Good evening.

I will call the Tuesday April twenty first City Council meeting to order.

Councillor Lassard is excused.

All other members are present.

Please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Item three on the agenda is adjustments to the agenda of which there are none, which will take us to a proclamation for Earth Day, April 22, 2026.

Whereas Earth Day, first celebrated in 1970, has grown into a global movement, uniting more than a hundred and ninety three countries and a shared mission to safeguard the planet for current and future generations.

And whereas Earth Day exists to raise awareness, strengthen environmental education, and mobilize community action to address urgent environmental challenges.

Thank you and congratulations.

Thanks for sharing your artistic gifts with

us.

And also would note that on Saturday we do have another sustainability commission is organizing an Earth Day cleanup as well, and you can visit them at Cannon Park across from City Hall at 10 a.m.

to 2 p.m.

for a cleanup as

well.

With that, we will move on to two

presentations, beginning with a vacancy registration ordinance presentation from Codes Director Robbie Fecto.

Okay,

good evening.

The title is Vacant Building.

So a little bit of a background for the folks in the audience and the people listening at home as well as the council.

The purpose of the ordinance or the the city adopted the vacant building registration and fee ordinance of April uh April 1 of last year, so just about a year today.

The purpose of the adoption of the ordinance was the City of Biddeford recognizes that vacant buildings negatively impact property values, neighborhood safety, and overall development.

To address these concerns, this provision establishes a vacant building registration requirement and an escalating fee structure to encourage property owners to return vacant buildings to productive use.

So the ordinance was at the second reading was April uh first of twenty twenty-five, and we waited until the code was actually codified before we did anything with it.

So it's it's hard when you're looking at the code online.

Um if the ordinance is not codified, it shows up in the left-hand section under new laws.

And what that it sits there for a few months before it actually gets into the body of the code.

So once it was in the body of the code, that's when we rolled out the program.

So

our initial um shot of notices went out in June to 17 property properties that met the definition under the ordinance.

Uh

a little bit about the ordinance and the fee structure.

So the first, the way the ordinance was built is the first six months, there was no fee.

After six months, there was a three hundred dollar fee.

After twelve months, it was a six hundred dollar fee.

And after eighteen months, it was twelve hundred.

So when we sent out the first registration uh notices, the first six months were free.

Uh six responded with the registration forms, two owners of record abandoned the property and never received our notice.

Two received permits to repair, so they came off the list.

One was being sold, six no responses uh from current owners.

So we did uh the way we rolled the program out is we sent a copy of the ordinance in with uh with an attached letter from me to describing the ordinance and asking for uh registrations from them.

And highlighting that the next six months after that that notice was going to be a fee established.

So here comes the money.

January, there was a the invoicing period that went out.

17 notices went out for registration and fees, nine registered, six paid fees, four were removed from the program, and four no responses.

So the way the ordinance was created, it's more of a revolving ordinance where as you don't have set time strengths in the ordinance.

You have to wait for the time period to go by to deem it an abandoned building and then send notifications to the property owners.

That's the way the current ordinance is written.

From a time management perspective, it takes a lot of time to do that.

So as part of this presentation tonight, I'm going to be recommending a few different changes as part of that to make it more time manageable.

And for us, it it makes more sense the way we're looking at it from uh from people knowing that there's a set date in the ordinance versus it being open-ended.

You know, today the building is vacant, it could be vacant 59 days and then occupied one day and it doesn't qualify.

So we're looking to kind of you know put a few ideas out there through policy and then come back to council.

Additional buildings were added, and the reason why additional buildings were added is because we took the oldest ones first and then we added the ones that weren't vacant second.

So for all intents and purposes, when I get into my recommendations, you'll see that it kind of makes sense.

So there was an additional mailing sent out April of 2026 of 10 vacant buildings.

Those fees, then you have six months free registration, and then after six months, those fees would kick in.

So we'll be sending invoices out towards the later part of uh or early part of September for a fee payment date of October 9.

So all in all, um you're looking at 1017, 4 came off, so that would be 1727, 23, 22 buildings that are currently on the list.