The City of Monmouth has acquired the property at 1114 South 1st Street, which is set to be demolished following no interest in purchasing the property. Mayor Rod Davies says there are around twenty properties in the City that have fallen into a state of disrepair or owners have just walked away from the property itself:
“If there is a mortgage on it, they just walk away from it and the property has no value to it so the bank doesn’t want to repossess it, they don’t want to own it, so they walk away from it and then it just becomes an abandoned property that no one is taking care of, no one is mowing it except for the City or the neighbors. We try to use the courts as much as we can to get things through it, but that is a difficult and long process. We are fortunate that this demolition will be paid for by grant funds that we applied for and get to try and get rid of these eye sore properties. In most cases the adjacent property owners will buy the lots. We try to redevelop and in fact, we have been working with two different groups in putting affordable homes on lots like that, but it is incredibly expensive and hard to get going. It has really been a challenge.”
If you are interested in any city acquired properties, more information can be obtained at the Monmouth City Hall.
