Demolition would cost town too much

Visitor Question: I am an elected official in a small rural town, where we have many demolition challenges. Our code enforcement officer has been active, trying to get some properties improved, and when their efforts do not work, they move toward final code enforcement, usually demolition.

The problem here is that the town cannot afford the demolition costs.

We are also under a solar expansion moratorium with the state; this causes property owners to feel like they don't need to make an effort on properties that are affected negatively by the moratorium. What can we do to get property owners take a more interested stance in their property improvement?

Editor's Reply: You are not alone; I am aware of several small towns that cannot afford demolition and yet do not want to allow dangerous and neglected buildings to stand.

For readers who cannot relate to the solar installation moratorium idea, this reader's dilemma sounds similar to the more common problem of a developer abandoning a large redevelopment scheme after some properties have been acquired.

Any time there is a strong disincentive to upgrade or even spend any money or effort in maintaining a property, it will be a struggle for a town to obtain code compliance.

There isn't much you can do about this, short of appealing to civic duty and pride of ownership. Since you are in a small town, you might try to figure out if there are friendship networks, or at least acquaintance networks, that could help with this problem by explaining to the non-compliant property owners how this problem is affecting the rest of the town's residents. I doubt if this is going to work, but it's worth your thinking about.

Another possible tactic is to sit down with your town's attorney to figure out if there is some other kind of "punishment" for code violations that might bring about more compliance. State and local laws will govern what is possible, but to the degree that a municipal judge or an administrator has some discretion, make sure that all available tools are being used to try to bring about compliance.

In particular, where I live and in many states, it is possible to place a lien on the property if the town government has to spend money to abate the code violation. This means that the government would get its money back when the property is sold. That does not give you the cash though, so it is a longer range strategy. Think this one through with your attorney and whoever handles your town finances too.

You don't give any detail about whether these properties are under contract with a solar installation company, but a longer range concern might be what happens if the planned solar utility does not go forward. This is why you are right to be concerned.

Since you believe it is your state's moratorium that is causing property owners not to be interested in good maintenance, maybe you can approach your state government for financial assistance. Start talking with your state representatives now about this option, since it would take some time.

This is a miserable place to be, and as you can see, we don't have any obvious solutions. I hope that one of these avenues of discussion and thinking would give you some options though. You could let us know how it goes.

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