Long-term efforts by the City of Knox to buy up available land in Parkview Heights took a step forward Tuesday. The city council authorized the purchase of a tax lien certificate, at the request of Mayor Dennis Estok. “It’s a property down in Parkview Heights that went through the tax sale,” he explained. “Nobody bought it. It’s a burned-out house. We did get the owners of that to clean the house up. They did leave the foundation and all that. They have no intentions of redeeming the property through the tax sale, and that’s where the county can transfer it. We can buy it for $35 off the certificate sale.”
Estok said it’s been a longstanding practice for the city to try to buy up the properties, when these opportunities arise. “A long-range goal was to do a major project down there, and you can use land for a match in a grant,” he said. “So that’s why we always try to acquire these vacant lots and stuff like that, is maybe years down the road, something will come up where we can get a major project, major grant, we can use that land for our match.”
But Estok explained that buying the tax lien certificate is just part of a lengthy process. “The thing is, we’re going to give them $35, but then you’ve got to do all the legal work to acquire that. The property owners have to be notified. It’s a process, and if we’ve got to hire an attorney to do it – I don’t even know what they get for that, but [City Attorney] Leslie [Baker] has agreed to try that.”
The certificate sale now has to be approved by the Starke County Commissioners.
