As revelers rang in the new year, a host of new laws took effect in Connecticut, including expanded sales taxes, mental health parity requirements for insurers, an effort to help rehabilitate more blighted properties and extended periods between driver’s license renewals.

Among the package of new measures, a new law authorizes Superior Court judges to appoint a receiver to take over rehabilitating or disposing abandoned properties – industrial, residential or commercial – in communities with at least 35,000 inhabitants. Interested parties can petition the court to take over a property that has been abandoned for at least a year.

The legislation is considered to be another tool for municipalities to address blight.

Among other things, Connecticut’s cities and towns can impose fines and special assessments on owners of blighted properties, and create agencies that can condemn abandoned and blighted buildings and transfer ownership to qualified homesteaders.