Chattanooga City Council eyes using hearing officer to fight neighborhood blight

A broken ventilation window in the attic of an abandoned house in the Highland Park neighborhood of Chattanooga, Tenn., is seen Friday, March 13, 2015. In addition to identifying abandoned houses, Officer Gregory and community members have worked to identify and correct blight.
A broken ventilation window in the attic of an abandoned house in the Highland Park neighborhood of Chattanooga, Tenn., is seen Friday, March 13, 2015. In addition to identifying abandoned houses, Officer Gregory and community members have worked to identify and correct blight.

Chattanooga may bring an administrative hearing officer on board this fall to combat neighborhood blight.

The administrative hearing officer, as envisioned in a proposed ordinance coming before the City Council on Tuesday, can levy fines of up to $500 per code violation instead of the normal $50 environmental court fine. For properties where the owner does not live, the fine can go up to $500 per violation per day.

photo Chattanooga Economic and Community Development Administrator Donna Williams
photo Staff photo by John Rawlston/Chattanooga Times Free Press Chattanooga City Councilman Chris Anderson

"The administrative hearing officer is not about homeowners in low-income neighborhoods," said Councilman Chris Anderson, who sponsored the ordinance. "It's about slumlords who take advantage of the poorest people in our city."

The hearing officer also will serve as leverage against banks that own foreclosed properties but do not want to clean them up.

For offenders such as these, the current $50 citation counts for little beyond the cost of doing business and amounts to a cheap alternative to taking care of dilapidated properties, Anderson said.

The ordinance calls for the hearing officer to give alleged violators between 10 days and 120 days to remedy a situation before hitting them with fines. The hearing officer can provide a remedial period of less than 10 days in situations where alleged violations pose threats to the health, safety or welfare of persons on the property or adjacent properties.

In a recent meeting, Chattanooga Economic and Community Development Administrator Donna Williams told council members the city would seek to contract for the position after the approval of the ordinance.

A licensed building inspector, plumbing inspector, electrical inspector, attorney, architect or engineer may serve as the administrative hearing officer, according to the proposed ordinance.

Mayor Andy Berke included the position in the 2017 budget, which estimates $60,000 in administrative hearing costs. Of that amount, $50,000 pays for the hearing officer and $9,600 goes toward bailiff and court reporter support. The proposal anticipates fines will cover the expenses.

Once hired, the hearing officer must undergo a day of mandatory training, Williams said. The officer may take online training or attend a training session in December.

Economic and Community Development has developed other blight-fighting strategies, Williams said.

"We have a couple of instances where the city has been left with a mess, where someone started a demolition and then they stopped," Williams said. "It's an eyesore to the neighborhood, and we want to correct that."

The city needs a way to encourage follow-through when a property owner must demolish a property, she said. To that end, she said the department would recommend that Chattanooga require a bond for demolition projects that exceed $100,000.

The department also recommends filing nuisance actions to combat blight in extremely difficult cases, Williams said.

Contact staff writer Paul Leach at 423-757-6481 or pleach@timesfreepress.com. Follow on Twitter @pleach_tfp.

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