[MassHistPres] Demolition Delay vs Public Safety

[slater at alum.rpi.edu]

In my opinion this is an abuse of the "threat to public safety" clause
that is present in both demo delay ordinances and MGL 40C. We have had
this problem in Springfield too - with the city demolishing buildings in
local historic districts because the building inspector defines "blight"
as "threat to public safety" by claiming that abandoned buildings could
be set on fire, threatening the public.

It would be nice for someone to file a lawsuit on this to see how the
courts would interpret the law. In my opinion, the threat should be to
the "general" public - i.e. if the building is in imminent danger of
collapse *and* such a collapse would extend outside the property line,
that would be a public threat - but a building in the center of a 1-acre
lot, even if considered structurally unsound, could never be defined as
a "public threat". 

This munging of the word "threat" could be due to the same people doing
sanitary code enforcement vs. building code enforcement. Sanitary code
is usually aimed at people living in a building, so a building in
disrepair is seen as a threat to the inhabitants - it's just a hop skip
and jump to seeing it as a threat, period.

Ralph Slate
Springfield, MA

<-----Original Message----->We have a demo delay bylaw in Wareham.
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>Lately the town has been taking a proactive approach toward ridding 
>the town of buildings that are in such disrepair they are considered 
>health hazards by the Health Department. Does anyone have experience 
>with this sort of thing?
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>It occurs to me that in such cases where a building has actually been 
>considered condemned or deemed a threat to public safety that might 
>bypass the hearing process?
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>Robin Ragle-Davis
>Chair, Wareham Historical Commission
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