Cities share grant to combat neglected properties

Haverhill and Methuen will soon be sharing a position that will help the two cities deal with abandoned and neglected properties.

“Neither one of us has been spared by the foreclosure crisis and the mortgage meltdown” that began in 2008, Methuen Economic and Community Development Director William Buckley said. “This was kind of a new problem for which neither city was well-prepared.”

The neighboring cities applied separately for $100,000 grants from the state’s Abandoned Housing Initiative. The attorney general’s office, which administers the grants, offered a total of $140,000 to the two cities – enough to pay the salary of a single manager for the program for two years while also dealing with the two communities’ specific needs, according to Buckley and Andrew Herlihy, the community development division director in Haverhill.

Herlihy said the manager, who is expected to be hired in November, will likely spend two days each week in each city, with a fifth day devoted to Northeast Housing Court in Lawrence, where receivers of distressed properties are appointed.

Haverhill typically has at least five properties that are under receivership, and one role of the manager shared with Methuen will be working with court-appointed receivers, Herlihy said.

Herlihy noted that receivers tend to aim to rehabilitate a property and then sell it at a profit. But he said that he is hopeful that nonprofits will be interested in serving as receivers with an eye toward rehabilitating a building that could serve a community purpose.

Haverhill is also aiming to build up its inspectional services staff to help keep properties from falling into disrepair in the first place, Herlihy added.