Nuisance properties! I'm certain the term causes a headache with city administrators. And the matter can even rise above that level to where elected officials get drawn in. As has happened here in our Motown recently.
I remember the issue coming up in the past. I remember reading of a little "tour" given by a city administrator out and around, sampling some sights. He gave the tour to the newspaper manager, as I recall. In the Forum Communications days.
Well frankly it is not hard to notice properties where issues of tidiness and aesthetics are presented. Most of us keep these thoughts to ourselves. We no doubt reason that life is challenging for lots of people and we cannot all be expected to live in a super upscale place like we see out by the river. We make these observations while we ourselves realize we are not being perfect.
A few years back I realized I had let the rear of my property get overgrown. While my father was alive I figured he'd take care of this stuff. I'm afraid he did start becoming a little negligent. A wooden snowfence that he was once proud to have installed got obliterated by storms. We who live on the northern edge of the city, semi-rural, can really be hit hard by winds. Because of that, I began to see my overgrown back yard as maybe an asset: a windbreak. That it was.
But enough is enough. It was not passing the aesthetics test. The Northridge Drive residences are rather upscale so we have a sense of the appropriate basic standards. There are always issues. And with the cost of having any kind of contractor show up, one might be tempted to hesitate more than normal.
I have a theory on why the "nuisance property" issue comes at us every 5-6 years (an estimate). My theory is that people begin to notice one very obvious nuisance property somewhere. So the appropriate officials are notified with complaints. And in our current case the city manager apparently did not respond, so guess what? The mayor's phone rings, which I suspect would make him growl some.
I'm sure the elected people don't want to get into touchy or emotional issues any more than they have to. They like to get re-elected. But I have told people I will not vote for anyone who was on the council when the water softener law was passed. I have told the major that directly. He probably would just get out his little violin. I digress some.
I suspect that people involved in municipal management all over our great country consider nuisance properties to be thorny, perhaps a no-win situation. Why? I think it's pretty obvious: If you consider it essential to intervene with a nuisance property, well then you have to be consistent, applying the same rules and standards to everyone, so you don't look like you're just picking on one person. You cannot carry out a personal grudge this way. The law probably has avenues for recourse.
So then what? Well you have to draw up a pretty specific profile of just what a nuisance property is. I read in the paper that having a pile of wood pallets is a no-no. Well I don't know: if my neighbor had some of these and his property was otherwise tidy, not sure I'd feel bothered. But there has to be a set of pretty specific rules and standards.
And I'd like to suggest at this point that maybe that's nigh impossible. To elaborate, let me cite the famous judge's quote about pornography: "I can't define it but I know it when I see it."
Addendum: Just speculating but I think the current really problematic property is along Pacific Avenue. If this isn't it, then I wouldn't want to see No. 1.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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