New Beginning: Allentown’s Warrington Avenue Poised For A Makeover

The crowd inside — and eventually outside — 816 E. Warrington Ave. one recent evening gathered to showcase a newly renovated Allentown property. The former Ken’s Variety had been vacant for more than 20 years.

As the evening deepened, “Open in Allentown,” a “pop-up” event with a garage-style glass door rolled up, became a stew of neighborhood leaders, investors, consultants, residents of Allentown and nearby neighborhoods mingling over cocktails and catered nibbles.

The event and mix of people signified what Hilltop Alliance executive director Aaron Sukenik called “Warrington Avenue in its reinvention phase.”

One mile from Downtown (Pittsburgh) and cradled by the hot markets of Mount Washington and the South Side Slopes, Allentown is riddled with residential blight, and 35 percent of its commercial properties are vacant. But the newly repaved Warrington Avenue is on the cusp of a transition from being seedy to being seen.

Read more:

http://www.post-gazette.com/local/city/2015/04/06/New-beginning-in-Allentown-Warrington-Avenue-poised-for-a-makeover/stories/201504060015

Reading City Council Gets Tough On Blight!

City Council on Tuesday unanimously approved a new version of the pre-sale inspection ordinance that it repealed in 2006, requiring all properties to get checked for code compliance when they’re on the market.

The ordinance mandates that property owners get a certificate of transfer for all properties – residential or commercial – sold after April 1, 2012.

To get the certificate, the owners will have to pay $150 for the health and safety inspection, and pass it. However, the inspection will be scaled down from the full-blown inspection required under the earlier program that cost $300.

It’s also far less than the higher costs in a new fee schedule for other inspections that council adopted Tuesday. For instance, a regular inspection of a single-family home will cost $505, up from $240.

Read more: http://readingeagle.com/article.aspx?id=355261

Pittsburgh Residential Assessments Jump 46 Percent

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The city of Pittsburgh‘s residential properties are now assessed at a total of $10.78 billion, up 46 percent from their prior assessment of $7.33 billion, officials said in the courtroom of Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge R. Stanton Wettick Jr. today.

“That would mean everyone whose assessment went up by one-third would actually be paying fewer taxes, if the commercial came in at that amount” of increase, Judge Wettick said.

The city and school district must lower their millage, he noted, so they do not take an illegal windfall from the county’s reassessment.

Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11364/1200250-100-0.stm#ixzz1i2sm26oj

First Estimates In – Dauphin County Damage Total From Lee

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The first official guesstimate of how much damage Tropical Storm Lee caused Dauphin County is in – and it is a large figure.  Not as large as the incinerator debt, but daunting nonetheless.

The magic number is $52.7 million worth of damage to commercial and residential properties in the county.  That is just one county out of MANY.  This storm will be very costly!

Harrisburg officials say they will need 60 days to come up with a number on how much they spent and the amount the city will be seeking in reimbursement from FEMA.

In other news, the National Guard will be pumping out basements in Shipoke since the city says it does not have the expertise or the manpower to do so.