I agree 2 years is far too long.
These place just become a haven for drug users and pts those drug users and dealers into what was once good neighborhoods we see this all the time in GARBAGE HILL.
In fact just the other day a neighbor of mine saw that a vacant home across the street had its front windows broken out and the door was ajar, he called the police and the never came to investigate.

I too agree that 2 years is way to long to get the ball rolling on condemned houses, but I don't agree that the person willing to buy and rehab the house must enter into a working relationship with the city.

First of all the city has to many BS laws wanting trades to have licenses to do certain aspects of rehabing the houses, like a licensed plumber, electrician, now don't get me wrong this sounds good, but there are plenty of unlicensed plumbers and electricians that know what their doing and will do the job right, plus if the city has inspectors, just like there are in the suburbs, then what's the deal with the license because even licensed trades can make mistakes, that need to be corrected for things to work properly.

I also think the city needs to screen these people wanting to buy the properties and rehab them, especially if, like Mr. Patterson said they put off these properties once they aquire them for 10 months, then at some point claim they have to many properties that their working on to get to the one they just bought. Well it's obvious these people are buying properties to eventually flip them and make a profit, which is well and good, but they should start working on the property within 1 week of their purchase to rehab them not 10 months down the road.

So the city having all these hoops for trades to jump through just makes it take longer to get the job done, and I've experienced this 20 years ago when I called a plumber to fix a water leak, after he got their he told me he couldn't do the job because he didn't have a license to work in the city, which to me is a bunch of bull, just because a trade has a license doesn't mean he's going to do the job correctly to where the person using the licensed trade isn't going to have the same problem 2 to 5 years down the road.

Plus with all the license issues then you have the tickets for parking while a trades there trying to work, then you have people stealing tools and vandalizing the trades trucks in broad daylight and then you wonder why these house are sitting for years, and a lot of this isn't because of all the paper work.

The first notice to go out to homeowners about their blighted properties is all that's really needed, if they don't respond to the notice in 30 days they're done, take their property and sell it to someone that has the resources to fix the property up so the neighborhood doesn't go down hill. This sending out of up to 3, 30 day notices is foolish especially if the homeowner doesn't respond to the first one within a 30 day period. it's obvious the homeowner is negligent is doesn't need to own property.

Things could be a lot simpler in this matter if the city wasn't always trying to find a way to make money off of people.