The city’s Redevelopment Authority took the first step to add another tool to fight blight during a Wednesday meeting.

It’s called a condemnation order and it was created by the General Assembly in 2020.

The legislation allows a “municipality that issues a condemnation order on a property” to “record the condemnation order with the office of recorder of deeds of the county in which the property is located.”

“Once that happens,” City Solicitor Andrea Stapleford said, “it puts any other purchaser on notice. (It’s) another tool that we can use to help not necessarily abate blight with the current owner but prevent it from going forward.”

Anyone doing a deed search on the property, if the order is recorded, would find it.

Stapleford told the RDA that the costs to record the document can also be recouped from a buyer or from tax sale proceeds.”

“It should really help the RDA going forward… to put people on notice of what they’re dealing with with these properties,” she added.

The board removed 58 Locust St. and 602 Conewango Ave. from the city’s blighted property list and Director of Codes and Planning Randy Rossey said this condemnation order procedure could have helped resolve the issues at both of those properties.

He said this isn’t likely to be used on a regular basis for, where the city can’t get movement and a property continues to sit it “would make sense for this to be attached to the property.

Before the tool can be utilized though, it will have to go before city council for approval.