>Has anyone successfully pursued a house not maintained within a
>historic (zoning) district?
>
>We have a house with rotted fascia boards, falling off shutters, and a
>rotting front porch (Federal-style, with posts on top, now sitting at crazy
>angles...)
>
>I want to be sure that this falls within the generally accepted definition of
>'demolition by neglect' before pursing legal action.

Deborah--

You are right to want to be sure of the legalities before proceeding.
Demolition by neglect proceedings, where a governmental body requires
someone to take affirmative action to rectify deficiencies, require that
legal "due process" principles are carefully adhered to.

Much will depend on your ordinances and state enabling legislation.  You
can not proceed unless you have legal authority to do so, and you will need
to have measurable standards against which to determine whether demolition
by neglect is indeed occurring.

North Carolina enabling legislation was changed in 1991 to permit
demolition by neglect procedures; it was however only a simple sentence
that said basically "you can adopt an ordinance, and you have to ensure
that it has provisions to protect property owners from undue economic
hardship."  To my knowledge, Raleigh is the only jurisdiction in the state
that has to date actually written, adopted, and used such an ordinance.

We have used it on two occasions successfully.  No one has yet made a claim
of "undue economic hardship."  The ordinance defines standards of
deterioration, specifies what the procedure is for filing with the
Inspections Department Director (the department that has jurisdiction for
building and zoning permits, minimum housing programs, unsafe building
programs, enforcement, etc.) a petition claiming demolition by neglect,
property owner notification procedures, hearing procedures, procedures for
issuing repair orders, and if a claim of economic hardship is made,
specific financial information that the property owner must submit for
evaluation.  It also includes enforcement and penalty provisions.

It is not a simple procedure, and it is extremely resource intensive: lots
and lots of staff and commission time is required in order to make sure
that you do it properly -- to protect the rights of the property owner, to
achieve the goal of preserving the resource, and finally, if you are taken
to court over this, to make it stand up.

If you want to email me your snail mail address, I will be glad to send you
a copy of our ordinance.  Again, its applicability in Athens will depend
upon the nature and character of your state enabling legislation.

____________________________________________
Dan Becker
Executive Director, Raleigh Historic Districts Commission

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