§ 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, or loans or grants by the
municipality, 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.