Ordinance gives City of Chicago more resources to take on vacant properties

Ald. Pat Dowell (D-3) has proposed an amendment to the City of Chicago’s vacant property ordinance that would expand the City’s ability to ensure that property owners are maintaining and securing their vacant properties—and make it easier for the City to get reimbursed if owners do not pay fees and fines or adequately maintain the property. 
 
The proposed ordinance would expand the definition of “property owner” to include financial institutions that have an interest in the property. This would allow the City to hold financial institutions that have filed a foreclosure on the vacant property, but have not yet acquired the title in a judicial sale, accountable to register, maintain, and secure the property and abide by the vacant property ordinance. It would also address the problem of bank walkaways, where a bank puts off filing a foreclosure on a vacant property even though the mortgage may be seriously delinquent. In these situations, the property is often not maintained by the title owner or the mortgagee; the proposed ordinance would require that the mortgagee who declines to foreclose abide by the vacant property ordinance and register, maintain, and secure the vacant property.
 
The proposed ordinance would also increase the fees and fines for vacant property ordinance violations. 
 
Update: the ordinance passed the City Council unanimously on July 28, 2011.