Seven vacant homes in Ripon belonging to the former Redevelopment Agency may be up for sale.

At tonight’s Successor Agency meeting – it will follow tonight’s Ripon City Council’s 7 p.m. open session in the Council Chamber, 259 N. Wilma Ave. – Ken Zuidervaart is scheduled to provide a report on the proposed guidelines on the seven remodeled houses.

He’s the director of planning for the City of Ripon.

Zuidervaart received the go-ahead to move forward with the proposal at the Sept. 3 meeting. Two weeks later, the Successor Agency accepted interest letters from Ripon real estate agents, agreeing to certain terms for the sale of the homes via lottery.

While the process was considered a fair way for real estate agents to be selected for the sale of the homes, pending litigation at the time turned out to be road bump of sort to those plans.

The litigation to sell these once affordable homes – specifically, 309 Second Street; 317 Second Street; 327 Second Street, 232 S. Acacia Avenue, 1238 S. Highland Avenue, 1333 Cameron Lane, and 1673 Fairway Oaks Court – was vetoed Oct. 13 by Gov. Brown.

 Staff is once again asking direction from the Successor Agency on the next move.

Options include the following:

• Selling the homes at market rate and placing any money received from the sales into an account until a formal resolution is reached regarding the successor agency for the affordable housing functions of the former Ripon RDA.

• Selling the homes as intended – affordable units – and placing any money received from the sales into an account until a formal resolution is reached regarding the successor agency for the affordable housing functions of the former Ripon RDA.

• Do nothing and let the houses sit vacant. Currently, the City provides yard service for these units at $360 per month that’s taken from the general fund.

Zuidervaart’s staff report calls for looking at the latter. By doing nothing, the Successor Agency, under the following guidelines, could select the qualified Ripon real estate agents, placing their names in a lottery scheduled for Jan. 8.

“Once a Realtor is drawn for the specific property, the name will not be back in the lottery unless not enough Realtors apply to sell the seven homes,” he said. “If less than seven Realtors apply – once all realtors have been selected at least once – all names will be placed back in the lottery to select the realtors for the remaining homes to be sold.”

If a Realtor is selected more than once, Zuidervaart noted, that second home, under an agreement, would go at a 4 percent commission (2 percent for the listing agent, 2 percent for the agent representing the buyer).

For more information, call the Ripon City Hall at 209-599-2108 or log on to www.cityofripon.org.