(a) Without a prior hearing before the commission or municipal court, the director may secure a building or structure the director determines:
(1) Is substandard and a hazard to the public health, safety and/or welfare;
(2) Is unoccupied or is occupied only by persons who do not have a right of possession to the building or structure;
(3) Whether the building or structure is a construction site where there has been no significant construction work done in the previous three months, and the site is not secured by a fence or other means to prevent its use by children or by vagrants or other uninvited persons as a place of harborage; and
(4) Whether the building or structure is a construction site where there has been no significant construction work done in the previous three months, and all building materials and construction equipment and tools have neither been removed from the site nor secured at the site to prevent their use by children, their theft, their deterioration, their vandalism, or their harborage of rodents or insects.
(b) After securing a building or structure as provided in subsection (a) above, the director may post a notice to vacate on or near the front door of the building or structure. The notice to vacate must be in substantially the following form:
DO NOT OCCUPY
This building or structure is in violation of the City Code of the City of Fort Worth.
Occupancy is suspended until such time as the violations are corrected and approved by the Director of the City of Fort Worth code compliance department.
It is a misdemeanor to occupy this building or structure or to remove or deface this notice.
(c) Before the eleventh calendar day after the date the building or structure is secured, the director must give notice to the owner by:
(1) Personally, serving the owner with written notice;
(2) Mailing such notice by certified mail, return receipt requested to the owner at the owner's last known post office address and shall be deemed to have been served three calendar days after mailing;
(3) Publishing the notice at least twice within a ten-calendar day period in the official newspaper of the city if personal service cannot be obtained and the owner's post office address is unknown; or
(4) Posting the notice on or near the front door of the building or structure if personal service cannot be obtained and the owner's post office address is unknown.
(d) The notice must contain:
(1) An identification, which is not required to be a legal description, of the building or structure and the property on which it is located;
(2) A description of the violation of the standards established by this article;
(3) A statement that the director has secured the building or structure; and
(4) An explanation of the owner's entitlement to request a hearing about any matter relating to the director's securing of the building or structure.
(e) The commission or municipal court shall conduct a hearing at which the owner may testify or present witnesses or written information about any matter relating to the director's securing of the building or structure, if within 30 calendar days after the date the director's secures the building or structure, the owner files a written request for a hearing with the director. The commission or municipal court shall conduct the hearing within 20 calendar days after the date the owner files a request for hearing.
(f) The commission or municipal court will conduct the hearing in the manner provided for by this division. The issues to be determined in such hearing are:
(1) Whether the building or structure was substandard, and a hazard to the public health, safety and/or welfare at the time it was secured;
(2) Whether the building or structure, at the time it was secured, was unoccupied or was occupied only by persons who did not have a right to possession of the building or structure;
(3) Whether the building or structure is a construction site where there has been no significant construction work done in the previous three months, and the site is not secured by a fence or other means to prevent its use by children or by vagrants or other uninvited persons as a place of harborage;
(4) Whether the building or structure is a construction site where there has been no significant construction work done in the previous three months, and all building materials and construction equipment and tools have neither been removed from the site nor secured at the site to prevent their use by children, their theft, their deterioration, their vandalism, or their harborage of rodents or insects; and
(5) Whether the expenses incurred by the city to secure the building or structure were reasonable.
(Ord. 13743, § 1, passed 3-23-1999; Ord. 23577-03-2019, § 11, passed 3-19-2019)