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City staff outline limits of current condemnation rules and propose licensed abatement program
Summary
Fairhope building staff described challenges enforcing the city’s 2011 dangerous-structure ordinance and presented a licensed abatement program (including a draft replacement ordinance and forms) that consultants say has been used across Alabama and upheld in state courts.
Fairhope building and legal staff told the City Council that current local rules for condemning dangerous structures are narrowly defined and difficult to enforce, and they urged council consideration of a broader, licensed abatement program and a repeal-and-replace of the existing 2011 ordinance.
Eric (Building Department) described operational challenges locating absentee owners, managing properties with multiple owners, and the high evidentiary threshold in the current ordinance — which requires conditions such as leaning or listing walls or 33% or more deterioration of supporting structures before a building qualifies as condemnable. “It has to meet those requirements of 33% or more damage or deterioration,” Eric said, explaining why many unsightly or nuisance properties do not meet the ordinance’s…
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