Vacant Building Ordinance
The City’s Vacant Building Ordinance (VBO) is an effective tool for helping to remove blighted property from concerned neighborhoods.
According to the Fresno Municipal Code section 9-804.f, open and vacant houses and structures are deemed an attractive nuisance. Vacant houses, garages, and other structures must be secured so that they may not be entered by children, vagrants, or animals.
The Ordinance addresses the problems of vacant buildings falling into dilapidated, deteriorated, or hazardous conditions. Property owners are required to actively maintain, monitor, and keep secure all vacant buildings. This includes residential, multi-residential, accessory, commercial, or industrial structures.
Vacant Buildings are often sites for illegal activities.
The cost of boarding up a house or structure prior to a problem occurring may actually save expense and legal issues. Frequently, people go into vacant buildings, kick holes in walls, graffiti, tear off fixtures and break windows, as well as perform other illegal/illicit activities. These actions create costs as well as potential liabilities. Vacant houses also are potential fire hazards. This is especially true in winter, when vagrants will enter an unsecured house and build a fire to keep warm. Vacant houses are sometimes also used as drug houses and sites where prostitution occurs. Boarding up your vacant structures will help prevent these types of activities in our City.
Enforcement of this Ordinance
If enforcement of this Ordinance involves any violations relating to a blighted building by the City on an individual property; the property owner will be required to submit a Vacant Building Plan to the City on an annual basis to demonstrate how the building and grounds will be brought into compliance and kept in compliance. The owner is also required to pay all applicable fees. All remedies to obtain payment for any enforcement actions shall commence and could include monthly late fees, liens, assessments and/or including demolition of the vacant building.
Failure to Comply with the Ordinance
Failure to comply with the Ordinance may result in assessment or legal action against the property, its owners or agents for fees, penalties, and all other costs incurred by the City while enforcing the Ordinance.