NBC 4 Investigates Status Of Vacant Home Demolition

COLUMBUS, Ohio—NBC 4 is digging deeper into taxpayer money and how it is being spent in Mifflin Township to destroy vacant and abandoned homes.

More than $250,000 was spent in Mifflin Township and two years later, there is very little to show for it.

Since it was settled in 1799, Mifflin Township may have never looked as bad as it does now.

Home after home has been left abandoned and deteriorated.

Officer Steve Blake is Mifflin’s code enforcement officer.

Blake has watched his township nearly fall apart. That’s why he was ecstatic when he heard there was a plan to save it.

Miracit, a not-for-profit development corporation was given $300,000 from Franklin County to help fix the problem.

“They were going after 15 properties in Mifflin Township, vacant properties to purchase, tear down the vacant properties and build new homes,“ Blake said.

In the past two years, crews have torn down two homes and none have been rebuilt.

Sharon Francis with Miracit has dealt personally with Mifflin Township.

“Certainly, I think if we could move up the process faster, we would like to,“ Francis said.

The Franklin County Commissioners, who approved the $300,000 said Miracit has a five-year contract to develop the land and although only two lots have been cleared and no new homes have been built, Miracit is ahead of schedule.

“If not for Miracit, we’d be in a lot worse shape in Franklin County,“ said Franklin County Commissioner Paula Brooks.

For example, Greenview Estates in Columbus is a development of 30 energy-efficient, new, affordable homes on what was once a rundown apartment complex.

Both Miracit and Brooks said the bad economy has slowed down everything.

“Being able to market those homes in an area that really hasn’t seen a lot of development has been a challenge. The values aren’t there. What we pay for a house is not what we can sell a house for,“ Brooks said.

Still, residents in the area said there should be more of an effort to at least communicate what is happening.

Mary Ramsey said that one-year ago, she was approached by Miracit about selling her property.

“(They said,) ‘We’ll give you $68,000 for it, for this and the two lots.‘ I said, ‘Fine. I’ll move, I’ll let you have it just as long as you want to buy me out and let me know ahead of time so I got somewhere else to go,‘ and then I didn’t hear any more from her,“ Ramsey said.

It’s a common complaint among area residents.

“Can you understand their concerns? They’re saying you don’t call them back. They’ll (think) that they’re going to get their house sold, they get their hopes up and then they don’t hear anything. Nothing happens,“ Bowersock asked Francis.

“Well, we have certainly tried to make sure that we stay in touch with those that certainly we’re in contact with, or that we’ve made a commitment to them. Our goal is, of course, to meet that commitment,“ Francis said.

“I would challenge just about anybody out there in the housing industry to say they could move these homes much faster,“ Brooks said.

Central Ohio is at the center of the vacant home crisis.

According to the Associated Press, Columbus is home to the nation’s emptiest neighborhood. The analysis showed a neighborhood behind the Westland Mall near Georgesville Road and Broad Street leads the country in vacancies with 70 percent of the area’s housing empty.