A proposed “anti-blight” ordinance empowering the town to impose $100-a-day fines for dramatically neglected property maintenance comes before voters for approval or rejection next week.
The law would allow the town to take “corrective action” in situations such as buildings with “multiple missing, broken or boarded windows and doors; collapsing or missing walls, roof or floors.”
Town action could also be taken against a property that is “dilapidated and attracting illegal activity as documented by the police” or “poses a serious or immediate danger to the safety, health or general welfare of the community.”
A town meeting vote on the blight law is scheduled for next Wednesday, March 19, at 7:30 p.m. in town hall’s lower level conference room.
The selectmen labored over the proposed blight law for months, seeking wording that would strike a balance.
They wanted the town to be able to take action against properties where there is a real problem that diminishes neighboring homes’ value.
However, they didn’t want to set up a procedure that would invite frivolous complaints and turn cases of indifferent yard care — uncut grass, peeling paint — into public prosecutions for blight.
“We don’t want to be in people’s back yards, making decisions about aesthetics,” Selectman Andy Bodner said before the law went to a public hearing.
“But we all know there are situations that are so egregious that any reasonable person would agree it’s significantly negatively impacting the surrounding community.
“And it’s simply not fair to other homeowners in the community when a house becomes so dilapidated that it impacts the quality of life and value of adjacent property owners.”
At the January public hearing, a Realtor testified that a blighted property could cause a 5% to 10% reduction in the price of a property with a direct view of it.
About 60 residents attended the hearing and 24 people spoke — 11 in support and five opposed, with others not taking a clear stand.
The anti-blight law creates a Blight Prevention Board of five town officials — the first selectman, the fire marshal, the building official, the health director, and the zoning enforcement officer — that would receive citizen complaints and go through a multi-step procedure to determine if a property’s condition justifies a citation for blight.
The text of the proposal is in a legal notice on page 4C of this edition of The Press.
If the board brought action against a property, the owner would have recourse to a Citation Hearing Appeals Board made up of three residents.
In addition to fines of up to $100 if property owners do not address situations the town determines are blight, the law permits fines of up to $250 a day for “willful violations” when repeated town actions are ignored.
The draft law has been modified a bit based on input at the January public hearing.
A proposed “Blight Enforcement Officer” was dropped, and a “Blight Enforcement Board” took over the relevant duties — so no single individual could make a blight determination in the town’s name.
The law addresses problems seen from the public street, and wording was added to include problems visible from neighboring properties.
“It can be visible from the street or an abutting property,” First Selectman Rudy Marconi said.
The law’s reference to properties with “abandoned motor vehicles” was also clarified after the hearing.
The proposed blight law could apply to both occupied and unoccupied houses.
At the public hearing, much of the discussion had focused on a few virtually abandoned properties that neighbors offered as examples of severe blight — one on Catoonah Street, another on Nod Road, a third on Silver Spring Lane.
First Selectman Marconi said later that all three properties focused on at public hearing had their taxes all paid, but town agencies had found it difficult to get information on the owners in order to discuss the complaints.
“Banks won’t give you anything. They just pay the taxes and they won’t give you any information at all,” he said.
“And that’s important for the people to know, that this ordinance isn’t just the result of us saying, ‘Why don’t we just pass an ordinance that will make it easier?’ We’ve tried for years to get cooperation from these property owners, and it has met with zero response.”
But not all the properties in town that might be subject to blight enforcement are empty.
“There are others where people are living in it, and have pretty much ignored the exterior of their home,” Mr. Marconi said.
The full draft ordinance is posted on the town website: www.Ridgefieldct.org.