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Date: 3/16/2023
GRANVILLE — Voters on March 20 will be asked to allow the Selectboard to sell a vacant house and pay for the large bills incurred acquiring it.
There are three articles on the Town Meeting warrant, all related to the property at 232 Sodom St., Granville. Town Administrator Matthew Streeter said the town took the property in lieu of back taxes, then fought in court to evict the tenants of five illegal apartments in the single-family home.
The meeting is at 7 p.m. on March 20 at the former Granville Village School (now Community Christian School), 409 Main Rd., Granville. All registered voters in Granville can participate.
Article 1 would transfer control of the 3.54-acre property from the assessors to the Selectboard, which would then have the authority to sell it at auction.
“They’ll get a nice piece of property they can build on, and [the town will] get it back on the tax rolls,” Streeter said.
He said he does not anticipate that the house will sell at a high enough price to cover what the town has spent, and will spend, on it. There was $90,000 owed in back taxes when the town acquired the property, and then it had to spend $30,000 and several trips to Housing Court to evict the tenants.
The current building is a single-family home that has been illegally divided into apartments, Streeter said. It is also considered a blighted property – “it’s beyond saving,” he said – and the Selectboard has determined it needs to be razed before the property can be sold.
The demolition process will include decommissioning the water well, septic system and utility connections, and potential abatement of asbestos. All told, that bill may run as high as $50,000, and Article 2 on the warrant would withdraw $50,000 for those purposes from free cash, unspent money left over from previous town budgets.
Voters will also be asked to transfer $30,000 from free cash to the town’s Law Department account, to pay for legal services through the end of the fiscal year in June, as the Housing Court expenses have pushed the account into a deficit.