If efforts of municipalities across Pennsylvania to diminish blight in their neighborhoods were a video, it would be an endless loop replaying the same story.

A building falls into disrepair; an absentee landlord declines to fix it, relying on property rights within the law to preclude the government seizing it. The building is condemned and sits empty for years, dragging down the neighborhood with it.

Even when such buildings are heavily damaged by fire, it sometimes takes years for the city to navigate the legal process and demolish them. They rarely are rehabilitated because they are too far gone to make that economical.

State Rep. Abigail Salisbury, D-Allegheny County, has substantial experience dealing with blight as a former councilwoman of Swissvale Borough. Soon after winning a special election in February for the House seat vacated by U.S. Rep. Summer Lee, she introduced a bill that could help communities statewide better combat blight.

The House Housing and Community Development Committee approved the bill Tuesday with a 12-9 vote, sending it to the full House for a vote.

The bill would respect the constitutional rights of property owners while better establishing that those rights do not exist in a vacuum. They also entail responsibilities.

Under the bill, owners no longer would be able to delay, infinitely, municipal orders to bring their properties up to building code standards. They would have a specific amount of time to effect designated repairs or appeal the municipal orders before a government-operated land bank could seize the property.

Such land banks acquire and sell abandoned property for nominal amounts to restore them physically and get them back on the tax rolls.

The Salisbury bill would enable, but not require land banks to seize qualifying properties.

In another blight-reduction effort, the House passed another bill Tuesday, 124-79, that would allow local governments to join forces to combat blight, including jointly hiring inspection and enforcement personnel. The bill also would create a grant program to help governments do so.

Both bills would enable local governments to be far more aggressive in protecting neighborhoods from blight, and should become law.

— Republican & Herald, Pottsville via TNS