Colonie has moved closer to amending town laws enabling building inspectors to actively pursue unsafe and unsightly properties.
During the summer, Supervisor Mary Brizzell set a committee to work indexing problem properties and their owners. That list includes nearly 50 properties that for various reasons have been abandoned or have become unsightly or unsafe. To clean them up, the town has relied on old measures of working with owners or dragging reluctant ones to court.
Now, new amendments to town law will give inspectors new tools to cite property owners and bring them before the town board to address their properties. If warranted, the town will also have the ability to have the problems remedied or removed and, best-case scenario, stick the owner with the tab.
What we’ve done using our complaint-driven system is create a list or properties we are targeting. There have been a number of properties that are under construction, new projects or are under way. But we know we can do more, said Denise Sheehan, director of the town’s planning and economic development department.
Sheehan has worked with Building Department Director Michael Rosch to compile the list of properties. Sheehan listed the commercial and Rosch the residential.
The intent of the new law is to strengthen the town’s abilities, Sheehan said. It isn’t about going after the property owners. If anything, the law is fostering a better working relationship with town departments and property owners to get to the root of the problem when it comes to the abandoned or vacant properties. The intent is to work with owners to either bring the properties up to code and newly proposed building safety standards or get them fixed and on the market.
If needed, however, the law does give the town the ability to remove unsafe structures if the working relationship is nonexistent.
Brizzell said the legislation deals specifically with unsafe, not unsightly, properties.
`This doesn’t do anything with Sebastian’s,` said Brizzell, referring to the former strip club at the intersection of Troy Schenectady Road and Wade Road Extension, which is painted pink and littered with graffiti. `It may be unsightly, but it’s not unsafe.`
Even under the amended law, the town wouldn’t be able to go after its owner.
The property is currently on the market, said Town Attorney Arnis Zilgme.
Zilgme said that, overall, the amended law would shift the town’s focus from seeking penalties on the property owners to getting the properties fixed.
Several residents appeared before the board Thursday, Oct. 26, to voice concerns about properties they have been living near for years and no action has been taken.
When they were told the properties they mentioned were all on the town’s list, the residents commended the town for revamping efforts to bring properties under compliance.
The town plans leave the public comment period open on the amended law leading up to the Thursday, Nov. 15, meeting when the board will vote on the law.
Until then, outgoing town board member Kevin Bronner asked that the law and definitions in it be made clear so that the properties be cleaned up and made safe.
The owners of some of the properties `know how to manipulate these laws,` he said.“