NATCHEZ &045;&045; A drive through Natchez will show a variety of beautification challenges in addition to some successes &045;&045; but some you can see without even going outdoors.

One needs only to take a look at the city Inspection Department’s computerized files in the basement of City Hall to see the volume of dilapidated properties that one division has dealt with in recent years.

Out-of-state or belligerent owners, unclear property ownership &045;&045; these are among the factors that make enforcing the city’s beautification ordinances a challenge.

&uot;It’s an ongoing problem,&uot; City Inspector Paul Dawes said, shaking his head. He spends 20 percent of his time dealing with dilapidated properties.

But the City of Natchez is taking several steps to address the beautification challenge, including a comprehensive effort to see what other cities are doing to put teeth in their ordinances. The Planning Department is also exploring ways to make use of abandoned lots and initiate landscaping requirements for businesses.

The process

Once a complaint is received, there are legal hoops through which the city’s Planning Department must jump to get the problem resolved.

In the case of overgrown grass, the property owner is told by certified letter that he has 10 days to correct the problem.

If the property isn’t cleaned up within that time, City Planner Bob Jackson or Code Enforcement Officer Artimese Evans ask aldermen to approve the city’s cutting of the lot.

The city charges $100 an hour plus a 25-percent penalty to cut overgrown lots.

State law was changed two years ago to provide that, in the case of repeat offenders, a city can simply give the property owner 14 days’ notice in the newspaper, said David Preziosi, former Natchez city planner and executive director of the Mississippi Heritage Trust.

In the case of abandoned vehicles on public rights-of-way, Evans or a law enforcement officer place a notice sticker on a vehicle that is obviously abandoned &045;&045; up on blocks, lying in a yard or along a street, without a current tag or sticker, for example.

If the problem isn’t corrected within three days, the vehicle is towed &045;&045; and the owner must pay the towing fee.

&uot;If it’s on private property, we send a letter to the owners. If it’s not moved, we send them a summons to Municipal Court,&uot; Police Chief Mike Mullins said.

Eliminating abandoned cars, he said, &uot;really makes a difference in these neighborhoods&uot; in terms of appearance and pride.

In the case of buildings that are abandoned and in disrepair, the city’s Inspection Department inspects the property once it receives a complaint from the public, Dawes said.

If the building is in danger of falling down, the city notifies the owner to demolish it; if not, the owner is asked to secure the property &045;&045; for example, by boarding up windows and doors.

Owners are sent certified letters once Dawes or his staff can determine, through county property tax records, who owns the property.

If the owner does not respond to the letter, the city can either, through its Public Works crews, demolish or board the property itself, or can contract the work out.

In the case of a historically significant property or one located in a historic district, the Inspection Department must appear before the Preservation Committee to get authorization for demolition by neglect.

&uot;That means that water is getting in and that the building will fall down by itself if somebody doesn’t take care of it,&uot; Dawes said.

Once that authorization is given, the owner is given a certain number of days to begin repairs before misdemeanor charges are filed against him.

&uot;By the time an owner exhausts, though, it can take a couple or three years, maybe more&uot; to get the property problem resolved, Dawes said.

Several city departments work together to address beautification problems in addition to Planning, Inspection and Engineering. The Police Department, for example, reports violations it sees to the Planning or Inspection departments.

Public Works takes care of rights-of-way and curb cuts and helps with demolition, as well as helping adjacent property owners deal with sidewalk problems when the personnel are available.

The challenges

But city officials said several issues often make it a challenge to get beautification problems addressed, including.

4Absentee owners. It sometimes takes months to find out who the clear owner of a property is and where they can be contacted. Sometimes the owner doesn’t respond or makes promises of cleanup that are never fulfilled.

Some go to the extreme and stop paying taxes altogether, much less any liens on the taxes, such as cleanup costs. After three years of nonpayment, the property reverts to the state and sits vacant, decaying and overgrown.

&uot;There’s 40 pages of properties that have been taken for taxes&uot; by the state, Dawes said.

4The legal process itself. State law requires cities to give property owners a certain amount of notice by certified letter of violations.

Once time taken to find an owner &045;&045; and of appeals, once the notice expires &045;&045; is figured in, getting resolution of a problem can take years, Dawes said.

