A proposed “nuisance” ordinance got its first public airing Tuesday, at the Derby Board of Aldermen’s community relations sub-committee meeting.
The ordinance has been in the works to give the city legal options for dealing with problem property owners.
With a draft in hand, aldermen and police officials began working through the details Tuesday. The full Board of Aldermen won’t see a draft until January, and the proposal will have to go before a public hearing before any vote is taken on it.
But members of the community relations sub-committee were optimistic about the draft.
“It’ll have teeth,” said Board of Aldermen president Kenneth Hughes. “I think this is great for Derby and I can’t wait to enforce it.”
The city’s corporation counsel, Joe Coppola, along with Alderman David Lenart and others, crafted the ordinance based on similar precedents in Massachusetts and several other municipalities.
Details
The proposed “Chronic Nuisance Property Ordinance” puts responsibility to remedy nuisance activities on property owners.
According to the draft proposal, if a property owner is documented for criminal or nuisance activities — from health violations to junk vehicle accumulation — three times in a 60-day period, they get put on a nuisance list.
A landlord must abate or remedy within 10 days, or face a $150-a-day fine.
Possible violations would include:
- Fire code violations
- health issues
- blighted properties
- Criminal activities such as prostitution, drug-related loitering, or assaults
The ordinance was being discussed during the summer, when a series of violent incidents took place on Hawkins Street.
City officials at the time said such a nuisance law might help stem violence there. That’s because different city departments — the police, building inspection and blight — will be working together to help get various problems fixed.
Questions
There are some questions that need to be worked out in the draft.
For example, Hughes asked how a property owner would get off the nuisance property list once placed on it.
Hughes also asked for clarification of language to assure the 10-day period doesn’t start ticking until an absentee landlord, for example, is verified in receipt of notice.
Detective Justin Stanko, who attended the meeting and raised some questions, said the city’s proposed fines may be in violation of state statutes.
The state statue on criminal nuisance calls for $100 per day, Stanko said. A municipal law can’t contradict a state law, according to Stanko.
Such issues are going to be addressed in a meeting next week between the police department and Coppola.
Reaction
Stanko said he was pleased with the proceedings.
“Anything that will work faster and quicker to clean up problems,” he said was a good thing. He added that the goal was not to raise money but to make Derby “a more livable community.”
Sub-committee chair David Lenart was pleased with the evening.
In his view the proposed ordinance is not controversial. With language evolving over the last several months, the law was being crafted “so it’s fair,” he said and no group feels picked on.
One of the benefits to the proposed legislation is that the ordinance brings all the city departments together to share information, he said.
“For example, [yesterday] there was a fire call at an address with blight issues,” he said.
Now the two departments will share the info and it will be “tied together,” and the house presumably be put on a watch for inclusion on the developing chronic nuisance properties list.
After legal tweaking by Coppola and the police, an amended draft will return to the subcommittee in December.
Then the ordinance will be voted on whether to send it to the full board.
In January the full board will hear a first reading of the law and schedule a pubic hearing of the agreed-upon draft either for late winter or early spring, said Hughes.
