{"id":2386,"date":"2022-06-21T08:00:59","date_gmt":"2022-06-21T08:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hiawatha-iowa.com\/news\/?p=2386"},"modified":"2022-10-19T20:38:26","modified_gmt":"2022-10-19T20:38:26","slug":"hiawatha-to-consider-a-vacant-building-ordinance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hiawatha-iowa.com\/news\/hiawatha-to-consider-a-vacant-building-ordinance\/","title":{"rendered":"Hiawatha to Consider a Vacant Building Ordinance"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The City of Hiawatha is exploring the adoption of a \u201cVacant Building Ordinance\u201d to address the issue of dilapidated buildings as the City ages.\u00a0 The purpose is to develop a process to facilitate the removal or repair of existing abandoned buildings maintaining a safe and beautiful community.\u00a0 The proposed Vacant Building ordinance must be enforceable with benefits and attributes not existing in the current ordinances.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Initiating a program to eliminate these structures through repair or demolition entails the development and passage of an ordinance in line with the Comprehensive Plan. To provide benefit beyond the existing processes the program should include:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Purpose statement and defined scope.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Specific standards for vacant and abandoned building exterior appearances.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Specific standards for vacant and abandoned buildings for interior safety and sanitation.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Specific demolition requirements for non-compliance within a specified time frame.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Registration fees to recover administrative and inspection costs.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Penalty fees to act as a deterrent to maintaining non-compliant vacant buildings.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">A committee has been appointed by the Mayor and City Council to study this issue and to make a recommendation regarding the adoption of an ordinance. A draft ordinance has been developed which is a combination of ordinances from Dubuque IA and Brooklyn Center MN. It is more comprehensive than the Cedar Rapids model and addresses the aesthetics associated with abandoned buildings along with a direct reference to demolition orders. The recommended fee is based on the Dubuque model for covering inspection costs.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Implementation of a vacant building ordinance will put the city in a pro-active position rather than a re-active position.\u00a0 This program will provide a policy and plan for reducing the blight caused by abandoned properties and provide a framework for immediately addressing severely damaged property due to a natural disaster such as a derecho. The timely elimination of the abandoned and neglected property will prevent the City from having to address the buildings as nuisances which can be costly in human resources, financial resources and extended time frames to achieve corrections.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The committee is scheduled to meet on Wednesday July 27<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">th<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> to review the available research materials and draft documents. The meeting date, time and location is posted on the City web site and materials are available to the public at this link <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.towncloud.io\/go\/hiawatha-ia-cd\/agendas\/264\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">https:\/\/www.towncloud.io\/go\/hiawatha-ia-cd\/agendas\/264<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> .\u00a0 The public is welcome to review the material and to attend the meeting which is to be held at Hiawatha City Hall in the multi-purpose room in the lower level. Feel free to contact the Community Development Director with your comments or questions regarding the draft ordinance.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">When the committee has completed their work; the ordinance recommendation will be considered by Council through the ordinance public hearing process. Notice of the public hearing will be published in advance of Council action as specified in State Statutes. <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The City of Hiawatha is exploring the adoption of a \u201cVacant Building Ordinance\u201d to address the issue of dilapidated buildings as the City ages.\u00a0 The purpose is to develop a process to facilitate the removal<a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hiawatha-iowa.com\/news\/hiawatha-to-consider-a-vacant-building-ordinance\/\"> &#8230;Read the full article&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,4,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-city-news","category-news-community-development","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hiawatha-iowa.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2386"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hiawatha-iowa.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hiawatha-iowa.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiawatha-iowa.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiawatha-iowa.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2386"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiawatha-iowa.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2386\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2521,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiawatha-iowa.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2386\/revisions\/2521"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hiawatha-iowa.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiawatha-iowa.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hiawatha-iowa.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}