Luzerne County has compiled a list of all county-owned properties, something council members have been seeking for years in their goal to unload unused parcels to generate revenue.

“I’m pleased to report that the county has finally been able to secure a list of all county owned properties!” county Manager C. David Pedri wrote in a Tuesday email to council.

“As discussed in council meetings, this was an extremely difficult task to complete due to the poor record-keeping the county had under the previous form of government and the many different names on the recorded documents,” he added.

The 500 properties, including many vacant land slivers, were put in the county’s name during the past 200 years and have been listed under several ownership variations, including “Luzerne County Commissioners” and “County of Luzerne.”

The list was posted Tuesday on the manager’s page at www.luzernecounty.org.

“This list is a long time in coming,” said county Councilwoman Jane Walsh Waitkus, who chairs council’s real estate committee.

The committee will further examine the properties and create a list of those that can be sold because they are not tied to occupied buildings or roads, she said.

The possibility of holding a public auction or hiring a Realtor to market these properties also will be discussed.

“We’d like to make it a seamless process for people so it will be clear what’s available to the public,” she said.

County officials implemented a policy in 2014 allowing the public to submit purchase offers for properties assessed under $25,000, which has resulted in a few sales.

The committee also is focused on another batch of properties that landed in a repository because they did not sell at back-tax auctions.

As of June, the county had 927 properties in the repository, records show. However, that number has since climbed to 987 because 60 more properties did not sell at this month’s final-stage tax auction.

The surplus is a concern because the county is liable for these properties while the owners of record have abandoned them and stopped paying real estate taxes. These properties are up for grabs at any time, and the county tries to sell them for at least $500.

Pedri commended Dave Skoronski and his county GIS/mapping department for developing the list.

“They spent countless hours working on this, and we now have a product that we can be proud of and build off of for future use,” Pedri said.

Many parcels on the list are too small to develop and would be of interest only to neighboring owners, according to a cursory review.

An exception is a 530-acre tract in Butler Township that was once affiliated with the county’s Kis-Lyn work camp for juvenile delinquents from 1912 to 1965.

The Keystone Job Corps Center leases 123 acres at the site for a federally funded, residential education and vocation training program, according to a 50-year lease extension approved by commissioners in 2001.

Farmers have been leasing some of the remaining land for decades, but officials have said the land not occupied by Keystone could be sold to generate cash.

The county also owns: several lots on Warren Avenue, including a 1.24-acre parcel assessed at $44,400; 23 acres of coal mine land adjacent to Main Street in Duryea assessed at $52,000; and a 4.63-acre wooded tract assessed at $41,400 along Route 239 in Conyngham Township.

Pedri
https://www.mydallaspost.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/web1_Pedri_David_05102016_mug-cmyk.jpg.optimal.jpgPedri

By Jennifer Learn-Andes

jandes@timesleader.com

MORE INFORMATION

Luzerne County’s policy to submit purchase offers for property assessed under $25,000 is posted at www.luzernecounty.org.

The list of county-owned property is available on the manager’s page at the same site.

Another pool of repository properties that did not sell at back-tax auctions and the protocol to purchase them may be viewed at www.luzernecountytaxclaim.com.

Reach Jennifer Learn-Andes at 570-991-6388 or on Twitter @TLJenLearnAndes.