DATE: Sunday, May 18, 1997                  TAG: 9705180019

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B2   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY LOUIS HANSEN, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: SUFFOLK                           LENGTH:   52 lines

SUFFOLK MAYOR INITIATES EFFORT TO GET MOST OUT OF RUN-DOWN SITES

Responding to citizen complaints about homes that have become eyesores while generating no property taxes, Mayor Thomas G. Underwood has requested a report about the problem.

Underwood asked the city attorney and city treasurer to review the process under which such properties are sold.

``If you don't pay your taxes, it's a due bill,'' Underwood said. ``We'd like to get (the money).''

The mayor said the city should consider holding auctions more frequently, to clear the rolls of more than 500 city properties that are three or more years deliquent.

The city can auction a property if taxes are not paid within three years.

Suffolk will consider publishing the list of deliquent properties in newspapers, as it has done in the past, Underwood said.

City Treasurer Ronald H. Williams said he welcomed the request from the mayor. He added that the city had improved its collection rate on delinquencies each year since 1990, from a high of 4.1 percent to 1.8 percent for 1996-97.

With semi-annual collections coming up, he said, the department might need additional staff to chase outstanding tax debts.

About half of the 500 delinquent properties are assessed at $7,500 or less, and do not have homes on them, he said. ``Many of those are unsaleable because of legal problems.''

The treasurer's office, he said, includes properties in auctions at the request of neighbors.

The mayor's request came after complaints from Hall Place residents that a dilapidated home at 192 Cedar St. had been ignored by the city. The boarded-up house has been in arrears on taxes for five years.

A former assistant city manager told the president of the Hall Place Community Organization in February 1996, that the city would try to auction the property within a year.

The city attorney last week notified the property's owners that he would seek to auction the property to collect $2,900 in back taxes. The process can take as long as 18 months.

Underwood said that he and the city council are concerned about collecting the revenues and about the prompt delivery of city services.

``The council needs to know more about the process,'' he said. Reports by the city attorney and treasurer will be made before council this week. ILLUSTRATION: Photo

JOHN H. SHEALLY II/The Virginian-Pilot

Hall Place residents Joe and Mamie Arrowood want the run-down and

boarded-up house at 192 Cedar St., right, torn down. The process to

auction the property can take as long as 18 months. The house has

been in arrears on taxes for five years.

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