Is That Tub a Planter or an Eyesore?

By LISA PREVOST
Published: September 11, 2009

MONTVILLE

YARDS filled with junk and rusting cars, broken-down fences, piles of debris — these are some of the neighborhood scourges that Rosetta Jones hoped to eradicate here with a new ordinance prohibiting blight.

A first-term town councilor who has lived in this rural community for only three years, Ms. Jones figured that giving residents some recourse for the eyesore next door was a “no brainer.”

“It’s a historic problem here,” she said. “It’s been a persistent problem for some time.”

Her notion of a problem, however, looked more like a matter of personal choice to the longtime residents who turned out at a Town Council meeting earlier this summer to oppose a blight ordinance. Among them was Gary O’Bern, 68, a retired resident of Montville who calls such ordinances “terribly un-American.”

Standing in his dirt driveway on a recent afternoon, an American flag fluttering above his head, Mr. O’Bern reiterated his view that it’s nobody’s business if a taxpayer wants to, say, put a bathtub in the front yard. Newcomers like Ms. Jones are “unreasonable to think they can move in and expect things to change to their standards,” he added. “We’re all individuals.”

At a time that rising foreclosures and a tough economy are taking a noticeable toll on neighborhoods around the state, Montville is among a growing number of communities debating the adoption of new or tougher blight ordinances. Roughly 60 Connecticut municipalities, most of them larger, less rural communities, already have blight ordinances on the books, according to Robert S. Poliner, state ombudsman for property rights.

State law authorizes municipalities to make and enforce regulations preventing housing blight, and to set fines for violations of up to $100 a day. The issue has proven so contentious in some places, however, that elected officials have backed off, citing concerns about property rights and constrained budgets.

In Montville, the Town Council voted down the blight ordinance in July. A primary objection was a provision that would allow residents to file blight complaints anonymously.

According to Ms. Jones, who headed the subcommittee that drafted the ordinance, without the shield of anonymity, residents might be afraid to report a neighbor. “You never know what trigger it will take to push somebody over the edge,” she said.

Mr. O’Bern is among those who oppose anonymous complaints, which he argues might lead to charges of blight as a form of harassment.

Town officials in Seymour, a community in the Naugatuck Valley, reeled in its blight ordinance after just two years on the books. One of the first provisions to go was the anonymous complaint system.

“We don’t want neighbors fighting with each other,” said Robert Koskelowski, the first selectman. “We had one situation where someone was cited for blight, and it turned out the person who complained lived three miles away.”

The revised ordinance will also be less financially onerous. Instead of an across-the-board fine of $100 a day for non-compliance, the town will set categories of fines ranging from $5 a day upward, Mr. Koskelowski said. And cosmetic problems like peeling paint will no longer constitute blight.

In Plainville, in central Connecticut, a property owners’ organization has requested that officials look into a blight ordinance, but the town manager, Robert Lee, has advised against it. While Plainville does have more blighted and abandoned properties of late, Mr. Lee said, 90 percent of the issues can be remedied through existing housing codes.

“The other 10 percent is where blight ordinances get involved, with, like, how high your grass can be,” he said. “My concern with regards to that is we really don’t have the staff to enforce it.”

That response is of little comfort to John Susco, an elderly resident of Plainville who says he lives across the street from a house owned by an absentee landlord. A proponent of a blight ordinance, Mr. Susco said that this particular neighbor’s yard is often “in shambles,” and brings down the value of surrounding properties.

Asked about the offending yard, Mr. Lee acknowledged that it has been periodically unkempt — a broken fence, brush piles, an unregistered car. The town does its part to “get the guy to clean up his yard,” Mr. Lee said, adding that it looks fine right now. Compared with houses with collapsing roofs, the place does not fall under the category of blight, he said.

“There’s a difference between blight and someone being sloppy,” Mr. Lee said. “It isn’t a black and white issue.”

Anti-blight activists in Middletown have been pushing for a tougher ordinance for years, to no avail. Under the existing ordinance, the city puts vacant or decaying properties on a blight list.

The ordinance lacks a “solid enforcement mechanism,” however, so properties sit on the list indefinitely, said Izzi Greenberg, the executive director of North End Action Team (NEAT), a revitalization group representing a part of town with a high percentage of absentee landlords. “Even the process of getting on the list is hazy,” Ms. Greenberg said.

Earlier this year, NEAT invited city officials to a workshop to discuss the blight list, and wound up with an agreement to scrap the whole thing. An ordinance proposed in its place adds a code enforcement committee to keep tabs on problem properties, and imposes fines for noncompliance. The ordinance is to come before the Common Council for action this month.

“The goal,” Ms. Greenberg said, “is to see that no building ever gets to an advanced blighted state.”

Meanwhile, in Montville, Ms. Jones has not given up. She says that a revised ordinance is in the works.

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