This lot on Jackson Street is one of three that are for sale. The Pacific Boulevard viaduct is in the background.
Three fenced and vacant lots owned by the City of Albany at Ninth Avenue and Jackson Street looked pretty well maintained last week, in contrast to a few months ago. But at what cost?
The city staff is telling the council that maintenance of the parcels is costing an estimated $6,000 a year in labor, equipment and time.
“Each hour of field labor also carries an administrative component such as coordination of work, supervision, payroll processing, benefits administration, and reporting, which adds a meaningful overhead to the true cost of maintaining the parcels,” a staff memo to the council says.
“When these administrative and employment-related costs are factored in, the realistic annual cost rises above the direct labor figure and could be estimated to a total cost of roughly $9,500 to $10,000 per year.”
You might wonder why the city administration does not hire a private yard crew to mow each of the lots once a month in spring and summer. That would cost far less than $6,000 a year, and it would avoid that mountain of administrative overhead.
This comes up because tonight (Wednesday, Sept. 9), the council is once again scheduled to discuss selling those lots, which the city acquired in 1990 for possible use in a highway project that never was even attempted, let alone accomplished.
Last year, the council refused to sell the properties for $125,000, the highest of four bids, because an appraiser hired by the city had valued the properties at $145,000.
Helping Hands, the homeless shelter a few houses east on Ninth, was one of the bidders in 2025 and last month asked to have the properties placed on the agenda again.
Van Vleet Meat and Food Service, across Jackson Street, was the high bidder last year. The staff memo says Van Vleet is still interested.
The properties are zoned for light industry. Helping Hands wants them for housing, Van Vleet would like to use the lots on Jackson for parking so it can expand its plant across the street.
One of the councilors who was against selling last year, Carolyn McLeod, is no longer on the council. Will that change to the outcome now? Stay tuned. (hh)
I agree that the city needs to sell, but the Maintenance cost amazes me. Whatever happened to inmates and people sentenced to community service doing the maintenance work?
The city could have avoided all this if they had sold to a viable, and local company that would have been a win/win for all, a benefit to our community, and a cleaned up eyesore…but no they were too greedy.
God forbid they give someone besides Lepman properties a deal!
You are so right about Lepman
Once more they focus on lots that are better left unused. If the shelter and Van Fleet want to grow there are other areas that would be better. It is a major on and off ramp that I use daily. It does not make sense to add more cars and foot traffic. They closed the on ramp on the other side due to accidents. Many drivers use the ramp and if it is allowed to be clogged with traffic it would need traffic lights on Jackson or other areas which would impede traffic even more. Why does the city respond to unnecessary problematic requests? The county and city only wanted the empty spaces in the area if needed to modify the overpass because it was not usable for any extra building growth.
I’m sure they have employees coming from other directions, rather then all of them using the same ramp at the same time. Just looking at a map, it appears Jackson would serve more cars if the employees live in Albany.
Expansion may or may not add a lot more employees. OTOH, maybe it would allow multiple shifts which could actually reduce peak traffic? it’s all in the numbers.
I would be more in favor of seeing them used to help house underserved than a parking lot.
What about the cost of the fence too. Is that included in the costs this property is costing the city.
They need to install street cameras in the area to record the traffic in the area to get an idea of what goes on there if safety is the reason for cameras. The homeless and impoverished cannot afford to pay tickets so they do not care if they violate the law. The city would save money on emergency service calls too if they limited the shelter growth. If the city wants to increase the homeless population in Albany, they should be willing to eat the cost of supervision and dealing with the extra crime without taking more money from us. Even the growth of Van Vleet will end up needing extra street work. We all will fund another mess the city created without considering the consequences.
Van vleet wants to use the lots as parking. It’s not a big deal. It’s the best option. Should have been done years ago when they wanted to buy it in the first place. When the lots were for tents and car camping it was a mess! Van vleet didn’t ask for that but they had to put up with it. The vandalism affected their business and their safety. The shelter is the number one location for sex offenders in the city. It’s very easy to look it up on the sex offenders map. I don’t want to encourage more sex offenders to congregate in one area. Especially if they want to bring families living there. I don’t understand how they can even do that.
Yes sell the property now.
1. A business who pays taxes and supplies jobs
2. A business that probably does not pay taxes but helps people in need.
Most communities have a deficit problem and a surplus of people in need of social services. City council lets do the right thing and increase the tax rolls and not attract more people who are a drain on the bottom line. It is simple business decision and yes tough choices need to be made for the community as a whole.
Why isn’t this property sold by a local real estate broker and why is the city even involved holding on to property so we tax payers have to pay extra because they wanted more money. It sounds like are city council wants us to just throwing money theat could be use elsewhere like or street and get it off the books . What other property are the city sitting on ???