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<p>Luzerne County has compiled a list of all county-owned properties, something council members have been seeking for years in their goal to unload unused parcels to generate revenue.</p><p>&#8220;I&#8217;m pleased to report that the county has finally been able to secure a list of all county owned properties!&#8221; county Manager C. David Pedri wrote in a Tuesday email to council.</p><p>&#8220;As discussed in council meetings, this was an extremely difficult task to complete due to the poor record-keeping the county had under the previous form of government and the many different names on the recorded documents,&#8221; he added.</p><p>The 500 properties, including many vacant land slivers, were put in the county&#8217;s name during the past 200 years and have been listed under several ownership variations, including &#8220;Luzerne County Commissioners&#8221; and &#8220;County of Luzerne.&#8221;</p><p>The list was posted Tuesday on the manager&#8217;s page at <a href="http://www.luzernecounty.org/uploads/images/assets/county/county-manager/County%20Properties.pdf" target="_blank">www.luzernecounty.org</a>.</p><p>&#8220;This list is a long time in coming,&#8221; said county Councilwoman Jane Walsh Waitkus, who chairs council&#8217;s real estate committee.</p><p>The committee will further examine the properties and create a list of those that can be sold because they are not tied to occupied buildings or roads, she said.</p><p>The possibility of holding a public auction or hiring a Realtor to market these properties also will be discussed.</p><p>&#8220;We&#8217;d like to make it a seamless process for people so it will be clear what&#8217;s available to the public,&#8221; she said.</p><p>County officials implemented a policy in 2014 allowing the public to submit purchase offers for properties assessed under $25,000, which has resulted in a few sales.</p><p>The committee also is focused on another batch of properties that landed in a repository because they did not sell at back-tax auctions.</p><p>As of June, the county had 927 properties in the repository, records show. However, that number has since climbed to 987 because 60 more properties did not sell at this month&#8217;s final-stage tax auction.</p><p>The surplus is a concern because the county is liable for these properties while the owners of record have abandoned them and stopped paying real estate taxes. <ins>These properties are up for grabs at any time, and the county tries to sell them for at least $500.</ins></p><p>Pedri commended Dave Skoronski and his county GIS/mapping department for developing the list.</p><p>&#8220;They spent countless hours working on this, and we now have a product that we can be proud of and build off of for future use,&#8221; Pedri said.</p><p><ins>Many parcels on the list are too small to develop and would be of interest only to neighboring owners, according to a cursory review.</ins></p><p><ins>An exception is a 530-acre tract in Butler Township that was once affiliated with the county&#8217;s Kis-Lyn work camp for juvenile delinquents from 1912 to 1965.</ins></p><p><ins>The Keystone Job Corps Center leases 123 acres at the site for a federally funded, residential education and vocation training program, according to a 50-year lease extension approved by commissioners in 2001.</ins></p><p><ins>Farmers have been leasing some of the remaining land for decades, but officials have said the land not occupied by Keystone could be sold to generate cash.</ins></p><p><ins>The county also owns: several lots on Warren Avenue, including a 1.24-acre parcel assessed at $44,400; 23 acres of coal mine land adjacent to Main Street in Duryea assessed at $52,000; and a 4.63-acre wooded tract assessed at $41,400 along Route 239 in Conyngham Township.</ins></p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Pedri </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/web1_Pedri_David_05102016_mug-cmyk.jpg</photo0><caption0>Pedri </caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Jennifer Learn-Andes</p><p>jandes@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><factboxMeta><p><strong>MORE INFORMATION</strong></p><p>Luzerne County&#8217;s policy to submit purchase offers for property assessed under $25,000 is posted at <a href="http://www.luzernecounty.org/uploads/images/assets/county/real_estate_proposal_form.pdf" target="_blank">www.luzernecounty.org</a>.</p><p>The list of county-owned property is available on the <a href="http://www.luzernecounty.org/uploads/images/assets/county/county-manager/County%20Properties.pdf" target="_blank">manager&#8217;s page</a> at the same site.</p><p>Another pool of repository properties that did not sell at back-tax auctions and the protocol to purchase them may be viewed at <a href="http://www.luzernecountytaxclaim.com/repositorylist.html" target="_blank">www.luzernecountytaxclaim.com</a>.</p></factboxMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Jennifer Learn-Andes at 570-991-6388 or on Twitter @TLJenLearnAndes.</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Luzerne County releases newly compiled list of real estate holdings