Boarded-up buildings on list
LR directors look at requiring paint to match outside walls
Little Rock officials are considering the addition of a requirement that would make owners of boarded-up structures paint the boards to correspond to the exterior color of the building.
Members of the Little Rock Board of Directors began asking about the possibility in July after some of them noted painted boards on some vacant homes in their wards. They said the matching boards are more appealing than bare wood covering the doors and windows of a structure.
City Manager Bruce Moore had his staff review requirements in other cities and found that all three cities that they compared with Little Rock — Atlanta, New Orleans and Memphis — had stricter requirements in their standards for boarded-up housing.
All three of those jurisdictions require that the interior of a vacant dwelling be cleaned before it is boarded up. Two also limit how long a property can be boarded up, but New Orleans was the only one that required the boarding correspond to the exterior color of the house.
Moore said Little Rock
members paint boards to match the houses as much as possible when they board up and secure a property, but the city hasn’t required property owners to do that when the owners are made to board up a structure.
Suggested additions to Little Rock’s boarding standards are:
Requiring all windows and doors be secured with three-eighths-inch plywood sheathing.
Requiring that all boards fit to the screen inset molding or window frame.
Requiring all boards to be painted to match the exterior color scheme of the building.
The city’s Community Housing Advisory Board reviewed the proposed changes Oct. 10. At-large City Director Joan Adcock serves as a liaison between that board and the city’s Board of Directors.
According to minutes of the housing advisory meeting, Adcock thought there were “loopholes” in the new proposed regulations that should be fixed before an ordinance is presented to the city board for a vote.
Adcock said that if residents don’t want to pay the fee to board up their homes, they can remove the boards, and there’s no clause stating their homes must be boarded. Housing and Neighborhood Programs Department Director Andre Bernard confirmed at the meeting that someone can still be in compliance with city codes without boarding up his vacant structure.
The minutes of the housing advisory board meeting also noted that Adcock expressed “apprehension” because “there is no definitive time frame as to how long structures can be boarded nor what to do when a vacant structure has been boarded for an extensive number of years.”
Adcock told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette that she’s reviewed other cities’ boarding codes and there are enforcement clauses.
“We need to have something that says they have to do it and after a time, if they don’t do something with the house, the city then has the right to declare the house a nuisance and go ahead and take the house,” said Adcock, adding that she’s interested in seeing homes rehabilitated instead of letting them sit boarded up for years.
Moore said he will review the housing advisory board’s input and hopes to present an ordinance to the city board for a vote soon. He did not know when the issue would go before the full board.
Previously, when the matter was discussed at board meetings, Ward 6 Director and Vice Mayor Doris Wright favored a requirement that would have owners paint the boards to match the house.
“This is a real issue, believe it or not,” she said, noting that she’s had numerous calls from constituents about boarded-up properties.
Wright added that she also likes the other newly suggested requirements of having boards fit the window and door spaces because it makes the structure look uniform.
“I want some more uniformity than just the boards up there looking a certain kind of way,” she said. “Case in point, I have a real expensive home on 21st Street, and it’s been burned now going on four years. The boards on the windows are not installed with any uniformity, and I have neighbors calling and complaining.”