Fighting blight takes more than an ordinance
Anti-blight ordinances provide a starting point for ensuring a clean, healthy local environment, but it takes follow-up commitment and a sense of cooperation to assure their effectiveness.
D uring a town meeting in Preston last week, a resident held up photos of the view from his property. The images showed an unattractive vista punctuated by an abandoned washer and dryer, unregistered vehicles and a discarded bed with weeds growing through it.
“This is what I look at every day,” Chris Grillo of Julian Drive said during discussion of the town’s proposed anti-blight ordinance.
We think responsible property owners should not be subjected to such a persistent mess. Unkempt conditions not only are unsightly, but also have a negative impact on the values of adjoining properties. In addition, they also can be unhealthy. Junk, debris and overgrown yards foster conditions ripe for rodent and insect infestations that are public health risks. Broken windows and unsecured structures invite vandals and squatters who could start fires.
These are among the reasons we support municipal anti-blight ordinances of the type adopted at the Preston town meeting. Preston is not alone in this pursuit to ensure a healthy, safe environment for its residents. Another such ordinance is under consideration in Old Lyme and many other towns in the region already have adopted these laws.
While these ordinances provide solid foundations upon which municipal officials can build cases against irresponsible property owners, residents also must remember the ordinances are not panaceas in and of themselves and will not quickly and effectively solve all blighted conditions.
New London officials, for example, over six years have repeatedly ordered the demolition of a 5,000-square-foot historic, but severely deteriorated, Italianate home at 66 Franklin St. Historic preservationists successfully delayed demolition, but many attempts to save the building have been unsuccessful. Shiloh Baptist Church, which owns the building, in June applied for a demolition permit. This time preservationists, recognizing the building is so far gone structurally, say they don’t plan to oppose.
Besides the time it takes to carry out clean-up orders, officials also must consider underlying reasons that allow blight to develop in the first place. In some cases, property owners are elderly, infirm or financially incapable of maintaining their property. Some properties have been foreclosed upon, often leaving them owned by banks with no local stake in ensuring the area is kept clean and maintained. Some blighted properties are owned by those who simply are irresponsible.
In any of these circumstances, the threat of a fine alone is not likely to be enough to immediately secure a clean-up.
As municipalities adopt these ordinances, officials must also consider what steps to take to actually effect the desired change. This might include working with nonprofit and civic groups that could step in to volunteer to help clean and repair an elderly resident’s property or having an official overseeing the ordinance who is as much diplomat as enforcer.
Anti-blight ordinances provide a starting point for ensuring a clean, healthy local environment, but it takes follow-up commitment and a sense of cooperation to assure their effectiveness.