There’s a busted couch lying in the road on Brewster Lane in Shelton.
It drifted away from a pile of broken furniture sitting in the back yard of the apartment building on the corner of Brewster and Howe Avenue.
It was worse the day before, when trash and furniture were piled several feet high across the length of the sidewalk in front of the building, said city Alderman Eric McPherson.
“Are you doing anything about this house?” a neighbor asked from her car window as she drove down the road last week. “There’s a chair in my yard!”
“I know,” McPherson responded, putting his hands on his hips and sighing in frustration. “We’ve been working on this guy for years.”
Unkempt yards, broken windows, trash — it’s all blight. And it’s a problem across town, and throughout the region, McPherson said.
“It affects people’s property values,” McPherson said. “There are quality of life issues.”
With a new, stronger, blight ordinance in place, Shelton is trying to get tougher on property owners in the city.
Shelton’s New Ordinance
Last fall, the city approved a revised blight ordinance that shortened the time frame for property owners to clean up their properties.
It used to take up to six months to process blight complaints. Now, with the new ordinance in place, that same process has been reduced to to 10 days.
“If it’s not taken care of, it’s a $100 a day fine,” McPherson said.
He and fellow Alderman John “Jack” Finn rewrote the ordinance last year, facing increasing complaints from residents about unruly properties in town.
Charlene DeFilippo, the city’s community development officer who oversees the blight complaints, said the city currently has about 50 active blight cases.
“The revision in our ordinance has decreased the number of days the property owner is allowed to remedy a situation,” DeFilippo said. “In some cases, some people have become more cooperative… But we have some people who just refuse to cooperate. It doesn’t matter if it’s 30 days or 90 days.”
‘Everything’s Falling Apart’
One of those cases, city officials say, is the apartment building on the corner of Howe Avenue and Brewster Lane.
The landlord, city officials and tenants agree that many of the problems occur because the landlord lives so far away — in Florida.
Daniel Grogins owns the building and the apartment building next door.
The city said they have been dealing with blight issues at the property for a while. Recently the building inspector has become involved, trying to make sure structural fixes — such as a new ramp in front of the building — are handled properly.
“He’s (Grogins) the only problem in this whole area,” said tenant Jose Melendez. “He don’t care. All he cares about is his rent money. He doesn’t have to live like this. Everything’s falling apart.”
But Grogins, when reached by phone at his Florida home, said there are two sides to every story.
He said if there’s blight on his properties, it’s only temporary while he finds someone to fix the problems. He said if there was a regular bulk pick-up in Shelton, it would help. He also claims that he has paid people to clean up items, only to find out they took his money and did no work.
“It’s very difficult to manage,” Grogins said. “One of the tenants in each building is supposed to clean and cut the grass, keep the place neat and clean. Because I don’t live there, they don’t do it.”
Grogins said the apartment building on the corner has been put up for sale, and he’s placing the building next to it on the market this week.
“It’s just a bad deal. Tenants aren’t paying the rent. And I’m not there to see it when the place isn’t being cleaned up,” Grogins said.
The Foreclosure Issue
Lately, many of the blight problems come from foreclosed homes.
Take, for example, the 10-room home at 121 Hawthorne Avenue in Derby.
Roughly two years ago, the property fell into foreclosure and went down hill.
The garage door was torn off. Rusted and broken patio furniture was strewn across the back yard. Earlier this year, the city got the property placed on its blight list.
“It was hard [enforcing the blight ordinance] because the owner wasn’t going to do anything because it went into foreclosure,” said Andrew Cota, one of Derby’s two blight officers. “And for awhile, we couldn’t figure out who was in possession of the house.”
The home has a new owner, who has started to make improvements.
In Shelton, a foreclosed-upon property caused a major public safety issue when a water pipe burst, washing out the ground beneath the home’s foundation and causing a landslide onto condominiums below.
The complication determining responsibility for the clean up caused severe delays getting the situation settled. The city ended up footing the bill for the demolition and clean up.
There are examples in each town — which is why other Valley towns are taking steps similar to what Shelton has done.
Ansonia Hires Full Time Blight Officer
In Ansonia, a full-time blight officer was hired to replace the part-time position that used to exist.
James Tanner, who started work over the summer, said he’s had his hands full.
“I have 60 files open as of today,” Tanner said last week. “I’m working over time. It’s tough. You just got to keep going. Every day there’s more and more files that get opened, and you just got to keep going.”
Ansonia has fought blighted properties before Tanner was hired. The Valley Independent Sentinel wrote about a successful clean-up in May.
But with so many complaints, the city decided it needed more time dedicated to the job.
Derby’s Task Force
Derby has two part-time facilities inspectors, who review complaints and inspect reported blight.
“What we do is important,” said Cota, one of the two blight officers in the city. “Derby is only 5 square miles, so one bad property can bring down a whole neighborhood.”
But the city also recently created a task force to target blighted properties and building code violations in the city.
Click play on the video at left to hear Derby Mayor Anthony Staffieri talk about the task force.
The idea is that blight is often the tip of the iceberg regarding problems on a given property. The task force has different inspectors share their information to help get to the root of problem properties. The long-term goal is to reduce crime in the city.
Seymour Relaxed Its Blight Law
A few years ago, Seymour was having similar complaints about blight.
So the town leaders drafted an anti-blight ordinance and eventually hired two part-time blight officers to oversee it.
But anonymous, and sometimes erroneous, blight complaints became the norm and residents fought back last year. They claimed the blight ordinance was pitting neighbors against each other.
So, the Board of Selectmen relaxed the law — allowing for lesser fines for lesser offenses and requiring that all complaints be done in writing on a specific form.
Then, with budget cuts last year, the two part-time blight officer positions were eliminated.
Vanessa Inzitari contributed to this article.
