OGDENSBURG -- Ogdensburg City Manager John Pinkerton says the decision to sell a 611 Rensselaer Avenue property to the Growth Fund for $1 is “advantageous to the citizens of the city.”

City council agreed to transfer the property to the Ogdensburg Growth Fund for $1 at its last board meeting.

“When the house is upgraded it restores a blighted building that sits in the middle of a very well maintained neighborhood,” Pinkerton said in a release. “The avenue pursued by the city council with the collaboration of the Ogdensburg Growth Fund is very advantageous to the citizens of the city in that a well-kept neighborhood is further improved because a blighted building is properly addressed, the city will keep a property on the tax roll, a buyer will have the opportunity to enter a completely renovated home in a choice neighborhood and the city will not have to use tax payer dollars to demolish a neglected house.”

“The options open to the city were as follows: keep the property and house off the tax roll and let it continue to deteriorate because it is costly to heat and because there is a hole in the roof thus eventually requiring the city to demolish the house and pay to have the material landfilled at a total minimum cost to the taxpayers of $15,000 to $18,000,” Pinkerton said in the release.

The second option, according to the release, was to approach the Ogdensburg Growth Fund and see if they would be interested in rehabilitating the house. The Ogdensburg Growth Fund hired an engineer to assess the cost of bringing the house back to good livable condition. The Growth Fund board then decided that they would be willing to commit to repairing the house at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars while paying the city, school and county taxes.

The Growth Fund board will be soliciting bids from local contractors to do the rehabilitation work, the release says.

Once the house has been repaired and brought up to code, the Ogdensburg Growth Fund Board will make arrangements to sell the house. If the house sells for more than the cost of rehabilitation, then the Growth Fund will use that balance to continue to improve the housing stock in Ogdensburg or use the proceeds to continue supporting business in Ogdensburg,” Pinkerton says.

All city council and Ogdensburg Growth Fund meetings are open to the public. Meeting dates and times as well as agendas can be found on the city’s website at www.ogdensburg.org or by contacting Andrea Smith at 393-7150 for the Growth Fund information or contacting the city clerk’s office at 393-3540 for Council information.