Failure by the state to pass zombie property legislation doesn’t mean area lawmakers can’t implement some of Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s recommendations.

Take, for example, Schneiderman’s proposal to create a registry of vacant properties. Jamestown – as is the case in most cities statewide – has no formal process to identify, monitor and manage vacant and abandoned housing stock. Having such information has merit locally even if the statewide registry never comes to fruition.

We know from the 2008-12 American Community Survey by the U.S. Census that 10 percent of Jamestown’s housing units are vacant. Unfortuately, those statistics can only be broken down to the level of the city’s six census tracts. Postal service data unearthed by the Jamestown Renaissance Corp. from 2010 confirm that Census Bureau figure and goes a step further, showing 38 percent of the addresses – or more than 500 individual housing units – vacant for at least 36 months. Unfortunately, confidentiality rules prevent the postal service information from being released to the public or to local governments.

The Jamestown Renaissance Corp. proposed in April 2012 to establish a vacant property inventory and early warning database. The proposal posted on the organization’s website would use utility information, particularly water use, tax dilinquency and initiation of the tax foreclosure process and mortgage foreclosure as indicators of properties that are vacant or could soon become vacant. The database could then be used to map concentrations of vacancies, give officials in various agencies the opportunity to pursue vacancies in strategic locations like near schools, in high visibility areas or within high-leverage blocks outlined by the city’s neighborhood revitalization plan. The information could be of use to the police and fire departments, since vacant properties are often the targets of vandalism or arson. Knowing a property is about to be foreclosed upon could help direct assistance to the property’s owner, preventing a home from being foreclosed upon or, even worse, becoming an abandoned, zombie property.

Creating the database would take staff time from various organizations and would come at a cost. It is worth discussion, however.

It is an idea that deserves some local discussion.