The City of Lowell has pushed two residential properties – with thousands of dollars of liens on them for public safety violations – into receivership, so a developer can rehab the properties and eliminate the blight the owners have created.

On Sept. 12, the Charles Hope Co., the receiver chosen for the two properties, will present its plan to the state Housing Court to rehabilitate the properties at 128 6^th St. in Centralville and 41 Ellis Ave. in Pawtucketville. The court has the ultimate authority to approve those plans. 

Those two specific cases are only the beginning of these types of proceedings in Lowell. The city has identified roughly a dozen other problematic properties, said Kendra Amaral, deputy director of Lowell’s department of planning and development. Those properties were either foreclosed upon in the robo-signing scandal, in which bank employees signed foreclosure documents without reviewing case files as required by law, or have been abandoned by unresponsive owners uninterested in addressing the problems their neglect has caused. 

"Violations have just been piling up at these properties … and copper piping and wiring has been stolen, or squatters are going in and collecting trash," Amaral said. "We just can’t just reach [the property owners]. Liens tend to get their attention because it shows up on their tax bills, but even that didn’t work. Now the receivership program lets us just push forward to get them rehabbed and repaired, and we don’t have to use taxpayer money to do it. And it avoids creating vacant lots through demolition." 

The properties the Charles Hope Cos. will be inheriting are a mixed bag. The building at 128 6^th St. was a two-unit apartment building turned into an illegal four-unit property, which the developer will turn back into two apartments. And 41 Ellis Ave. is a single family home that will remain as such once rehabbed. Alan Hope, managing partner for the redevelopment firm, said the company will likely either rent the properties as Section 8 low income housing or sell them, but that decision is still unmade.