AUGUSTA — A proposed property maintenance ordinance modified by the addition of a ban on boarded up windows, and a requirement that occupied buildings remain connected to utilities such as electricity and water, is up for City Council consideration Thursday.

Those changes are the latest revisions made since the ordinance was proposed last November. They are meant to address both aesthetic and public health concerns, city officials said.

The city, according to Matt Nazar, development director, has discovered a number of occupied properties where the water has been turned off.

They include an Eastern Avenue apartment building the city shut down and ordered tenants to vacate March 24 where, tenants said, they hadn’t had running water since February.

An addition to the proposed ordinance would forbid building owners to shut off or remove utilities and services required by city codes from occupied buildings, except temporarily, if necessary, to do repairs or alterations.

It applies only to occupied buildings, so the owners of homes left unoccupied, such as “snowbirds” who go south for the winter, still could have utilities turned off in their homes while they are away, Nazar said.

Another change is that the proposed ordinance would not allow any boarded up windows. The draft document states, “Every window and skylight shall be kept in sound condition, good repair and be weather-tight.”

Owners of buildings that already have boarded up windows would have, if and when the ordinance is approved and takes effect, 30 days to come into compliance by fixing any boarded up windows. However, the ordinance notes owners of such buildings could comply by contacting the code enforcement office and submitting a reasonable plan and date by which their building would come into compliance.

“Repair it, or provide a plan for remediation,” Nazar said of the options building owners with boarded up windows would have. “There would need to be some evidence the owner is working to comply.”

The proposed new ordinance goes to councilors at 7 p.m. Thursday in council chambers at Augusta City Center, for the first of two readings required for approval.

Other changes to the original proposal include an exemption to requirements that properties be kept free of tall weeds if they are wetlands.

At a March 24 meeting at which the ordinance was last discussed, councilors expressed concern that the ordinance’s requirement that landowners within the urban area of the city prevent weeds or plants from growing above 10 inches on their property could require landowners to mow wet areas of their properties not easily accessed.

So a line added to the “weeds” provisions of the ordinance notes they do not apply to “coastal or floodplain wetlands.” Those provisions also do not apply to landowners intentionally allowing fields or open land on their lots bigger than a half-acre from allowing them to grow up into forest.

Ward 1 Councilor Linda Conti said during the previous council discussion of the proposal that the plant language is the result of residents coming to the city with concerns there were too many “eyesores around town that need to be cleaned up. They’re discouraging people from coming to Augusta.”

However, some councilors and residents have said they think the ordinance goes too far and is an infringement on private property rights.

Councilors on Thursday also are scheduled to:

• Recognize Cony Athletic Director Paul Vachon for his induction into the Maine Franco American Hall of Fame;

• Hold a public hearing and consider granting a liquor license for Black and Tan, at 18 Bridge St., the former site of the Bridge Street Tavern;

• Consider authorizing City Manager William Bridgeo to apply for $524,000 in federal grant funding to retain four firefighters, who were hired with similar grant funds, for two more years;

• Consider approving a referendum question for local voters, to be voted upon June 7, proposing to borrow $338,000 to repair the roof at Hussey Elementary School. The money would come from the state’s revolving renovation loan fund and the city would have to pay back only about half of the loan money, at 0 percent interest, with $170,000 of it being “forgiven” by the state and;

• Consider changing the zoning of an area between Leighton Road, Darin Drive and Civic Center Drive from the current Rural River District to the Industrial District. The rezoning, recommended unanimously by the Planning Board, would be done to accommodate a proposed addition to the J.S. McCarthy printing business at 15 Darin Drive.

Keith Edwards — 621-5647

kedwards@centralmaine.com

Twitter: @kedwardskj

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