(A) The City Council is enacting this chapter to help protect the public health, safety and welfare by establishing a program for the identification and regulation of vacant buildings within the city. This chapter also determines the responsibilities of owners of vacant buildings and provides for administration, enforcement, and penalties associated with same.
(B) The City Council finds that vacant buildings are a major cause and source of blight in residential and nonresidential neighborhoods, especially when the owner or responsible party of the building fails to actively maintain and manage the building to ensure it does not become a liability to the neighborhood. Neglect of vacant buildings, as well as use of vacant buildings by transients and squatters, creates a risk of fire, explosion or flooding for the vacant building and adjacent properties.
(C) Pursuant to authority provided in M.S. § 463.26, permitting cities to enact and enforce ordinances on hazardous buildings, and in order to enhance the livability and preserve the tax base and property values of buildings within the city, and because of the need to assure that buildings which are capable of rehabilitation are promptly rehabilitated and buildings which are not capable of rehabilitation be promptly demolished, the city hereby declared that it is the policy of the city to promote rehabilitation of vacant and unoccupied buildings, and to assure a prompt process for demolition of hazardous buildings through a procedure fixing appropriate responsibility in accordance with due process requirements.
(D) Vacant properties often are used as dumping grounds for junk and debris and often are overgrown with weeds and grass. Vacant buildings that are boarded to prevent entry by transients and other long-term vacancies discourage economic development and retard appreciation of property values. There is a substantial cost to the city for monitoring vacant buildings whether or not those buildings are boarded. 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. passed 10-22-2019)