Windsor testimony spotlights downtown "drug trailer," lawmakers consider faster tools for delinquent properties

Windsor Select Board chair Tara Howard told the House Committee on General & Housing on May 20 that a single delinquent trailer in downtown Windsor has become an acute public-safety and public-health problem and asked lawmakers whether state changes could give towns quicker authority to intervene.

Howard said the trailer, commonly called “the drug trailer,” is occupied by about seven people who are “all of which who are struggling with substance use disorder.” She said there is visible daily drug use and sales, accumulated trash and used needles in the yard, no running water, and at least one instance in which a tenant fired a gun inside the trailer. “I’m just trying to find what can we do? What can we do when we’re in a situation like this?” Howard said.

The committee’s discussion focused on two immediate lessons from the Windsor case: (1) whether towns need clearer public-nuisance or charter authority to enter private property for health and safety enforcement, and (2) whether the state should create an accelerated pathway to remove or transfer seriously dilapidated, vacant or dangerous properties rather than wait for the multi-year tax-sale process that Howard said is nearing its third year for the Windsor trailer.

Why it matters: committee members said the testimony illustrated a broader statewide problem of vacant, delinquent and underutilized properties that can…