Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : Lancaster Plans to Buy, Resell Foreclosed Homes : Housing: Officials say they will spend $3.3 million to purchase, repair and market 50 structures to clean up the city.

By PHIL SNEIDERMAN

Aug. 31, 1994 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

LANCASTER — City officials unveiled plans Tuesday to spend $3.3 million to buy, repair and resell 50 deteriorating foreclosure homes.

The dwellings, scattered throughout the city, are owned by the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. HUD insured the mortgages, then took possession of the homes when the buyers stopped making payments.

Under the new program, dubbed Operation Clean Sweep, the Lancaster Redevelopment Agency will pay $2.3 million for the houses, a sum that is 30% lower than their appraised value. The agency will spend $1 million to repair the structures and their landscaping, then put them up for sale.

Councilman Henry Hearns, chairman of the agency’s board of directors, said the program will allow the city to renovate HUD-owned houses that have become eyesores and in some cases a location for criminal activity.

“We’re going to help HUD with a problem they have, which is also a problem for us,” he said. “We’re going to rehabilitate (the houses) and place them back on the market.”

The Antelope Valley Board of Realtors has agreed to assist the city in selling the repaired houses.

City Council members, in their role as directors of the Redevelopment Agency, are scheduled to vote Tuesday on funding for Operation Clean Sweep. Its approval is almost certain because four of the five council members spoke in favor of the program Tuesday at a City Hall briefing.

“This will help the property values of the neighbors,” Mayor Frank Roberts said. “I can’t imagine anyone being unhappy about this.”

Councilwoman Deborah Shelton said she heard many complaints during her election campaign last spring from residents whose blocks were blemished by poorly maintained foreclosure houses.

“It was a very frustrating issue,” she said. “I really think this program is going to be wonderful.”

City officials said renovation work on the Operation Clean Sweep houses should take about 90 days. Real estate agents will then try to sell them within another 120 days. Lancaster officials said this turnover will take less time than in the normal HUD process.

Until recently, Antelope Valley’s HUD houses had been under the jurisdiction of the agency’s overburdened Los Angeles office. Lancaster’s purchase agreement was arranged with HUD’s Fresno office, which recently assumed responsibility for the Antelope Valley.

Operation Clean Sweep will target 50 HUD homes, but Willie Mae Haskin, area coordinator for the Fresno HUD office, said her agency has about 200 other foreclosed homes in and near Lancaster.

Haskin, who attended Tuesday’s briefing, said her staff wants to get the other dwellings repaired and sold promptly. “We are moving toward getting those properties back on the market,” she said.