Amityville eyes law requiring vacant homes to be maintained

Amityville Village officials are considering new laws to force better maintenance of vacant and foreclosed houses.

Trustees at a work session this month discussed an approach that would start with mandatory registration of most homes vacant for at least 120 days, making it easier for officials to contact owners about repairs and upkeep.

The village would also ramp up efforts to board up and secure distressed properties. Finally, the changes would make it easier to demolish severely damaged homes.

About 40 houses scattered throughout the village would be affected, and one or two of those are so dilapidated they could face demolition, officials said. They represent a fraction of the village’s 3,300 homes, but are a chronic source of complaints.

“The goal is improved quality of life and improved property values for the homeowner,” trustee Nick LaLota said. “If you have a vacant home on your block, this is one of the most important things the village can do for you. You don’t want your kids riding around there on their bikes; you don’t feel proud inviting your neighbors over for dinner.”

Similar legislation is already in place in Brookhaven Town and Mastic Beach Village, where in recent years residents and officials have complained about a high number of abandoned “zombie” houses, many of them in foreclosure.

In some cases, municipalities have had to use their own employees to clean up derelict properties. Long Island municipalities spent at least $3.2 million in 2014 to clean, board up and demolish houses that had been abandoned by their owners, a Newsday investigation found.

In Amityville, Department of Public Works employees have cleaned up many of the abandoned houses, charging the cost — about $2,000 — to property owners’ tax bills. But officials have been hesitant to order more drastic measures, such as demolition.

The new laws could change that. “I want to get these houses on the market so people can buy them,” said Deputy Mayor Jessica Bernius, promising “a good law that has teeth.”

The prospect of negative publicity by inclusion on the registry could encourage some banks and absentee owners to clean up and sell homes that have been empty, in some cases, for more than a decade, she said.

Officials said they were thinking of hiring the Melville design firm H2M to implement the legislation.

A former Brookhaven Town chief legislative aide and town Republican executive committee member who now works for the firm, Lori Anne Casdia, sketched the workings of Brookhaven’s system for trustees at the village work session earlier this month.

H2M could train village employees or assist with enforcement, LaLota said.

Amityville would likely model its legislation on Brookhaven’s, LaLota said. That town’s laws call for a $250 annual vacant home registration fee along with names and contact information for homeowners and their agents. Failure to register can bring a fine of up to $15,000.

Amityville officials would likely write in an exception for snowbird homes.

LaLota said he expects the laws to be in place by the summer, when unmown grass and weeds make vacant homes all too identifiable.