COLUMBUS, Ohio — Vacant properties are now in the sights of the Columbus City Council. Legislation passed Monday evening will require property owners to register a vacant property with the city or face fines.
The city claims vacant properties pose a danger to the city’s firefighters, police officers and code enforcement official. It also said vacant properties cause blight in neighborhoods and are magnets for crime. The Vacant Building Registry will help the city keep track of these properties.
“Oftentimes property owners that have a vacant property don’t keep them up. It’s very easy for these to become blights in a neighborhood,” said Rob Dorans, Columbus City Councilmember. “This will be a new tool for our code enforcement officers to pay extra attention to these properties.”
The idea is to hold property owners accountable.
“This will help us put those properties at the top their [code enforcement] list to make sure we’re doing ongoing inspections to make sure they’re keeping their properties up. If not, we’re going to charge them for the city having to go through that nuisance abatement process,” said Dorans.
Lora Sullivan is a lifelong Hilltop resident. She owns her home and takes pride in its upkeep, but two houses down is a vacant home.
“In this block that I’m in, you have a lot of homeowners that have been here for a long time and they take pride in their yards. But if you scan up and down the road, you can see where it’s getting to the point of what for,” she asked. “You have kids that come up and down the road and throw stuff. They see the houses that aren’t taken care of and are like ‘Oh well. We’ll just throw it on the ground, it won’t make a difference.’”
She said not only to the vacant properties attract trash, but also crime to the neighborhood.
“We’ve had a lot of crime; it’s picked up a lot. Most of the houses around here have cameras on the fronts, the backs and the sides just because you never know,” she said. “My youngest is 9 and he doesn’t come outside to play. I would never allow him to come out front and play on his own not unless there was an adult out here. I just sprayed my sidewalk off this past weekend and all the glass that came off with the hose. We hardly ever... I have a big porch, but we don’t get out to enjoy it.”
She wants to see the city hold the owners of the vacant houses accountable for the decay.
Dorans said that’s the goal with this property registry. He mentioned that code enforcement has identified about 3,000 vacant housing properties in Columbus. He said the wording of the ordinance gives code enforcement more ‘teeth’ to get property owners to bring these blighted buildings up to code and a livable condition.
“If you want to keep a property vacant, that is certainly up to you as a property owner, but you shouldn’t be allowed to let that decay,” he said.
Property owners will be required to register a vacant property with the city otherwise they could face a hefty fine.
“If you don’t register and you’re just completely absentee and don’t respond to the city whatsoever, we’re going to fine you $150 per day,” Dorans said. “It’s really about those bad actors out there. This allows the city to have teeth as it relates to those bad actors. We will have people who will come into compliance.”
Dorans said the registry will take effect in September, but there will be a 60-day period to help educate and answer questions property owners have.
Columbus tried to pass a similar registry ordinance in 2012.