Council work session pushes for stronger enforcement, pursues brownfield grants to tackle derelict buildings

Rawlins City Council convened a workshop Oct. 19 to focus on abandoned and dilapidated buildings and to outline parallel enforcement and grant strategies intended to reduce health and safety risks while preparing problem sites for redevelopment.

The forum opened with a council member noting that past city efforts to abate dangerous structures led to a legal challenge and reimbursement obligations. “We put together an ordinance and the city acted on that ordinance and it was challenged,” one council member said, summarizing prior court rulings that limited the city’s earlier approach. Staff described the city’s current ordinance (chapter 15.24, which incorporates the Uniform Code for Abatement of Dangerous Buildings) and walked council through the technical abatement steps — notices, administrative hearings, options to treat cleanup costs as a personal debt or as an assessment attached to property tax rolls, and due-process opportunities for owners to challenge actions.

Council members and staff highlighted practical obstacles that have hindered enforcement, including asbestos and other hazardous materials that restrict demolition contractors and dramatically increase cost estimates. Speakers warned that city demolitions previously cost roughly $60,000 for a set of properties and that county officials in some past cases declined to collect assessment liens, leaving the city to pursue other collection avenues.

To complement enforcement, staff recommended pursuing federal brownfield funding to finance assessments and prep work. “The second grant dealing with brownfield assessment sites is for $500,000,” the city’s economic development presenter told council, describing two complementary EPA grant paths: an assessment grant (to pay for site reuse, land-use and market assessments, community needs studies, and a citizen advisory board) and a cleanup grant that could fund rehabilitation for at least one city-owned property. The assessment grant requires no cash match; the cleanup grant was described as approximately $500,000 and would make selected properties shovel-ready for investors, although council members were reminded that cleanup grants typically do not cover full asbestos abatement costs and will instead provide cost estimates that help private investors decide whether to take on a property.

Council directed staff to pursue multiple avenues: send outreach letters to absentee owners, refine enforcement processes under the existing ordinance, evaluate a tiered vacancy fee to recoup service costs for unused structures, and submit brownfield grant applications (an assessment application with a Dec. 1 target and a subsequent cleanup application for an identified lot). Staff said the cleanup application would prioritize a downtown motel the city already owns to make it attractive for low-income housing or private redevelopment.

Next steps: staff will draft owner outreach language and bring a proposed enforcement and outreach plan back to council, while the grant writer will complete the brownfield grant applications and seek the council’s formal authorization for any required local matches.