Bristol officials are asking the General Assembly for help in dealing with the burned-out former campus of Virginia Intermont College through bills that would allow it to sell blighted properties while having more control over who buys them and how quickly they’re developed.
The Bristol property — much of which was destroyed in a huge blaze on Dec. 20 — is owned by a company in China that never followed through with plans to establish a business school at the site and allowed the buildings to fall into disrepair.
The city has had difficulty communicating with the absentee owner, and its efforts to get the owner to improve and secure the property have been unsuccessful. The property has been broken into and vandalized repeatedly while becoming a draw for homeless people.
At the request of Bristol officials, SB 1476 and HB 2745 were introduced by Sen. Todd Pillion and Del. Israel O’Quinn, both Republicans from Washington County.
The legislation would allow a locality to sell vacant and blighted or derelict property by petitioning the circuit court to appoint a special commissioner to execute the deeds needed to convey the real estate to the locality, its land bank entity or an existing nonprofit designated to carry out the functions of a land bank.
If approved, the legislation would apply to other blighted properties in Bristol and some properties across the state.
Such a sale would be in lieu of a sale to the highest bidder at public auction, which Bristol City Manager Randy Eads said earlier might be done with the Virginia Intermont property.
The December fire that decimated four of the oldest buildings on campus was the third in recent months, though it was much larger than the previous two. The city’s fire chief has said he believes the blazes were likely started by homeless people seeking shelter and warmth.
The college closed in 2014 because of declining enrollment, loss of accreditation and financial woes.
The Senate bill passed through the Local Government Committee on Monday. In the House, the bill has been assigned to the Committee on Counties, Cities and Towns.
Pillion said during the committee meeting Monday that Bristol has found itself in a “very unique situation” in trying to work with a property owner who proved to be “extremely difficult to communicate and work with.”
The owner of the former campus, U.S. Magis, owes $441,563 in delinquent taxes for 2023 and 2024, and the city has placed liens on the property. 
Eads told the committee Monday that the bill would give the locality an opportunity to “take blighted property and put it in the hands of an owner that will do something with the property and bring it back to good use.”
He added that it would apply only to localities that have a score of 100 or higher on the Fiscal Stress Index, which includes Bristol. The index illustrates a locality’s ability to generate additional local revenues from its current tax base relative to the rest of the commonwealth, according to the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development website.
Originally, the bills would have applied only to properties owned or controlled by non-U.S. entities or people who aren’t U.S. citizens, but that was removed and amended in the Senate bill.
The original bills also required that the property be vacant for at least two years, but that was amended to five years for the Senate bill.
If approved, the legislation would allow the locality to require a buyer to begin repairing the property within six months of the purchase and to bring the property into compliance with the local building codes within two years of the purchase.
