MAYVILLE - An amendment to the tax foreclosure law has been kicking around for several months now and will return to the County Legislature Wednesday.

Tabled twice, the amendment centers around the foreclosure process as it relates to redeeming a property and the property's compliance with building codes, according to James Caflisch, R-French Creek, and ranking member of the Administrative Services Committee.

According to Maria Kindberg, D-Jamestown, the tax foreclosure process is part of a larger discussion concerning neighborhood revitalization. Taking the resolution off the table during the August legislature meeting so that it would not die, Kindberg proposed re-tabling it, as questions still remained, she said. Larry Barmore, R-Gerry, opposed re-tabling the resolution.

"There was still some unease in caucus, still some questions when we met before the last meeting," Kindberg said of re-tabling the resolution. "We wanted to have more time to discuss that before we brought it up."

According to Kindberg, the resolution will amend previous amendments - as the law's been through several changes.

"It's a very delicate balance because what we don't want to do is force homeowners out of their homes," Kindberg said. "That's not the intent. The intent is to really somehow address the growing number of vacant homes that exist in otherwise well-kept neighborhoods. We are still struggling in trying to find that balance."

Confused by Kindberg's re-tabling of the resolution during the August legislature meeting, Caflisch later said he and the Administrative Services Committee were not aware of any lingering questions and expected to act on the resolution in August.

"The problem seems to be, I believe, from the Democrats' perspective, is that they want the process to include some sort of a code enforcement that the county would require of the homeowner or mortgagee to comply with in bringing the property up to code before the property was redeemed," Caflisch said. "The concern that we have come to is, first of all, is that the county is not in the code compliance business.

"The other issue that comes into play, if Democrats have their way," Caflisch continued, "is that they want to require that code enforcement officer inspection to be required as part of the redemption process - and that could have a chilling effect on the auction. We know that homeowners who are behind on taxes don't have a lot of financial ability to work on code issues as well as taxes and my perspective as well as, I think, Larry Barmore and probably the administration is that we're trying to keep people in their homes. Yeah, there might be some code compliance issues, but there aren't probably a whole lot of homes in Chautauqua County, unless they're very, very new that comply with every code requirement that New York state can dream up."