Efforts to address blighted property in Columbus have moved slowly.

The Columbus Redevelopment Authority was founded in 2014 to address blight, but it took 11 years to find a developer for the five-acre downtown site known as Burns Bottom. The city created another blight program called the Blight Remediation Program, in 2022, but the city’s efforts to relieve blight goes back to 2013 when then-city councilman Kabir Karieem and nine other city officials created a blight taskforce.

That, too, has been a long time coming: The first property under the blight program was demolished in January, four years after the program started.

The city has shown its willingness to proceed with redevelopment outside these two programs when the opportunity presents itself.

On Tuesday, the city council approved a proposal to sell two adjacent vacant parcels on Fifth Avenue South. As part of the agreement, each lot’s buyer must begin single-family home construction on the site within six months after closing, completing that construction within 18 months. If the same buyer purchases both lots, construction must begin on the second lot within 12 months of closing, with completion in 24 months. To sweeten the pot, the city has agreed to sell the properties for less than their $1,800 tax assessor-appraised value.

The city should continue to include construction timeline stipulations on property it sells. Doing so prevents speculators from buying and sitting on cheap deals.

We like the multi-front approach to blight remediation and its sister, infill.

It’s important that the city work independently and through brokers to find buyers willing to build homes on both vacant infill properties and properties in the blight program, returning them to the tax rolls and adding the city’s housing inventory.

As for blighted property, the city has identified 350 such properties in the city. So far, the city has acquired eight and is in the process of buying 14 others that were forfeited to the state for unpaid taxes.

The city hopes to redevelop at least 200 properties by the program’s completion deadline in five years.

Meanwhile, partners Saunders Ramsey and Nic Parish are proceeding the work at Burns Bottom, now known as Parkview, a new 52-home neighborhood.

With Parkview in development, the first group of properties in the Blight Properties Program secured and the city’s aggressive attitude toward selling its vacant lots, the housing landscape for the city is dramatically approved.

The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.