Senate Bill S5054A

                                BILL NUMBER:S5054A

TITLE OF BILL:  An act to amend the environmental conservation law, in
relation to environmental restoration investigation projects upon
parcels in tax lien foreclosure proceedings

PURPOSE OR GENERAL IDEA OF BILL: To grant the City of New York
authority to perform environmental restoration investigations for
certain properties in foreclosure.

SUMMARY OF SPECIFIC PROVISIONS:

Section 1 amends section 56-0508 of the environmental conservation law
to add a new subdivision 1-a to allow, in a foreclosure proceeding
brought by an entity that has acquired a tax lien, the city of New
York to move obtain temporary incidents of ownership to a parcel for
the sole purpose of entering the parcel to conduct an environmental
restoration investigation of such property.

Section 2 amends subdivision 5 of section 56-0508 of the environmental
conservation law to provide that the cost of the investigation would
be added to the taxes owed to the City and shall be separate from the
tax lien in foreclosure.

Section 3 sets forth the effective date.

              

JUSTIFICATION: Uncertainty about contamination and contamination
levels is the main challenge to reinvestment in contaminated or
potentially contaminated tax delinquent properties. To address this
problem, section 56-0508 of the Environmental Conservation Law
authorizes a court in a proceeding to foreclose a tax lien to grant
temporary incidents of ownership to a taxing district for the sole
purpose of entering the property to conduct an environmental
restoration investigation. When the investigation is complete, the
taxing district files the final report of the investigation with the
court within thirty days and adds the cost of the investigation to the
tax lien, thereby allowing a local government to recoup its
investigation costs. For a technical reason, New York City cannot use
section 56-0508 to conduct site investigations of tax lien properties.
As currently written, section 56-0508 applies only to taxing districts
that foreclose on tax liens. Rather than foreclose directly on tax
liens, the City sells tax liens to a trust that forecloses on the
liens.

The amendment proposed in this bill would put the City in a position
comparable to that of all other local governments across the State of
New York. The information from a site investigation would reveal the
extent of property contamination and approximate remediation costs,
substantially reducing the uncertainty over the cost to redevelop a
tax lien property. With this information, the City and the entity that
holds the tax lien will have confidence that the property can be
auctioned to a new owner who will be able to remediate environmental
damage and proceed with appropriate redevelopment of the property,
bringing it back into productive use and minimizing any long-term
hazard.

PRIOR LEGISLATIVE HISTORY: New bill.


FISCAL IMPLICATIONS: None to New York State.

EFFECTIVE DATE: This act shall take effect immediately and shall apply
to any tax lien purchased on or after such date.