UPDATED: A Tale of Two Towers: Atlanta & Charlottesville both dealing with Dewberry eyesores

Here’s an updated version of my story about the ACJ article on the Dewberry with comments from City Councilor Michael Payne. Also, Payne thinks we should learn from Atlanta and pursue a blight tax, even if that means requesting authority from the General Assembly. He also thinks the newly passed land value tax could be used. You can read the full updated article here.

Payne’s comments:

“I think we should learn from Atlanta and pursue a blight tax. And if authority doesn’t currently exist to implement that within Virginia, we should request authority from the General Assembly,” he says. Likewise, Paynes says the city shouldn’t abandon the previous effort to declare the property blighted.

“There is a legitimate basis for considering the unmaintained property a threat to health and human safety,” says Payne, “ given the large rat population and that seemingly no monitoring is taking place to know who might enter the structure, or what damage could have been done to the skeleton of the b…