Akron City Council committee members paused a proposed edit to the city’s vacant-building rules after members expressed concern that removing a requirement to notify original citizen complainants would cut residents out of appeals proceedings.

The discussion began in the Planning Committee, where staff described the amendment as part of a package amending Title 15, Chapter 154, governing vacant commercial and industrial buildings. Greg, a city housing/VBR staffer, told the committee the office typically receives reports from city employees, council members and field inspectors and that many citizen complaints arrive anonymously, making it difficult to track an original complainant. He said the practice of notifying adjacent property owners with door hangers and the long time between initial complaint and a case’s hearing sometimes means the original complainant cannot be located.

Council members pushed back. Several said removing the statutory notification risked formalizing a practice in which residents could be excluded from hearings. The chair asked staff to compare complaint records across housing, the VBR, and 311 to see whether a lapse of notification was occurring in practice and requested the law department review the ordinance language. The committee voted to grant temporary time on the Planning Committee item so staff and law could prepare a substitute.

Later the Housing and Neighborhood Assistance Committee considered a substitute ordinance that amended multiple housing-code sections related to hearings, repair, demolition, registration and mandatory rental inspection. According to housing staff, the substitute reinserted the sentence restoring the citizen-complainant notification into the code. Committee members said the change addressed their concerns and voted to suspend the rules and give the substitute a favorable report to send it forward for final action.

What’s next: Committee leaders said the revised language will be carried forward to Planning Committee for final review and the city will compare 311 and internal complaint records to inform outreach and notification practices.

Quotes from the meeting:
"In this code, we don't get citizen complaints about vacant buildings. We mainly get our complaints from city employees," Greg said, explaining why staff proposed the change.
"I'm personally concerned that a VBR hearing...if it's not in the law...we don't have to hear from a complainant," the chair responded, urging caution before eliminating the notification requirement.

Clarifying details: The substitute was described by staff as reinstating the sentence referencing the citizen complainant in subsection (c) of the housing code; the committee asked law to verify where the notification language appears elsewhere in the code. The administration said they will present a substitute at the planning meeting later in the evening.