Culver Unsafe Building Ordinance Going to Public Hearing in October

Culver continues work to bring Town policy into alignment with a recently adopted Marshall County ordinance.

During Tuesday night’s Culver Town Council meeting, Attorney Jim Clevenger provided updates on the development of Culver’s version of the unsafe buildings ordinance. The changes provide that a hearing board will be set-up to remedy problematic situations with property owners in the event a structure is deemed unsafe.

Clevenger says the word is that the changes are working at the county level.

“The County Building Commissioner has reported that since they adopted this, they’ve had a few cases and they’ve had some success so that’s an encouraging thing,” says Clevenger.

Following Marshall County’s adoption of the ordinance, it was noted that the Towns and Cities in the county were also subject to adoption.

Board members are being appointed as the ordinances are written. The goal of the changes was to prevent a years-long process to do something about sites that have been deemed unsafe.

Right now, Culver is in the draft stage of their unsafe buildings ordinance. Culver is planning to appoint its Building Commissioner to serve on the board following approval.

Clevenger says he set it up as a special ordinance.

“It is adopting basically the state law, and in fact the County one, and it’s setting up this board so that it’s specific to our Town,” says Clevenger.

The ordinance will likely go to a hearing October 13th and will subsequently be brought to first reading.