Pleasantville Looks to Tackle Problem of Abandoned Properties
Pleasantville officials are proposing a new property maintenance law to address how to maintain abandoned and neglected properties and prevent them from posing hazardous conditions to the public.
Pleasantville Building Inspector Robert Hughes said last week that there were a handful of houses no longer occupied, with overgrown foliage and accumulating snow in the winter, which have created safety issues.
Generally, this situation occurs when vacant properties have been foreclosed but the bank has yet to take control. Currently, the village has no authority to clean up the blight.
âWe are trying to get a mechanism in place where the village can actually have somebody come in and maintain (an abandoned) property by cutting the grass in the spring and summer and shovel the snow in the winter,â Hughes said during the boardâs Aug. 26 work session. âMaintenance of that nature wouldnât have to be done all the time, just enough to eliminate potential hazards to the public.â
To date, the villageâs four abandoned and neglected properties are 136 Manville Rd., 278 Washington Ave., 79 Grandview Ave. and 588 Washington Ave.
The villageâs attorneys from Keane & Beane, P.C. in White Plains have recommended the village adopt a property maintenance law to âensure that structures are maintained in a safe and blight-free manner.â As in most towns and villages, Pleasantvilleâs building code references the New York State Building Code; however, the state code doesnât have a property maintenance chapter specific to a village. Villages use the state code in tandem with the local zoning laws.
âWe would utilize both to elaborate on the specifics of unsafe buildings from our current code,â explained Hughes. âIt would actually give us the authority to use the property maintenance code that specifies condemning a building to be unsafe.â
Discussion of a property maintenance law was triggered by complaints from the Bedford Road School, which is near 136 Manville Rd., a house thatâs been vacant for a about a year. School personnel are concerned with safe passage of students who walk by the house, especially with snow accumulation in the winter.
âThe only abandoned property weâve gotten complaints about is the one next to the school,â Hughes said.
Generally, if there are property violations the building department issues a notice letter; if thereâs no response, it issues an order to remedy, followed by a summons if thereâs still no response.
If a property maintenance law is adopted and owners have not responded to the building department, Hughes would approach the board with a safety concern about an unkempt property and ask for the boardâs approval to hire an outside contractor to take care of the property. The costs would be passed on to the property owner, and if unpaid, a lien would be placed on the property tax and the village would eventually be reimbursed.
âThe plan is to give you some teeth to enforce this kind of law. You should be empowered to make these decisions,â Pleasantville Mayor Peter Scherer told Hughes.
Hughes said for the owners of abandoned properties who are nowhere to be found, a violation is meaningless.
âTheyâre not paying the taxes so they donât care and the bank doesnât officially own it yet,â he said.
The village will make specific recommendations to its attorneys on how to tailor a new law for Pleasantville.
âItâs not something that we are going to use frivolously, just in extreme cases, especially by the school where the snow isnât being shoveled,â Hughes said.
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