No more plywood on vacant homes?

FORECLOSURES | Daley wants steel or alarms if empty for 6 months

Chicago building owners would be required to secure, maintain and light up their vacant buildings under a mayoral crackdown in the works to prevent the epidemic of home foreclosures from ruining entire neighborhoods.

The use of plywood to cover doors and windows would be prohibited on buildings vacant for at least six months, under an ordinance introduced by Mayor Daley at this week's City Council meeting.

A six-month vacancy also would trigger a requirement that buildings either be secured with steel panels or have all windows and doors installed, a functioning security system and an "active account" with a private security company. Dusk-to-dawn lighting would be required at all exits.

City Hall already maintains a registry of vacant buildings. But the mayor's ordinance would more than double the registration fee -- from $100 for the first six months to $250. Building owners would be excused from the higher fee so long as their properties remain up to code.

Non-compliance would trigger a declaration that the property is a public nuisance. That could allow the city to compel absentee owners to sell or lose their properties.

"The more foreclosures happen, [the more] people are abandoning their homes. If you live on that block, all of the sudden, no one is gonna take care of it. No one has responsibility. It's gonna affect the value of your property, your assessment -- the whole community. It's a crisis out there," Daley said.

Vacant buildings must be secured to prevent them from becoming fire hazards and magnets for crime, the mayor said.

"They just tear the plywood off the back and they go in the back or the basement window. We want those fully protected so we're not out there, police are not out there, the Fire Department is not out there, and the concerns of residents on every one of these blocks in the city of Chicago" are addressed, the mayor said.

The number of home foreclosures in Chicago shot up 46 percent last year --to 14,250, according to a study by the National Training and Information Center.

To view the online article, please click here.

To view a copy of the ordinance, please click here.

About Safeguard
Safeguard Properties is the largest privately held field services company in the country. Located in Cleveland, Ohio and founded in 1990 by Robert Klein, Safeguard has grown from a regional preservation company with a few employees and a handful of contractors performing services in the Midwest, to a national company with over 500 employees. Safeguard is supported by a nationwide network of subcontractors able to perform any requested superintendence, preservation, and maintenance functions, as well as numerous ancillary services in the U.S., the Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico.