Clean up or pay up

Actions speak louder than words — and, in the hope that they also accomplish more than mere fines, the Malverne Village Board of Trustees passed a new local law last week amending the property maintenance code to allow tougher enforcement of regulations on scofflaws who abandon or fail to maintain their properties.

Trustees and Mayor Patricia McDonald have worked for nine months to create Local Law #1, which Trustee Michael Bailey described as having “teeth,” to combat potential health and safety hazards created by the poor conditions of about half a dozen properties throughout the village. Most of the properties, commonly described as “overgrown,” are either unoccupied or have elderly or infirm owners who are unable to care for them, according to Bailey.

A family of raccoons infested one such property, on Ackley Avenue. Concerned for their safety, neighbors complained to the village board at an August board meeting, saying the decrepit house had holes in the roof, mold and water damage. The village was already aware of the problem, and had issued several violation notices to the absentee owner — a Queens woman who inherited the house when her parents died. It took six months for the case to make its way to court. Only after a judge ordered the owner to clean up the property were the animals removed and points of entry sealed.

Had Local Law #1 been in place during the decade or so that the Ackley Avenue house was deteriorating, the outcome most likely would have been vastly different. The law authorizes the village to remedy potentially hazardous conditions, with the property owners footing the bill. “The code that was in existence didn’t emphasize the enforcement capacity of the village,” Bailey explained. “This way, we have a Department of Public Works who can do [the work] and then recoup the costs so the residents aren’t subsidizing property owners.”