Mobile council committee reviews proposed vacant-building registry and safety rules for downtown

At a committee of the whole meeting, Mobile City officials reviewed a proposed ordinance that would require owners of vacant commercial properties inside the Hank Aaron Loop to register their buildings, install basic alarm monitoring tied to 911 and provide Knox-box access for first responders.

Ricardo Woods, the city attorney, said the measure is meant to improve public safety and economic vitality by making it easier to locate and verify vacant properties and to ensure life‑safety systems are present. "If we take that step out of it and we put it actually on the owner, then we take that step out," Woods said, describing the registry as a "forcing function" to encourage compliance and reduce the need for city staff to track down owners.

Mr. McNair, who presented the background for the ordinance, cited a past downtown fire at the Hoffman Furniture building as an example of the hazards posed by vacant structures without alarms or sprinklers. "This is a process," he said, urging feedback from council members and noting the city tailored the proposal after reviewing practices used in hundreds of other municipalities.

The fire chief, speaking about technical details, said his department inspects about 817 downtown structures annually and identified roughly 140 that appeared vacant or did not answer inspections — "about 17%" of the buildings inside the loop. He described the ordinance’s alarm requirement as a simple monitored service that could be powered by temporary poles, batteries or solar, and said the goal is early detection and improved safety for firefighters and the public.

City staff detailed a revised fee structure intended to scale by building size so small owners are not charged the same amount as owners of large properties. McNair and Woods said fees collected under the program could be used to hire enforcement staff and to seed a dedicated remediation or grant fund that would remain within the Hank Aaron Loop to support commercial property improvements.

Councilman Reynolds pressed whether the registry should be purely self‑reporting or whether the city should proactively identify vacant properties. Reynolds warned owners who believed they were compliant could face surprise penalties years later. "I just think that's not the right way to go about it," he said. Woods said the draft does both: it requires owner responsibility and also authorizes city officials to identify and verify vacant properties, with safeguards and an appeal to the governing body.

David Dachenbaum, director of Municipal Enforcement, said existing teams will use fire‑department data, Alabama Power vacant‑meter records and 311 complaints to locate properties; the nuisance‑abatement team will conduct quarterly checks and serve notices under the ordinance. Jamie Roberts reviewed prior blight work, saying an earlier inventory of about 1,625 blighted residential units has fallen to roughly 300–350 through a mix of private compliance and targeted enforcement.

Support letters from the Mobile Historic Development Commission (nonprofit), the Downtown Mobile Alliance and the Mobile Chamber of Commerce were cited by staff as evidence of stakeholder backing; Fred Renfrey, CEO of the Downtown Mobile Alliance, told the council occupied downtown businesses he consulted generally support actions addressing vacancy and safety.

No final vote on the ordinance took place during the committee meeting. Later in the session the city attorney asked the council to enter executive session to discuss litigation related to the subject; the council agreed to do so and did not reconvene in open session.

The council advised council members representing affected districts to meet with the city attorney and staff before the ordinance returns to a future agenda.