Hendrick says fees are out of hand
By Barb Pert Templeton
A Jan. 18 meeting of the Marine City Commission included a discussion about the city’s current Vacant Building Ordinance and how it might be updated.
Officials agreed to have the city administration and city attorney work on updating the ordinance and then bring it back to the commission table.
City Manager Scott Adkins began the discussion by stating that the commission put a moratorium on enforcement of the vacant buildings ordinance to allow city administrators time to review it. It included conducting a comparison study to see how other municipalities handle it.
Adkins provided the commission with a spreadsheet that included 18 different communities that have similar vacant building ordinances.
“They essentially all have the same premise for the ordinance, they almost read identical with some minor differences,” Adkins said.
Robert Davis is the city attorney for Marine City.
The basic intent reflected overall was to keep the properties maintained, encourage businesses to be operated in the buildings instead of them being vacant, and to have the contact information on file with the city in the event of an emergency.
“I would say that we have a good ordinance, but in my opinion, we have some needs for some TLC and addressing some issues that have come up since the ordinance was enacted,” Adkins said.
All of the communities in the spreadsheet required a fee to register their buildings, some required a registration fee plus monthly, quarterly, or annual fees. The registration fee in Marine City is $75 and it escalates in sixth-month increments.
For most of the comparison communities’ registration is for commercial or industrial properties only, which is how Marine City handles it right now.
“Ours is strictly just commercial, meaning bricks and mortar stores, not residential use of any kind,” Adkins said.
Fees vary from place to place
The fees are wide-ranging on the chart for other communities going from $500 to $1,000 annually. Adkins said one of the items he was looking at was having a provision for temporary or seasonal businesses put in the ordinance.
“I think in a community like Marine City we are a seasonal and tourist community so that makes sense,” Adkins said.
The Marine City Commission will be revamping their vacant building ordinance in the near future.
He also clarified that having an emergency contact for the building isn’t always going to be the property owner as they could be based out of town so it could be a local agent.
In most communities, penalties are civil infractions, as is Marine City’s ordinance, but some communities have misdemeanor charges. Adkins suggested leaving the city’s infraction at the civil level.
“Our basic premise of this ordinance is to encourage people to utilize these buildings and not leave them vacant and not have them fall into poor maintenance,” Adkin said.
He then suggested the commission set up a committee to hammer out the pieces that would be used to modify the ordinance.
“I think we have a good structural base of an ordinance but we have some pieces that need modification, it’s a little bit out of sorts for a community like Marine City, especially with some of the seasonal components,” Adkins said. “It should be an encouragement, but not so much a punishment but an enticement.”
Hendrick calls ordinance overkill
Mayor Pro Tem Lisa Hendrick said she didn’t vote for the ordinance to start with when it was adopted in July 2021.
“I’ve unfortunately seen our building department kind of misuse the use; some people own buildings and if they own a building and they really don’t want to have an open business – I remember when the argument came it was ‘well, we want to know what’s in that building’ and I get it but the fees were getting out of hand,” Hendrick said. “If a person isn’t going to use it the way the city wants to use it then they’re being penalized and there being hammered out with all these fees, our fees are really terrible.”
The city already has other ordinances in place to address blight, the building looks and the issues and this was overkill because it was a whole additional ordinance, Hendrick said. She said the city already has a dangerous building ordinance to cover some of the issues.
“Part of the problem is it hasn’t been handled really good in the past,” Hendrick said. “So, I want to make sure that if they own a building and they are utilizing it for their own use, and it’s still a good use even though if it’s not a supposed business -if somebody wants to have a man cave for Christ’s sake -we’re going to penalize the person?”
“And even though they keep the building up and it’s very neat and it’s very clean and it follows everything else, those are the type of people that have to pay a monthly fee and all that,” Hendrick said. “To me, it’s not really a vacant building, the building is being used.”
Adkins said he agreed that those buildings do exist but that’s why the ordinance has to be changed and modified.
“Our goal is to make sure that we don’t just have a building that somebody walks away from and we have no way to get ahold of somebody,” Adkins said. “And it’s not the city’s job to tell somebody you must have a business here; you must maintain your building is the big thing.”
Just making sure the building is safe is the main goal for the city’s involvement, he said.
“We need to clean this up and it will also carry over into the business licenses,” Adkins said.
Attorney Robert Davis said the answer likely wasn’t creating another committee but instead bringing the ordinance back after the administration had cleaned the ordinance up a bit.
“Hammer something out and bring it back,” Hendrick said.
Commissioner Brian Ross said the issues to be addressed should include: businesses in transition, transition time of closing and opening, a revised fee schedule that is fairer, a seasonal component, allowed use, not directly displaying hours if not actually open, language in there for hardship and emergency contact required.
