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Ithaca council takes initial support for vacant-building registry, asks for implementation plan
Summary
City staff presented a proposed vacant-building registry focused on fire and public-safety risks; council members broadly supported developing an ordinance but requested clarified enforcement authority, implementation capacity, reporting mechanisms, refined fee/penalty language, and a detailed plan before any vote.
The Ithaca Common Council on June 10 heard a substantive discussion of a draft vacant-building registry introduced by Chief Moody and the city attorney's office. The fire department framed the registry as a public-safety and neighborhood-stabilization tool, citing higher arson risk, structural deterioration and hazards at vacant sites.
Chief Moody summarized three policy goals for a registry: firefighter and public safety, crime prevention and nuisance reduction, and encouragement of economic activity. He cited NFPA data (2011—2015) describing a higher risk of injury to firefighters in vacant-building incidents and described local examples of vacant-structure fires.
Council members pressed staff on several details they said must be clarified before a vote: whether the registration fee is properly a fee (to offset additional administrative work) rather than a civil fine, how daily-violation language would be applied and whether it could create ambiguous compounding accruals, who has formal authority to determine vacancy (building division or fire-prevention bureau), how partial-vacancy definitions for mixed-use buildings would be implemented, tools for identifying and verifying vacant properties beyond owner self-reporting, capacity in city divisions to administer the registry, and anti-abuse measures to discourage intentional vacancy for advantage.
Staff and the city manager said the draft is an initial proposal modeled on ordinances in nearby communities and that an implementation plan (including public reporting mechanisms and an administrative enforcement approach) will be developed before a formal ordinance is brought back to committee. Council members also suggested public-facing data and an anonymous reporting option to help identify long-term vacant properties.
No vote was taken; the discussion functioned as a formal temperature-taking and council members expressed broad support for proceeding with a more detailed implementation plan before adoption.
