Rocky Top ordinance targets ‘slum’ properties
City Manager Mike Ellis, left, watches as the Rocky Top City Council discusses business during last Thursday evening’s meeting at City Hall. (photo:G. Chambers Williams III )
Called the “Slum Clearance and Redevelopment Act,” Ordinance 600 would technically be an update to Title 13 of the city’s municipal code, adding the legal mechanism to allow for such cleanups.
“This city needs this ordinance,” Mayor Kerry Templin said. “It gives us the tools to deal with these decrepit properties. We can hire contractors to do it, or we can do it ourselves.”
Under the policy, the city would be able to remove decrepit buildings and clean up lots, and then bill their owners for the associated costs while also placing liens on the properties in the amounts of the cleanups.
If any such bills aren’t paid to the city, Rocky Top could eventually foreclose on the properties and take ownership of them, the mayor said.
The city has long been plagued by run-down properties that are not kept maintained by their often out-of-town owners, Templin said.
No criteria were discussed for how such properties would be identified and targeted, but the measure still must be passed on second and final reading to become effective.
That could happen at the next council meeting, scheduled for Thursday, March 20.
In other business Thursday:
• The multi-million-dollar water/sewer rehabilitation project is now 73% complete, City Manager Mike Ellis told the council.
Officially, the project is scheduled to be finished by March 27, Tyler Rutherford of project engineers Cannon & Cannon told the City Council in January.
Last month, the council approved two change orders for additional work on water and sewer lines that resulted from problems detected during the ongoing project.
Repaving some of the roads affected by the project was delayed or canceled because of cost overruns for asphalt, Rutherford said.
• Ben Brewer was appointed to serve on the city’s Planning Commission, replacing Jim Shetterly, whose term expired; and Michael Phillips was appointed to replace Dwayne Seiber, who resigned.
