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L&I: Blight Court starting to see success
There's been a 35 percent compliance rate in installing the required facade fixes, and 100 properties have been sold by owners who can't or don't want to bother with bringing their buildings up to code.
L&I: Blight Court starting to see success
Over the past few months, some of Philly's ugliest buildings with plywood-covered door and window openings have begun to blossom with pretty pink L&I notices that they're in violation of the city's Windows and Doors policy. And some of them have actually been fixed up.
At today's City Council Legislative Oversight Committee hearing, Department of Licenses & Inspections spokeswoman Maura Kennedy reported that the 6-month-old campaign to take violators to "Blight Court" is showing returns. She said there's been a 35 percent compliance rate in installing the required facade fixes, and 100 properties have been sold by owners who can't or don't want to bother with bringing their buildings up to code. L&I is also beginning to take properties with L&I liens to sheriff's sale when necessary, and has stepped up the average time for sealing a nuisance property from 10 months in 2007 to 10 days today.
There's also been a decrease in illegal dumping in the last four years — but the numbers still sound pretty daunting. Streets Department Deputy Commissioner (soon to be L&I Commissioner) Carlton Williams reported that Streets in 2011 removed more than 16,000 tons of debris and 110,000 illegally dumped tires from 1,047 locations around the city, at a cost of $1.6 million. And Andrew Stober of the Mayor's Office for Transportation and Utilities reported that out of 10,500 vacant parcels cleaned last year, the city itself had to do 8,700 of them itself.
Despite mobile short-dumping cameras and efforts to dispatch patrols more efficiently, those testifying expressed that limited funding and personnel remains a barrier to more proactive efforts. The city may try to be wily, but "the illegal dumpers do get smarter on us," Stober said.
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