Lake Butler city commissioners tabled a proposed dangerous building ordinance on November 18 after concerns were raised about its language and enforcement approach.
Code Enforcement Officer Rick Ward presented updates on his recent work, including progress on revising city ordinances and implementing a new online violation tracking system.
Ward said he’s been working on the dangerous building ordinance, which includes standards for a board and seal process that would secure unsafe structures for 12 months. Property owners would have that time to obtain building permits and start restoration or demolish the property.
Ward also presented samples of the new notice of violation forms, which include the city seal and detail the ordinance violation, corrective actions needed, photographs and an affidavit of posting.
The commission approved three ordinances on second reading: code enforcement procedures, junk vehicles, and lawn overgrowth.
But when the discussion turned to the dangerous building ordinance, Mayor Melissa Hendrix raised concerns about the specific language.
“The unfit for human occupancy as far as whether they have rats, roaches and whatnot,” Hendrix said. “We won’t know that if we can’t get into their house.”
Ward clarified the ordinance addresses unoccupied structures, not occupied homes.
“We’re not talking about an occupied structure per se,” the code enforcement officer said. “We’re talking about a structure that’s unoccupied.”
He explained that code enforcement can enter property if a building is in a dangerous state of disrepair, similar to entering property to help an injured person or extinguish a fire.
Hendrix questioned whether the ordinance’s technical requirements—such as nails being a minimum number 10 wooden screw placed 12 inches on center—were too stringent for Lake Butler.
“I mean, this is little old Lake Butler,” she said. “This isn’t Gainesville.”
Ward said the standards come from the Florida Building Code to ensure structures are properly secured against hurricanes and storms.
“We don’t want somebody hanging a piece of plywood up on an overrate broken or missing window,” Ward said. “We don’t want three nails holding a sheet of plywood up there.”
Commissioner Annette Redman expressed concern about older buildings where people still live.
“There are a lot of old buildings with people still living in them,” Redman said. “They’ve gone through a lot of hurricanes, and I mean, I can name about five or six, but people are still living in them.”
Ward said the city has structures with loose tin roofing that pose safety hazards.
“All that is just a missile waiting to go into somebody else’s house and property and cause damage,” he said.
Redman suggested a more sensitive approach given Lake Butler’s economic challenges.
“I think we just want to be a little sensitive to some of these situations when it comes to their homes because, like I said, we’re one of the poorest counties,” she said. “Maybe if we get some teams together, maybe some churches, the folks to do some repairs on some of these before we hit some of these folks with some of this.”
City Manager Kim Hayes clarified that the ordinance targets abandoned structures, not occupied homes.
“He’s looking at buildings that are left basically abandoned, that are structures that no one’s living in that could be open for homeless people to live in or kids to get into as they are walking by,” Hayes said.
Commissioners unanimously voted to table the ordinance.
Hendrix asked Ward to work with Hayes to revise the language in the ordinance before bringing it back to the commission.
