Marietta Committee Discusses Legislation that Could Prevent Blight
Industry Update
July 12, 2023
Source: wtap.com
Blight has been a major topic of conversation in Marietta. The city’s Planning, Zoning, Annexation, and Housing Committee is developing legislation its chair believes could help prevent it.
WTAP spoke with Geoff Schenkel, the chair who’s spearheading the legislation, to take a deeper look.
Vacant properties left to deteriorate have a deeper effect on the community than being an eyesore.
“When they sit vacant, it becomes an easy place for people to hide – hide because you’re trying to do a drug deal or hide because you need a place out of easy viewing to go shoot up. It’s also a place where child predators can pull a child aside…,” he explained, adding that it can also be a fire hazard. People can accidentally set fire to a building in an attempt to stay warm in the dead of winter. That fire can then spread to neighboring homes.
It’s something Schenkel hopes to prevent with new zoning legislation.
“The zoning we were discussing tonight increases the likelihood that a building will be returned to productive use….put to use sooner and sit vacant less,” he said, adding that speeding up that process also prevents blight.
The legislation would create zoning for interior enclosed self-storage. Due to a lack of zoning, Schenkel says this currently isn’t allowed.
Think about the buildings you drive by that house multiple storage units. Now think about those storage units inside a building. That’s what it is.
Schenkel said it would prevent large corporate buildings from becoming blighted.
“They’re designed so much for their particular use – like a Lowe’s or a Walmart that it’s not easily adaptively reused into other things so self storage becomes a good option,” he explained.
Officials also discussed specifying the legislation towards climate-controlled storage. Schenkel explained that it’s the selling point of why people use interior storage units rather than exterior storage units.
There are multiple steps ahead as the legislation has not yet been presented to city council. Officials plan to bring it to the next city council meeting so that they can make a motion to move it into the planning commission’s hand.
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