Bradford Township will vote Monday on an ordinance amending a few portions of the township code dealing with property maintenance.
The proposed ordinance would affect parts 2 and 4 of Chapter 10 of the township code, streamlining the process by which the township handles nuisance abatement.
Firstly, the amendment would remove language requiring a hearing in front of the township supervisors — not, of course, changing anything relating to hearings before the district magistrate, according to Supervisor Gayle Bauer.
Bauer said violations and penalties will still be in place if someone’s property constitutes a nuisance or a danger to public health and safety.
Currently, penalties range up to $1,000 in fines, but the ordinance would stratify this into three different tiers of penalties based on the number of prior convictions for code violations. If amended, a violator would face a fine between $250 to $1,000 for a first offense; $500 to $1,000 for a second offense; and $750 to $1,000 for a third offense, according to Bauer. She said in lieu of fines or in addition to these fines, the violator could also face up to 90 days in prison.
Whether or not a resident has violated the property maintenance code will be cut and dry should the amendment be adopted, according to Bauer.
She said the language surrounding what constitutes a public nuisance or danger to public health and safety has been too vague, but the amendment would “spell it out more precisely.
“It takes the discretion away so that no one is considered more favorably than another person. It specifically says what the penalty would be in specific cases,” Bauer explained. “We’re not really changing anything, we’re just specifying so residents can be better aware of what would be a violation and so the ordinance is better enforced.”
Examples involve cars, machinery or equipment that contain broken glass, jagged metal parts, harboring vermin or the propensity to fall over from the original stored position — things of that nature, according to Bauer.
Additionally, the supervisors will vote on an ordinance amending Part 4 of Chapter 5 of the township code, enabling the continual updating of the township code with international property maintenance code.
“Currently, it doesn’t allow for different versions in our code, so it just updates it to the most recent version of the code,” Bauer explained. “It will allow us to always reference the most recent version of the international property maintenance code without having to amend the ordinance each time they adopt a new version.
“It’s not any really big change,” she continued. “Way back when, the township adopted the BOCA code, the building code, and in that original ordinance it should have adopted it along with any ensuing amendments, so if it changed ours changed.”
Although these ordinances deal primarily with property issues, Bauer said the amendments are not the result of blight in the township being particularly better or worse than it has been in previous years.
“During the last two years we’ve been recodifying our ordinances; we have a company go through and make sure they are spelled out like they should be and complies with all state and federal requirements,” Bauer explained. “Some of these were found to be out-of-date, so that’s kind of what brought it about.
“The housing stock is aging, but we’ve always watched out for blight, that’s why we put CDBG money (community development block grant funding) toward demolition to remove blighted structures,” she said. “It’s an ongoing process — something all municipalities deal with — and (these changes) help us deal with it more effectively.”
The supervisors meeting will be held at 7 p.m. Monday at the Bradford Township municipal building at 136 Hemlock St.
Copies of the proposed ordinances may be examined at the municipal office.
