City Property Lost $2 Billion in Revaluation, but Hardest Hit? Abandoned Homes

Danbury keeps a running total on the number of its abandoned homes, but the number is fluid and it varies. It appears to be higher than 50 today.

When Shawn Stillman, coordinator of the Danbury Unified Neighborhood Inspection Team, visited 12 Hager St., a couple of weeks ago, he noticed some garbage piled up outside 9 Hager St. A year ago 12 was vacant and a hangout for vagrants. Today it is sealed. Stillman walked over to 9 Hager St., and realized it was vacant.

A caller to the city's 311 line Tuesday reported a vacant house at 22 Tanglewood Drive in the Aunt Hack neighborhood. It is vacant and in good shape.

"I'll call the maintenance company, and I'll tell them we expect the lawn to remain cut and the sticks on the lawn to be picked up," Stillman said upon visiting the house for the first time Wednesday. He checked the exterior of the house for trash, and the house for open doors or windows. He found none.

One vacant home on Osborne Street saw its value plummet from $355,400 in 2007 to $198,400 in 2012, a 44 percent drop in value. In the current fiscal year, 2012-2013, the lost value cost Danbury $3,524 in taxes.

Two other abandoned houses nearby on Hospital Avenue and again on Osborne saw a combined loss of $367,300, from 2007 to 2012, which will cost the city about $8,239 this year, at the current tax rate of 22.45 per $1,000. The Osborne Street house lost 44 percent of its value, and the Hospital Avenue house lost 75 percent of its value.

Danbury Tax Assessor Coleen LaHood said Wednesday the average city house lost about 23 percent of its value in the 2012 revaluation. She said some neighborhoods did better than others, such as the lakefront properties.

Stillman said an abandoned house that is allowed to deteriorate might hurt property values in a neighorhood, and Rich Antous, who coordinates the UNIT's efforts downtown said one abandoned house seems to attract a second and a third.

Both Stillman and Antous mentioned the house at 57 Deer Hill Ave. as an example of a house that could spread blight to properties around it.

"This guy is single-handedly wrecking the neighborhood," Antous said.

In addition to lowering property values around it, Stillman said abandoned houses attract homeless people. He said there are numerous examples of abandoned houses and properties where people have set fires on floors to stay warm.

Fire Chief Geoff Herald said that creates problems for firefighters, who sometimes enter homes that were weakened by earlier fires, thereby putting themselves at risk. (See attached video of Chief Herald.)