New St. Louis Board Seeks Community Members to Help Investigate Nuisance Properties
One Community Update
September 9, 2026
Source: stlpr.org
Each year, the City of St. Louis receives thousands of complaints of public nuisances at properties. In some cases, when a problem goes unresolved, the issues will now be heard by a board of community members and experts.
The Nuisance Property Review Board, established by an ordinance enacted earlier this year, will comprise seven members to hear and decide public-nuisance property matters.
Members will review evidence, conduct hearings and issue findings and remedial orders — including orders to cease sales of products that may be contributing to public nuisance problems. Before the board, a single administrative hearing officer heard each nuisance case.
According to Citizen Complaint Bureau data, the city received more than 2,300 public nuisance complaints on properties throughout the city last year. So far this year, the city has received about 1,900.
Those complaints won’t always escalate to the board unless property owners fail to address the issues.
The board will hear cases mainly from the city’s department of safety, building division, health department or from citizen petitions.
Ward 14 Alderman Rasheen Aldridge introduced the bill that created the ordinance. He said he hopes the board will bring the community into the decision-making process about nuisance properties.
“This puts the community in the driver’s seat when it comes to working with the nuisance department or being able to trigger nuisance (investigations) for a property that is residential or commercial,” he said.
He called the bill a big move toward updating the city’s nuisance code. He said the rules before the new ordinance left community members out of the process.
“My big push with the nuisance board was to put a public face to it and some community teeth around it,” Aldridge said. “When it comes to nuisance properties or going through that process, there (was) no community way to make something a nuisance.”
Aldridge said there are many such properties in his ward. A KMOV investigation revealed that one property on North 10th Street, EZ Vape and Smoke Shop, was the subject of nearly 60 calls for service to St. Louis Metropolitan Police over the past year.
Aldridge called for the shop to be closed down.
Appointees to the board will be named by Mayor Cara Spencer and approved by the Board of Aldermen. Four members will be community members of the city and three others will be required to bring experience in public health, building or housing code enforcement and municipal or administrative law.
The bill also creates a new petition process for people who live or own businesses around properties that may be a nuisance. If 51% of homeowners, business operators or registered voters sign a petition, the city must investigate buildings for nuisance conditions.
Aldridge said he hopes the new rules encourage owners of nuisance properties to remediate problems before the city gets involved.
“Hopefully, more properties understand that now there’s another tool in the toolkit for the city to actually start to abate some of these properties, and some of these nuisance properties will actually start to do right,” he said.
For full report, please click the source link above.