17 - Discussion regarding forgiving civil penalties on appropriate properties

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Item No. 17 Memorandum TO: Mayor & City Council Grayson Path, City Manager FROM: Stephanie Harris, City Attorney SUBJECT: Discussion of possible procedures to forgive BSC civil penalties on appropriate properties. DATE: August 10, 2020 BACKGROUND: As you are aware, for several years, whenever the Building and Standards Commission would issue a demolition order, it would also assess civil penalties in the amount of $1,000.00 per day on the property if the owner did not demolish the property in the stated time period, generally 30 days. As a result, most of these properties now have civil penalties that with interest far outstrip the actual value of the property, and thus, resale is very difficult. When resale is difficult, it is difficult to get new structures built which would increase the taxable value of the lots. In the last couple of years, Council has agreed to forgive these civil penalties on about 5 properties, three in 2020 alone. STATUS OF ISSUE: The Code Enforcement Department and I are seeking guidance from the Council as to how to proceed on the many, many outstanding civil penalties orders. I have been working with Mr. Talley to compile a list of such orders and determine which of these apply to properties that have been demolished and which might be appropriate for forgiveness. This is a painstaking process, but to date, I have a stack of just over 50 orders on properties for which forgiveness is most likely appropriate. This is apparently just a small portion of these outstanding orders. The City can continue to take these orders up on a case by case basis as owners and purchasers bring them to our attention, or we could proactively start to forgive penalties in batches of 25 or 50 properties, at Council's pleasure. I will want to double check that forgiveness is appropriate for each property before bringing them to you, but I could bring you a batch to forgive in a single resolution on multiple 'occasions. In this manner we could remove barriers to resale ofae these properties while more efficiently using Council's time. By appropriate, I mean a lot that had a residential or other structure on it that either the owner or the city demolished, and that the accrued penalties and interest outstrip the value of the property. Even within those parameters, there may