vacant and abandoned properties do not always contribute a fair share of the costs of providing the foregoing essential City services financed in part by real estate tax revenues; and

WHEREAS, The number of vacant and abandoned properties have increased dramatically since the legislation was first enacted; and

WHEREAS, Many of the vacant and abandoned properties held by property owners who do not live in the immediate vicinity of the property and are not effected by the blight that their property causes; and

WHEREAS, Many vacant and abandoned properties owners are holding the property in the hope that real estate values will increase enabling such owners to sell these properties at a substantial profit without making any of the required repairs or improvements to the property; now therefore

BE IT RESOLVED THAT, The City Council of Philadelphia is authorized to hold hearings to investigate the non-enforcement of the Real Estate Non-Utilization Tax and to find ways to improve the current legislation to provide for additional revenue and to encourage the sale of abandoned and vacant land.

End