A Blight Ordinance That is Wrong for Ledyard

A public hearing on a new proposed Ledyard Blight Citation Ordinance will be conducted at 6:30 PM on Wednesday, March 13, in the Town Hall Annex.  

If adopted, the Town can, whenever it alleges "blight", impose a $25/day ($9,125/year) penalty, and can lien and take the allegedly blighted property if the penalty is not paid or the blight is not remediated. There is no limit on the amount of the accumulating penalty. 

Per the enabling statutes, blight citation enforcement will follow a procedure similar to that used for a parking citation – with appeal limited only to (a) if the alleged “blight” conforms to the definition of "blight" in the ordinance, and (b) if the penalty is correctly calculated.

I am opposed to the proposed Blight Citation Ordinance because:

1.      A blight citation can be issued for any vacant residential property.   See §4-B of the proposed Ordinance.

2.      A blight citation can be issued for any premises containing accumulating debris, and there is no exception for debris created as a result of construction under a valid building permit. See 4-C-b of the proposed Ordinance.

3.      A blight citation can be issued if there is a dumpster on the property.  See §4-C-b and the definition of "Debris" in the proposed Ordinance.

4.      A blight citation can be issued for an occupied home with a minor violation of the building code.  See §4 – Definition for “Illegal Residences”.

5.      A blight citation can be issued for an occupied home with a missing or broken smoke detector.  See §4 – Definition for Illegal Residences”.

6.      A blight citation can be issued when the blight cannot be viewed from a public area or from the property of an abutting neighbor.

7.      A blight citation can be issued if a property owner cannot be located – see the definition of “abandoned” in §4, which references §117.1.1 of the 2009 Amendment to the 2005 Building Code.

8.      A blight citation can be issued when blight cannot be remedied due to lack of funds, acts of God, the age or health of the owner, weather, undue hardship, or for any other condition beyond the control of the owner.

9.      In most instances, a Blight Citation Ordinance is unnecessary because the Connecticut Building Code addresses structural decay and dilapidation, and the Ledyard Zoning Regulations address most forms of visible junk and debris.

10.    A Blight Enforcement Official should be a full time job to assure fair and uniform enforcement – which will be expensive.   

11.    The proposed Blight Citation Ordinance will likely be challenged as an unconstitutional "taking of property", which will result in costly litigation.

12.   Application of the proposed Blight Citation Ordinance will likely cause detrimental, expensive, and embarrassing unintended consequences for our Town.  For example, it may often be less expensive to install a solid fence on the front property line to "hide" blight than to remediate blight, or for an owner to ignore a blight citation and let the Town take ownership of severely blighted and possibly contaminated property.  It is likely the Blight Enforcement Officer, and the Blight Hearing Committee volunteers, may be sued for perceived non-uniform and unfair application of the ordinance.

A copy of the proposed Blight Citation Ordinance, the Town Attorney's legal opinion of the Blight Citation Ordinance, a Connecticut Office of Legislative Research (OLR) Report on Anti-Blight Ordinances, and a listing of concerns, are available upon request at bsaofnl-eric@yahoo.com (860-536-6240) or at the Town Portal for the public hearing at:

http://ledyardct.iqm2.com/Citizens/Default.aspx

Everyone who is concerned about this ordinance, its potential for unequal enforcement, its risk of being abused, its likely conflicts with property rights, and its financial risk to the Town, should attend the public hearing and express their concerns to the Council.