Lakewood Can Penalize Vacant Property

On July 24, 2023, Lakewood City Council voted in a new ordinance that could penalize leaving your property vacant for more than 30 days. Many of the Council Members who spoke, expressed reservations with the ordinance as written. City staff say they will take their concerns into account and use staff discretion when enforcing the new ordinance. This ordinance arose from discussions on the increased calls for service to distressed properties, specifically involving the homeless population. This measure may be part of a strategy to decrease homeless activity around vacant property by penalizing property owners rather than the homeless.

How this affects residents

The new ordinance states that if your residential or commercial property is vacant for more than 30 days you will need to register it as vacant and have mandatory inspections. The new ordinance will particularly affect vacant homes for sale; an exemption can be applied for.

The ordinance includes the provision that property owners shall have a plan to inhabit or demolish any buildings within six months of vacancy, meaning no structures will be vacant for more than six months.

No data was presented as to how many vacant properties this would affect outside of the few problems that have been discussed in Council meetings.

Each vacant property registration will require a fee. Council Member Shahrezaei inquired as to whether a additional fee could be used to establish a fund that would provide monies to neighbors in a non-vacant property to mitigate their hardship. The city attorney replied that there may be a way to achieve this but it is not known at this time.

Determining Vacancy and Residential Applications

The city will determine vacancy based on the appearance of the property, such as an unkempt yard or lack of window coverings. Council Member Mayott-Guerrero was the first to object to this basis for determining vacancy. She expressed, with broad agreement among Council Members,  it was not the City’s role to “penalize the attentiveness of homeowners.”  Mayor Paul agreed that the city just adopted the  2021 maintenance code that could penalize rundown properties. This new ordinance allows multiple ways to potentially penalize the same set of conditions.

“…not the city’s role to penalize the attentiveness of homeowners.”  – Council Member Mayott-Guerrero

Mayott-Guerrero stated her understanding that Council agreed this ordinance was intended for long-term vacancies of commercial properties. Councilor Olver supported the sentiment that the ordinance was only going to apply to commercial property and/or out-of-state owners. Although there seemed to be general agreement on this point, however that is not what happened.

Ordinance O-2023-29 will apply to residential properties and vacancies starting at 31 days.

City staff are not intending to enforce the rules against vacant school buildings, which would get an exemption. Neither do they anticipate enforcing the rules against people that move to warmer climates during the winter months. The assumption is that part-time residents will make arrangements for property maintenance while they are gone so the property will not look vacant.

Council Member Strom expressed general support for the ordinance, saying that this was a public safety concern which everyone pays for. She explains that vacant properties are “situations that are inviting criminal behavior”. This ordinance then creates a new “crime”, having vacant property, without making any additional provisions for the criminal behavior referenced.

Overall Councilors seemed to disagree with the presumption of vacancy provisions, the limited 30-day timespan, the inclusion of residential properties and the duplication of maintenance code provisions.

Despite that, no amendments were offered. The ordinance passed 8-2 with Olver and Janssen dissenting.

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