8 liens bought by local trustees

By Ed Runyan

Acquiring the properties is expected to help with flooding on several streets.

AUSTINTOWN — Township trustees have bought eight tax liens through Lien Forward Ohio with hopes of acquiring the properties near state Route 11 and Norquest Boulevard to alleviate flooding.

Mike Dockry, township administrator, said Lien Forward, the Mahoning County-Youngstown partnership that attempts to get tax-delinquent property back into productive use through lien sales, contacted him recently to show him a map of available properties.

Dockry discovered that seven of them on Norquest west of Route 11 and one on East Rockwell Road east of Route 11 were available near a drainage project the township already had been planning.

With the acquisition of the wooded lots, the township will be able to create retention ponds on the west side of Route 11 on either side of a storm water pipe, Dockry said.

The ponds will help with flooding problems along Norquest, East Rockwell and Radio Road, Dockry said.

In all, the cost to buy the liens and pay the legal costs associated with foreclosing on the properties will be around $11,000 Dockry said.

The amount approved by trustees this week to acquire the liens is $5,978. The remaining sum is the legal cost, Dockry said.

Roger Smith, regional planner with Lien Forward, said he is making visits to communities like Austintown to spread awareness of the properties available through the program, which began in 2005.

Smith says it takes between three and 18 months to acquire the properties, which are valued at around $6,100 each by the county auditor’s office.

Smith said about 70 percent to 75 percent of the delinquent tax properties in the program are in Youngstown, with the rest elsewhere in the county.

runyan@vindy.com