'Renaissance City' Plan for PA

State Sen. John N. Wozniak has reintroduced a plan to help revive Pennsylvania’s small cities by providing help with crime prevention, housing improvement and pension relief.

“It is not a coincidence that our small and medium sized cities suffer from similar problems and financial pressures,” Wozniak said. “We need to understand that everyone has paid a price for the years of decline. Restoring their vitality and preserving their solvency could spur economic development and stem the advance of urban sprawl, ease traffic congestion and even decrease oil dependency.”

Senate Bill 606, the “Renaissance City” plan, would provide grants to Third Class and Second Class A class cities in an effort to combat crime, remove blight and foster economic development.

“Targeted tax relief through gaming revenue was a first small step toward helping our cities recover,” Wozniak said. “Now we must follow through with targeted investment.”

Wozniak crafted his plan after reviewing the results of a needs survey that he sent to mayors. City officials were asked to identify the top five problems facing their communities.

Other parts of the plan would:

· Enable cities to foreclose on blighted/abandoned property sooner;

· Create a statewide abandoned property database that would require new property purchasers to first pay any outstanding debts and obligations on other properties they own; and

· Complete a study of pension and fixed-cost obligations that project future costs.

Wozniak said the five-part, $100-million-per-year Renaissance Cities funding would be distributed on the following schedule:

Year 1: Public safety--funding may be used to purchase law enforcement equipment, create crime prevention programs, purchase firefighting apparatus or any other initiative that protects the health and safety of residents.

Year 2: Blight removal--includes the clearance, demolition or removal of blighted areas, acquisition of blighted property, aggressive code enforcement or other blight prevention activities

Year 3: Economic development and housing--funds would be split between housing initiatives that provide direct home ownership assistance and rehabilitation assistance for owner-occupied properties and business initiatives such as environmental assessments, installation of infrastructure and site preparation.

Year 4: Municipal Services--includes funding for public buildings, paving streets, repairing bridges, sidewalks and purchasing public works vehicles as well as encouraging service consolidations with surrounding communities.

Year 5: Pension and Debt--funding is targeted as an offset for unfunded accrued pension liabilities, debt service and other financial obligations.