The City Council finds as follows:
(A) Vacant buildings are a major cause and source of blight in residential and non-residential neighborhoods, especially when the owner of the building fails to actively maintain and manage the building to ensure that it does not become a liability to the neighborhood. Vacant buildings often attract transients, homeless people and criminals, including drug abusers. Use of vacant buildings by transients and criminals who may employ primitive cooking or heating methods, creates a risk of fire for the vacant building and adjacent properties. Vacant properties are often used as dumping grounds for junk and debris and are often overgrown with weeds and grass. Vacant buildings, which are boarded up to prevent entry by transients and other long-term vacancies, discourage economic development and retard appreciation of property values.
(B) One vacant property, which is not actively being managed and maintained, can be the core and cause of spreading blight.
(C) Because of the potential economic and public health, welfare and safety problems caused by vacant buildings, the city needs to monitor vacant buildings every 90 days, to ensure that they do not become attractive nuisances, are not used by trespassers, are properly maintained both inside and out, and do not become a blighting influence in the neighborhood. City departments involved in such monitoring include the Police Department, the Fire Department and the Building Department. There is a substantial cost to the city for monitoring vacant buildings whether or not those buildings are boarded up. This cost should not be borne by the general taxpayers of the community but rather these costs should be borne by those who choose to leave their buildings vacant.
(Ord. 641 C.S., passed 3-6-01)