City’s Building Development Services director outlines plan for improving operations

Springfield Building Deveopment Services Director Brock Rowe approached City Council at its April 8 meeting with an eight-point plan to address dangerous properties in the city.

The list of recommendations, offered during Rowe’s quarterly report to council, was developed in collaboration with council’s Community Involvement Committee and Finance and Administration Committee.

“What we’re talking about is not nuisance properties, and we’re not talking about overgrowth, but we’re talking about blighted, dangerous buildings and its resolution,” he said, noting that the focus was agreed upon by the committees.

The recommendations were culled from the city’s Neighborhood Properties Work Group, he said.

“These eight are the ones that stood out to us the most that we were able to accomplish,” he said, adding that they seemed practical and doable.

The eight recommendations are as follows:

1. Repeal rental registration program. Rowe noted the database has not been current since 2019, and the city’s subscription to Lexis-Nexis serves the same function.
2. Investigate rental inspection program. The goal, Rowe said, is to develop a program that ensures safety and quality and is practical, efficient and right for Springfield.
3. Issue multiple Clean Green vouchers. Some residents put couches and other large objects outside because they don’t have the means to move them. This would allow the city to facilitate bulk item pick-ups for community members.
4. Have council acknowledge support for a shift from complaint-based to strategic code enforcement. Councilmember Craig Hosmer said this objective has been met, as council has already backed this idea many times in the past.
5. Lobby to change mailing requirements for notices. State law requires certified mail and a 45-day waiting period twice in the process of addressing blighted properties, Rowe noted, and 90 days in the process could be alleviated by eliminating that law.
6. Change to chronic nuisance and substantial completion definitions. BDS has devised a new definition of chronic nuisance properties, which occurs when one property is cited twice or two or more properties with the same owner are cited once. A definition of substantial completion would be that an outside objective observer can conclude there has been considerable abatement.
7. Make an effort to facilitate property care teams initiated by neighborhoods. In this way, issues can be headed off long before BDS gets involved, Rowe said.
8. Make BDS the primary clearinghouse for community-based assistance to neighborhoods. This would allow a problem to be addressed when it is first observed, rather than at the end of a 275-day process.

Councilmember Monica Horton said she wants to follow up on the recommendations.

“I’m certainly willing to sponsor any future council action on these particular eight recommendations,” she said.

She noted the second recommendation, a rental inspection program, would be new to Springfield, and she asked if this was a program that would be built from scratch.

Rowe replied that it was something for BDS to look into to customize for Springfield, as some other cities that operate rental inspection programs do not operate them well. He noted BDS staff would have to take time to contact different cities and investigate their programs.

“If we are going to do it, we need to do it effectively,” he said.

He added that he doesn’t want to potentially displace thousands of residents with an incautious approach to rental inspections.

Council expressed appreciation for Rowe’s suggestions.

“You’ve given us enough to get started in the right direction,” Horton said.

Councilmember Heather Hardinger said she was also looking forward to continuing to work on the initiatives Rowe raised, and she noted there was some low-hanging fruit that the city could get started on right away.

“It’s just a really exciting start to really start transforming the way we do this type of work within the city,” she said. “We do want to keep people in their homes; we do want to create a more proactive approach to what BDS is already doing.”

She added that she appreciated Rowe’s innovative approach and out-of-the-box thinking as he looks for solutions.

Hosmer said in the day and age of text and emails, a 45-day physical mail process seems antiquated. He said it is important to get legislators to understand how that requirement grinds everything to a halt.

He told Rowe he has the ability to begin to make changes.

“If people recognize there’s a new sheriff in town, and that bad actors are not going to be tolerated in the city of Springfield, I think it goes a long way to get people to clean up their act,” Hosmer said. “You’ve brought the fresh air to BDS, and I look forward to your accomplishments.”

In a packet presented to council, Rowe provided two required lists of top offending properties and property owners in the city.

An August 2023 council bill requires BDS to provide it with two lists each quarter: one of the 20 property owners cited the most in the past five years, and the other of the 20 addresses cited the most in the past five years.

Rowe pointed out a problem with the requirement to report offending property owners, as some of these have purchased property with the intention of cleaning up existing blight. Many of them did not create the blight that they are associated with on the list.

“It’s not necessarily a true number of offenders of our city ordinances; it’s more people trying to invest in properties in Springfield,” he said.

A prime example is the No. 2 company on the list, Pine Nut Properties LLC, he said.

“No. 2 there is a new player in the game, and they’ve bought a lot of properties, and they’re working on fixing those properties up,” he said. “Keep in mind that those numbers don’t always reflect bad things; they reflect people investing in our community and investing in blighted properties.”

Twenty  property owners cited the most in the past five years:

• TC Portfolio LLC, 56.
• Pine Nut Properties LLC, 31.
• Barrett Fisk Investments LLC, 23.
• Apple Wagon LLC, 13.
• Nathan C. Gray, 10.
• Rensch, George E. TR, 9.
• JDP Partners LLC, 9.
• JCRH 2022 LLC, 9.
• Frizzell Properties LLC, 9.
• Reed Enterprises LLC, 8.
• KADPM LLC, 8.
• George Rensch, 8.
• H&M Properties & Investment LLC, 7.
• Kessler Properties LLC, 6.
• Historic Commercial Developments LLC, 6.
• Elevate Lives, 6.
• Harbour Properties LLC, 6.
• The Future Real Estate LLC, 6.
• Investors Without Borders LLC, 6.
• Cowherd Properties IV LLC, 6.

Twenty addresses cited the most in past five years with case count:

• 535 N. Hillcrest Ave., 8.
• 2556 N. Broadway Ave., 8.
• 3436 S. Kings Ave., 7.
• 2307 E. Division St., 7.
• 908 W. Tracy St.,6.
• 830 N. Boonville Ave., 5.
• 2016 N. Travis Ave.,5.
• 1506 N. Grant Ave., 5.
• 526 E. Cozy St., 5.
• 559 S. Golden Ave., 5.
• 1032 W. Thoman St., 5.
• 1722 E. Cherry St., 5.
• 2074 N. Albertha Ave., 5.
• 3344 E. Southern Hills Blvd. , 4.
• 1334 E. Atlantic St., 4.
• 1320 W. Livingston St., 4.
• 1446 N. Ethyl Ave., 4.
• 1136 N. Forest Ave., 4.
• 540 S. Lexington Ave., 4.
• 609 N. Belview Ave., 4.