State law also prohibits city crews from going on private property to correct a problem unless it is deemed an emergency situation or unless the above legal process has been fulfilled.

&uot;That’s why we only do (demolition and other cleanup tasks) on private property when we’re ordered to by the board,&uot; said Interim Public Works Director Reggie Carter.

Other legalities also enter into the equation. For example, when it comes to issuing litter or dumping citations, an officer either has to identify the offender from mail dumped at the site or has to witness the littering or dumping.

4Budget and personnel constraints, especially in lean economic times.

Dawes’ last budget included $3,500 for demolition, &uot;and that’s only enough for two houses,&uot; he said. But the cost of boarding up buildings, at $500 apiece, also has to come from that budget.

4The city’s population decline, which results in an average of 40 housing units being vacated a year based on Census numbers.

&uot;You look at news reports from other areas and they’re growing, but it’s a different situation here in Natchez,&uot; Jackson said.

When it comes to Public Works, four crews of three men each are only enough to take care of litter, construction, grass cutting and maintenance tasks, which must be prioritized, the most threatening problems being taken care of first, Carter said.

But the city is taking action.

Seeking solutions

Jackson said he plans to soon re-introduce to the Zoning Board of Adjustments proposed landscaping requirements.

Specifically, the changes would require applicants in most residential zones and the B1 and B2 business district and the industrial district to submit landscaping plans for new developments at the site plan level.

The board took no action when the requirements were introduced in November, &uot;but I think they’ll be ready to hear them again soon,&uot; Jackson said.

When it comes to vacant and overgrown lots, Jackson pointed out that the city must do a vacant lot survey as required by its comprehensive plan.

One option will be to persuade adjacent property owners to take on the lots to supplement their own properties, since new housing often can’t be built on older vacant lots since the lots are too thin and deep.

Jackson also wants to work with the U.S. Department of Agriculture to establish neighborhood gardens on some of the lots.

And he is requesting a copy of Philadelphia’s study of ways to address urban blight. &uot;They’re a much bigger city than we are, but we could get some ideas from it,&uot; Jackson said.

And last week Barbara Dorr and Stephanie Hutchins of Keep Mississippi Beautiful met with Mayor Phillip West on the issue of beautification.

&uot;The goal is to come up with more stringent ordinances, … and we’re going to send the mayor sample ordinances from other cities to consider,&uot; Dorr said.

Hutchins, a Natchez resident, said she was inspired by West’s own words to set up the meeting.

In a recent newspaper article, West spoke of reviewing and toughening the city’s beautification ordinances as one of the top priorities for this term.

Dorr and Hutchins have set up a followup meeting with West &045;&045; and, hopefully, representatives of all city departments and local groups involved in beautification for Oct. 21 at City Hall.

&uot;This (meeting) is to give us a game plan,&uot; Hutchins said. &uot;We need to put more teeth in the ordinances we have.&uot;

Meanwhile, city officials said, there have been some successes in addressing abandoned houses and vehicles, litter and the like.

Cleanup successes

In 200, the Planning Department fielded 204 grass violation cases, 50 abandoned vehicles, seven litter violations and 28 repeat offenders.

This year, as of August, the department fielded 104 grass violation cases (21 pending), 28 abandoned vehicles (14 pending), 10 litter violations (three pending), and 15 repeat offenders.

Public Works, Carter said, has prisoner crews working primarily on state rights-of-way to pick up litter and also has some inmates working to cleanup the perennially overgrown Watkins Street Cemetery.

That department also helps with other beautification projects as time and staff allow, such spraying herbicide on grass and weeds along downtown sidewalks in advance of Friday’s downtown cleanup blitz.

Public Works crews also helped volunteers pick up trash as part of that cleanup event.

And according to Inspection Department figures, of dilapidated properties inspected by that department from 1999 to the present, 79 have been resolved &045;&045; mostly by persuading property owners to tear down, board up or restore the buildings.

About 40 other cases are pending for a number of reasons: trouble contacting out-of-town owners, properties tied up with a number of heirs, properties with no clear owner, inaccessible properties or those whose owners have promised to fix them up but haven’t done so yet.

&uot;We all know there are blighted properties in the city we would like to see taken care of,&uot; Dawes said. &uot;But there are lots of properties that have been cleaned up and put back on the tax rolls, too.&uot;