Trending
In its continuing effort to deal with blight, City Council Monday discussed potential ordinance adjustments that would give the codes department additional leverage with landlords and the owners of vacant buildings.
Those possible revisions would require repeat offenders -- including those who live out of town -- to appear in person to deal with ongoing code problems and would require full transparency when there are multiple owners who are members of corporations and partnerships.
"I'm not trying to cause heartache for the people who are following the rules, but for people who are not, we need to make life miserable," said Councilman Dave Ellis, at whose request solicitor Tom Finn proposed the ordinance revisions. "If they want to come here (and operate) s—holes, they'll be dealt with."
The current residential rental inspection ordinance calls for landlords who live out of Blair County to appoint a local agent who can serve as a contact person for issues with the properties.
Some owners may be taking advantage of the current setup, which allows them to avoid direct contact with code officials, according to Finn.
Direct dealing with the owners can "deliver a stronger message" than is possible when dealing with those owners' agents, said Councilman Jesse Ickes.
The revised ordinance should leave it to code department discretion whether to enforce the in-person requirement, according to Finn.
It should be set up in a way that would ensure against accusations of selective enforcement, said Codes Director Rebecca Brown.
The city actually shouldn't need to worry about accusations of selective enforcement, because in code cases that lead to those kinds of summonses, the owners are "guilty," said Councilman Dave Butterbaugh.
One possible objective "trigger" for summoning an owner in person could be the criteria the city already uses for revocation of rental licenses, someone said.
But that would let landlords allow their properties to deteriorate too far, according to Ellis.
The city needs to intervene before they get to that point, he said.
The proposed ownership transparency measure should include a requirement for photo identification of all the principals of any limited liability corporation that owns property, Ellis said.
LLC ownership of problem properties that are on the city's vacant property registry is "enormous and getting worse," said Codes Director Rebecca Brown.
While the city has the leverage of rental license revocation to help ensure code compliance by landlords of occupied properties, it lacks such leverage on the owners of vacant properties -- although those can ultimately be condemned and razed, Finn and others said.
According to Ellis, the issues of blighted rentals and blighted vacant buildings, along with the issue of out-of-town ownership, go "hand-in-hand."
In addition to in-person summons for uncooperative landlords and ownership transparency, it might make sense to require insurance on vacant properties, Brown and Ellis said.
Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 814-949-7038.