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The Warren County Commissioners on Wednesday signed off on a move to impose a $15 fee on recorded deeds and mortgages to fund blight demolition.
Act 142 of 2016 allows counties to impose the fee, which can only be used for blight demolition. Funds from transfers in the City of Warren will go to the city to fund demolition while funds raised from transfers in the rest of the county will go to the county's Redevelopment Authority and Landbank for the same purpose.
Commissioner Dan Glotz said that county staff have investigated funding options for the landbank and RDA.
"With the funds being so limited, it hamstrings us as to what can be done," he said. "This is just one of the tools that the state makes available to the county" to address blight.
He said he'd be in favor of reducing the fee if additional funding is found.
"RIght now, we need to keep our options open," Glotz said. "There are a few properties coming the way of the RDA that are going to have to be torn down."
The change did not have the support of several realtors that spoke to the commissioners on Wednesday.
Kelly Stroup told the commissioners that, while blight does affect property values, putting the fee on homeowners and people looking to purchase homes is "unfair."
She asked whether the RDA has identified a need for the funds as well as other avenues of funding.
Denise Whipp called the fee the "lazy way" of raising funds for demolition.
"It's not really directly related to property transfers or to the benefit of people that are transferring property," she said. "The burden of blight really is on every resident in the community. There has to be a better way."
Ed Sekerak specifically asked what buildings have been identified for demolition.
"$15, that's the easiest route," he said. "It might not be the fairest route."
He said the fee would hit elderly couples transferring property within the family and said that it is "only singling out a very narrow band of participants to tax them for this."
Glotz said that a similar fee was implemented in the 1990s to fund the county's housing trust fund.
"I don't recall a lot of pushback on that fund when it was first instituted," he said, calling this funding stream "something we can utilize now as we continue to investigate other opportunities as time goes on."
Glotz then made the motion and the resolution imposing the fee was approved unanimously without any additional discussion.
County officials have said it will take effect April 1.