(a) The City has determined that an uninspected and unmonitored vacant building may present a fire hazard, may provide temporary occupancy by transients (including drug users and traffickers), may detract from private and/or public efforts to rehabilitate or maintain surrounding buildings, and that the health, safety and welfare of the public is served by the regulation of such vacant buildings.
(b) Owners of uninspected and unmonitored vacant buildings shall register such vacant buildings with the City, make payment of a fee for the registration thereof, and otherwise conform to these vacant building regulations.
(c) This article ensures that, through a registration, inspection, and monitoring process, vacant buildings will be kept weather tight and secure from trespassers, will provide safe entry to police officers and firefighters in times of emergency, will not impede private and /or public efforts to rehabilitate or maintain surrounding buildings, and will not present otherwise a public hazard.
(d) The City, by and through its departments (particularly the Building Maintenance Board) shall inspect and monitor vacant buildings (especially vacant downtown buildings), shall assess the effects of the condition of those buildings on nearby structures, and shall promote substantial efforts to rehabilitate and develop such buildings when appropriate.
(e) These provisions will streamline and consolidate the existing procedure (that is, complaint, research, notification, inspection, orders, fines, liens, appeals and due process lien enforcement) by placing the responsibility to register and maintain vacant structures on the building owner before a building's condition falls into disrepair or otherwise merits a complaint.
(Ord. 218. Passed 12-21-10.)