§ 800. Policy and purposes of article. It is hereby declared and found that there exists in municipalities in this state substandard and insanitary areas and neighborhoods characterized by undermaintained and deteriorating housing accommodations and under-utilized non-residential buildings and under-utilized vacant land. It is further found that there exists in such municipalities a diminishing and seriously inadequate supply of safe and sanitary dwelling accommodations, particularly for persons of low income; that the loss of housing accommodations is caused by the inability of the ordinary unaided operations of private enterprise to make loans for rehabilitation or construction purposes or for conversion which accelerates the process of deterioration and abandonment, turning active and viable neighborhoods into slums and blighted areas; and that the prevention of deterioration and loss through abandonment can only be achieved by the elimination of conditions which are unsafe or detrimental to health, the replacement of antiquated heating, plumbing, and electrical systems and, where necessary, the overall rehabilitation of certain housing accommodations, the construction of new housing accommodations on vacant land and the conversion of under-utilized non-residential property to residential use, and that the unavailability of funds for the conversion of under-utilized property to residential use, for the preservation and rehabilitation of housing accommodations and for the construction of new housing accommodations on vacant land constitutes a threat to the health, safety and well-being of the persons who occupy them and denies to others the possibility of living in safe and sanitary housing accommodations.

In order to promote the preservation and rehabilitation of such housing accommodations, the creation of new housing accommodations by the conversion of under-utilized non-residential property into multiple dwellings and the construction of new housing accommodations on vacant land in such areas and to encourage the investment of private capital in such areas, provision should be made for a municipality to attract private investment for such purposes by utilizing funds, which are available from the federal government through specific or discretionary grants, or are available from other financing sources, for joint participation loans with private investors to effect the required construction, rehabilitation or conversion.

The necessity in the public interest for the provisions hereinafter enacted is hereby declared as a matter of legislative determination.