Jeannette officials seek answers for restoring dilapidated properties

It sounded like William Gaines had a pretty good plan.

He wanted to buy a property on North Fourth Street in Jeannette from the Westmoreland County repository. But first, he had to get approval from city council. Gaines told council members in December that he intended to rehabilitate the home over four to six months and then resell it to a middle-class family.

Jeannette has 49 among 350 properties countywide in the repository of abandoned and delapidated sites. The city hopes to improve how the sale and renovation of the properties is managed.

Council members had a lot of questions for Gaines, who lives in Delaware. He had answers for them all. Mayor Curtis Antoniak and Councilman Chad Krawtz recalled that Gaines seemed knowledgeable.

“My idea is to subcontract to someone local and … come up here consistently to make sure it’s done,” Gaines told council in December, estimating it would cost $52,800 to renovate. “Once I get this loan, I have to pay interest. The quicker I can get it done, the quicker I can sell it.”

Council approved the sale. Gaines paid $5,000, according to the deed dated Jan. 19.

But it seems his plan changed, as the property was listed for sale Feb. 17 on Craigslist and Feb. 25 on a Facebook group for off-market properties in Pennsylvania.

The asking price is $20,000 or $25,000, depending on where you look. The listing says it “needs basics in order for it to be market-ready” and bills the home as an “investment property.”

Jeannette fire Chief Bill Frye said no improvements have been made at the property since Gaines acquired it. On Wednesday, there appeared to be several garbage bags sitting on the front porch, and a tire lay in the backyard.

City officials feel Gaines misled them.

“This guy gets away with it once, but he’s not going to get away again,” Frye said. “It’s like a vicious cycle. At least we have a record of this guy.”

Gaines told TribLive last week that he intended to rehabilitate the property, but his funding fell through.

“It seems that every lender … they don’t want to loan me money on it,” he said, adding that he had hoped to do more deals in Jeannette. “I didn’t fool them. I planned on rehabbing.”

Jeannette Solicitor Tim Witt said a change in state law allows municipalities to request someone who is interested in a repository property appear in person to present a plan to the governing body. That group can approve or deny the sale. Properties go into the repository after they are unsold at tax sales.

Concern about plans

Jeannette has been taking that approach “because we do have concerns about peoples’ plans for the properties, and we want to make sure they end up in the hands of responsible owners,” Witt said.

After Gaines failed to show at a February council meeting, council denied his plan to purchase another repository property, this time on North First Street for $2,500.

The same thing has happened after other potential buyers didn’t show up in person, and council plans to continue monitoring interested parties the same way, Witt said.

Gaines said he was under the impression he didn’t need to attend the February meeting in person and instead sent his plans by email.

The city checked on Gaines’ property-related background prior to the North Fourth Street vote and didn’t find anything, Witt said. There’s no legal recourse now.

Council members were excited at the prospect of having the dilapidated property on North Fourth Street be turned around, Krawtz and Antoniak agreed. Frye said during the December meeting that three North Fourth Street homes neighboring the one Gaines bought were targeted for demolition.

“That would help his project as well for the resale aspect if we could continue with that plan to tear down those three bad ones, and he’s going to rehab one of the ones that are left,” Frye said then. “That might be a good thing to clean up that neighborhood a little bit.”

On the Facebook listing, the first person who expressed interest in the North Fourth Street property lives in California, according to his profile.

Holding owners accountable

Brian Lawrence, director of the Westmoreland County Redevelopment Authority & Land Bank, expressed frustration that municipalities have to essentially vet the capability and willingness of potential buyers. He said it’s part of a larger challenge for municipalities to hold property owners accountable.

“It feels like we’re giving all the rights to the people that want to buy these properties, but forgetting about the rights of the communities to shape their own future,” he said. “This is the kind of thing that needs the public’s eyes on, we’re trying to fight almost an invisible battle on these things.”

Krawtz said he hopes the city can work more with the county land bank when situations like this arise in the future. Having a condition report on each of the Jeannette properties in repository could help council make decisions too, he said.

“We did the right thing this time, but we want to work with the county to improve the process,” Krawtz said.

If the land bank were to acquire a repository property first, Lawrence said, buyers would be subject to a process that withholds the deed until certain improvements are made.

“If people don’t follow through with what they say they’re going to do, they’re not even going to get title to the property,” he said.

Otherwise, it’s a constant battle municipalities face when making decisions.

“It’s predatory on these communities that have cheap real estate,” Krawtz said. “We definitely are consciously aware that we can’t let these properties continue on the same cycle of neglect.”