Sac City Planning and Zoning board headed for showdown with Sac City Council over dilapidated buildings

SAC CITY, IOWA – JULY 27, 2010

According to Sac City Planning and Zoning board chair, Shirley Phillips, she and Terry Duffy, Sac City’s Planning and Zoning Officer visited with the city attorney about abandoned buildings. Specifically, they wanted to find out if they could serve notice on abandoned buildings. What they found is that according to law, a public health officer needs to be involved in service of notice.

Adam Ledford, Sac City’s City Administrator visited with the Sac County Public Board of Health about the possible use of the county sanitarian as the Sac City’s (or any town’s) public health officer. In response to that visit, that board voted to allow the sanitarian to serve as Sac City’s public health officer.

Sac City’s planning and Zoning board can now call upon the County Sanitarian to make a determination of the habitability of any given property. Habitability is the ONLY judgment a public health officer can make.

Sac City Code 145, (following) is the law the Planning and Zoning board intends to enforce utilizing the public health officer.
Chapter 145

With this established, the Planning and Zoning board began questioning Mr. Ledford about how much the city has budgeted for knocking down dilapidated houses. Ledford’s answer was about $6,000, or enough to take care of one house. The board seemed to be in consensus that one to two houses per year is a good start.

Going from a generic theoretical house to the specific property known as Matt’s Shoes in downtown Sac City, the board learned from Mr. Ledford that according to the estimates he was aware of, it would cost between $25,000 and $40,000 for the city to fully fund removal of that building.

A year and a half ago, the Sac City Council voted to take no action regarding the Matt’s Shoes building.

After a 25 minute chat about how hard it is to have buildings arbitrarily knocked over, (pesky property owners! See video) the members of the Planning and Zoning board decided to start attending city council meetings to attempt to force the issue, particularly regarding the old Matt’s Shoes Building. It was not spelled during the meeting if they would attend city council meetings as a quorum.











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