Amherst council adopts tougher nuisance property bylaw
Published: 10-09-2024 4:26 PM |
AMHERST — Municipal building inspectors and town police officers will soon have a mechanism for ensuring problem properties that affect the quality of life in Amherst neighborhoods, such as residences holding frequent loud parties with underage drinking or storing numerous junked vehicles, are corrected in a timely manner.
The Town Council, on a 10-2 vote Monday, adopted a nuisance property bylaw that will replace the existing nuisance house bylaw, a revision that will bring better tracking of responses to these properties and fixing problems, including potential risks to those living at those homes. At Large Councilor Ellisha Walker and District 3 Councilor Heather Hala Lord voted against the measure, while District 3 Councilor George Ryan was absent.
The vote means that 14 days after adoption, the nuisance house bylaw, which had an emphasis on controlling gatherings and underage drinking through the issuance of $300 fines, will be replaced with the nuisance property bylaw, which addresses a broader array of activities while keeping the existing fine structure in place. The revised bylaw also states that, upon a third violation of the bylaw within a one-year period, any property is designated a nuisance property.
“One of the nice things about this proposed bylaw is it allows the Police Department and inspection services to work together to get an improvement at a property,” Building Commissioner Rob Morra told councilors in advance of the vote. “In the past, the general bylaw was only enforced by the Police Department. This version gives some enforcement authority to inspections services staff.”
Morra said inspectors will be able to give a bit more attention to corrective actions and improvements, such as through increasing inspection schedules. He said this could also impact the ability of a property owner to rent out a problematic property.
Police Chief Gabriel Ting said the new bylaw won’t change much how his officers operate, as the provisions of the nuisance property bylaw will be applied similarly to how the nuisance house bylaw is handled. Currently, police can issue fines and the department’s neighborhood liaison officer can inform landlords about problems, though not all landlords request such notifications. The new bylaw mandates notification, meaning more responsibility for landlords to address problems.
“What has changed is after the three strikes, then the fourth strike goes to the landlord, and the Police Department formulates a plan with the landlord and tenants to try to mitigate that situation,” Ting said.
Ting said officers will also continue to document problems they observe at properties that might fit into the inspections realm. “It’s a nice partnership,” Ting said.
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District 4 Councilor Pam Rooney said the mandated notification of landlords is a major change in the nuisance property bylaw. The revised bylaw will also work in conjunction with the recently adopted rental registration bylaw to improve health and safety of tenants and living conditions through mandated inspections.
One of the amendments adopted was proposed by District 1 Councilor Cathy Schoen, stating that if designated as a nuisance property over a two-year period, and having persistent violations and failure to complete a corrective action plan, a property owner shall be at risk of losing the rental permit and be subject to more frequent inspections.
“If you don’t have the ability to take a permit away on a rental property, you don’t have the final kind of club to use, it’s just fines, and if you have fines you can increase the rent to cover the fines,” Schoen said.
The Community Resources Committee had voted against including a provision to suspend or revoke rental permits or prevent people from renewing these permits.
At Large Councilor Mandi Jo Hanneke said she had concerns that rental properties were being singled out for penalties that can’t be assessed on owner-occupied properties.
Joining Hanneke in voting against the amendment were Walker, At Large Councilor Andy Steinberg and District 2 Councilor Pat DeAngelis.
Councilors unanimously removed a clause that penalties could be issued for violating “community moral standards,” considered to be a vague term.
Neither Lord nor Walker explained their rationale for voting against the revised bylaw, though Lord had expressed reservations at an earlier meeting over the bylaw’s punitive nature and Walker worried about both inequitable enforcement and discrimination in enforcement.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.