PROSPERITY — Jeff Shacker, field service manager with the Municipal Association of South Carolina, came before Prosperity Town Council to discuss unused and dilapidated buildings within the town.
Before diving into the process of dealing with code enforcement and dilapidated buildings, Shacker gave a disclaimer to Council saying there is no silver bullet when it comes to dealing with code enforcement and dilapidation.
“Cities have tools at their disposal, counties do too — although they are more limited than cities to deal with unsafe buildings, nuisance conditions on properties and to enforce their local codes. There’s due process associated with both of those tools and sometimes you run into situations with who owns the building(s) that create issues,” he said.
Shacker continued to say that state law is much like an encyclopedia (organized) — every book is a title and they are numbered instead of lettered.
“So the municipal statutes are in Title Five, that’s where you find the city statutes, county statutes are in Title Four and in Title Six you find the statutes related to local government,” he said.
Title Five, Chapter Seven, Section 30 (5-7-30), according to Shacker, is like a garbage can with everything being dumped into Section 30.
“That gives us the authority to levy a business license tax, property tax — one of the other things in that section is the authority to abate public nuisances,” he said. “In Chapter Seven of Title Five, are sections that deal with code enforcement — one of them deals with the city having the authority, and you need ordinances in place. I’m sure to a certain degree y’all have a lot of these in place, gives the city the authority to go on private property and to abate a nuisance (after going through a notice process).”
Code enforcement always starts with a notice of violation and then ends with a proceeding. From that proceeding, it is determined if the nuisance is going to be abated by the property owner or will the city essentially have to take matters into its own hands and deal with the violation.
“The other thing it gives cities the authority to do is that when you go on a private property and you abate the nuisance you have the ability to record a lien equal to the cost of the city of abating the nuisance. It also provides for that lien that it may be collected in the same manner that taxes are collected,” Shacker said.
Shacker told Council that it is important to have a code enforcement budget in place.
“You may run into situations where you can’t or are just unable to compel a property owner to address whatever the conditions are on the property, which resulted in the violation,” he said.
Shacker also touched on Title Six, provisions for code officials (also found in Title Five) and the adoption of I-Codes in South Carolina.
“So in South Carolina our adopted building code is the International Building Codes which is really an umbrella and under it you’ll find many codes. One of those related to code enforcement is International Property Maintenance Code and basically it just establishes the minimum standard for the maintenance of properties,” Shacker said. “In South Carolina, if you want to enforce building codes, you have to enact the International Code by ordinance because it’s a technical regulation. A public hearing is required, so if y’all move forward adopting the IPMC and you don’t have it in place now, you would have a public hearing prior to adopting the ordinance which would obviously require two readings to do.”
Shacker added that there are challenges that the town may run into with IPMC.
“Very often, where they will identify a building or piece of property, usually a structure — they are dissatisfied with something, the maintenance of it and they direct the staff ‘we need to address this.’ Of course, the response is ‘we would do that under the IPMC.’ There is a requirement that you treat everybody the same way — provide equal protection of your own laws and ordinances. A staff will respond and say ‘if we do it here, then we’ve got to enforce this provision here, here and here.’ Sometimes that will lead the Council to decide ‘that’s not exactly what we want,’” he said.
There are tax credit programs that exist for abandoned buildings and the rehabilitation of historic properties.
“When we talk about historic properties, we’re not necessarily talking about a property that is currently on the National Register of Historic Places or a contributing property within the National Register of Historic Places District,” Shacker said. “It really depends on the owner. If the owner has fairly significant federal and state tax liability, those credits are of considerable value to them because they can make renovations and take those credits and reduce the income taxes that they pay. It can also be a source of equity if a deal is structured correctly where those credits can actually be transferred and can help generate cash on the front end of the project.”
According to Shacker, funding will mainly come from General Revenues, but the town could fund it with a Municipal Improvement District (MID). MID is an assessment collected like property taxes, so it does not have a relationship to the value of a property. A downside to MID is owners of residential properties can opt out while commercial cannot.
Mike Bedenbaugh, Preservation S.C. director, asked if there were limits on a nuisance that is aesthetic (ex. paint) or going after a person even though you cannot see the problem, but know it is there.
“Paint is addressed in the Property Maintenance Code, the roof is too. A section in Title Five, Chapter Seven gives you the authority as a municipality to enter the premises to assess and to abate,” Shacker said.
Another incentive Shacker discussed were special assessments for historic properties — the town could be designated as a historic district.
“The way that it works is for qualified properties that you designate, you can grant a special property taxes assessment to them and essentially they get the tax treatment for the pre-renovation value for a period of time. Then it comes on at the full value which would be the improvements that were made,” he said.
Town Administrator Karen Livingston said that making the town a historic district could be beneficial to the town.
“If we make it a historic district, it would be a very positive tool for the people with the dilapidated buildings. You send them a letter, say ‘we have a historic district, these are the new rules — we’ve also enacted our Property Maintenance Code and you are in violation of this,’” she said.
A decision was not made, but instead Council will look into different code enforcements options they could do.