Homeowners in southern Dallas are no strangers to the challenges of property upkeep. It takes neighborhood teamwork and vigilance to keep a street looking nice, especially when scavengers and thieves are looking for any opportunity to strip a house bare if it goes neglected. All it takes is one or two abandoned houses to drag down an entire block, and once the process starts, it's hard to reverse.
•$25 registration fee for non-owner-occupied homes.
•Fee excused after first year for violation-free property.
•If owner registers, tenants receive code citations for yard, alley violations.
•Owner receives citations for all structural violations.
•45-day deadline imposed for repairs.
•$50 re-inspection fee until violations are corrected.
The Dallas City Council is considering action to force absentee landowners – people who don't live in the neighborhood and, therefore, have less of a stake in its appearance – to take greater responsibility. This newspaper couldn't agree more with the need for action; an editorial in early September drew contrasts between the lavish living conditions of some absentee landowners compared to the derelict conditions of the houses they own in South Dallas.
City Manager Mary Suhm told the council during its debate on absentee-landlord registration that there are "hundreds, hundreds" of houses in Dallas whose absentee landlords are letting them decay. When the city tries to track them down and force them to make repairs, they often can't be found.
The result is that taxpayers wind up footing the bill to keep yards mown, fence off dangerous structures or raze them to the ground after lengthy and expensive litigation. This is usually long after drug addicts have occupied the houses or scavengers have gutted them for sellable materials.
"We have to get something in place to hold the owners accountable," council member Carolyn Davis, whose southern Dallas district is at the heart of the problem, told her constituents last week.
Astonishingly, not everyone on the council sees a need for action. Council member Sheffie Kadane asked at the Nov. 4 council debate, "Where are the problems? We don't have a problem." He's wrong. There are pockets of these houses in many areas of our city, particularly in southern Dallas.
Kadane and other doubters might take a couple of minutes to view our virtual tour (gapblog.dallasnews.com) and see the contrasts between the junky rental properties of some absentee landowners and the manicured estates where they live.
To link these landowners to their derelict property, we had to conduct a complicated, multi-layered search of public databases. The council proposal would simplify the task so police and code enforcers can get faster results.
The plan, however, seems too modest considering the extent of the problem and the administration expenses. Absentee landowners will be required to pay a $25 registration fee on each of their properties, but that income isn't even expected to cover the program's $400,000 administration costs.
On the plus side, the plan's built-in financial incentives encourage landowners to behave responsibly and punish them with an escalating series of fees and fines the longer they violate the law.
Unfortunately, Davis says, some council members are pushing to weaken the proposal before an expected vote in December. Their rationale is hard to fathom. Those who convince themselves that there isn't a problem underscore the role ignorance plays in perpetuating the north-south gap.
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