by Matt Kastner Over the past few years, the St. Louis Board of Alderman have debated the prospected of a vacant property registration system numerous times. One bill almost passed about a year ago. Not taking no for an answer, Alderwoman Kacie Starr Triplett brought the issue back up recently. The new bill corrected many of the issues with the previous versions, but many in the real estate industry felt the bill still had unfair aspects.
Apparently, the Board of Alderman did not agree. I have been unable to officially verify this, or who specifically voted for it, but the bill passed this morning. From now on, whenever a property is vacant in the City of St. Louis for at least six months, and has recorded code violations, it must be registered with the City. The owner must provide their contact info and pay an annual $200 fee. The provided information will then be placed on a publicly available database. There will be some exceptions to this, but I still don’t know at this point if there were any last minute alterations to the bill before it was passed. Check back for more details and implications soon.
For more, check out the official Bill #322 website.
