WINDBER —
Borough officials are scrapping plans for a rental ordinance.
And instead, they’ll focus on freshening up nuisance and property maintenance laws already on the books to crack down on dilapidated properties, scattered junk and rubbish, Borough Manager Fred Oliveros said.
The decision came after months of discussion on a rental law and four public workshops with landlords, who pressed the borough to do its homework on property crackdowns before imposing restrictions on them.
Unlike Johnstown and Westmont, which passed lengthy, inspection mandates during the winter, Windber quickly backed away from the possibility of enforcing annual interior inspections. Officials said their main worry was poorly kept exteriors and yards that were dragging neighborhoods down.
“In the end, council decided they have enough ordinances at their disposal to take care of a lot of these issues,” Oliveros said. “But they are mostly pretty old laws. They need to be brought up to date.”
Windber has its share of them.
Among them:
• A junk ordinance, regulating abandoned refuse.
• Abandoned vehicle law, prohibiting old cars from rotting on borough land.
• A nuisance law, governing loud noise, fire-gutted homes and dangerous equipment or materials placement.
• And the International Property Maintenance Code, which covers nationwide standards for code violations, including fire safety, ventilation and other guidelines, as well as procedures to deal with unsafe structures.
The borough had been considering having landlords register properties annually or when new renters move in, but many on council thought it was asking too much.
Others on council wanted to have incoming renters register beforehand, suggesting background checks.
Borough Solicitor Jeff Berkey shot that idea down in May.
“It is too extreme,” he said at the time, adding that the proposal would not hold up in court.
Instead, the borough will look at more wide-ranging enforcement. Oliveros said the borough also may crack down on “hoarders” who litter their property with items that might not qualify as trash – but blight neighborhoods just the same.
It might regulate “open storage of unused items” – setting limits on how long old unsightly items can sit in cluttered front yards, he added.
But Oliveros noted most Windber residents keep up with their properties.
He is hoping they will be part of the solution, noting a letter is being sent to all borough homes, thanking those who take pride in their properties and asking those who don’t to reconsider.
“Take pride in your community,” he said.
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