Owners of chronically vacant buildings face fines of $3,000 dollars a year, plus additional charges for large commercial spaces, from a new city ordinance intended to prevent buildings from languishing empty — often in serious disrepair — for long periods of time.
The ordinance, originally proposed by the mayor's office and based on a program in Revere, was approved by City Council last week with a new series of charges for commercial buildings larger than 7,500 square feet.
"Now, with a lot of buildings being foreclosed on, this is something we think is important," Building Inspector William Sanborn said. "Our ultimate goal is to have the buildings maintained and turned over as quickly as possible."
Under the ordinance, the owners of all buildings where "no person or entity actually conducts a lawfully licensed business," or in which "no person lawfully resides" for more than 45 days must register with the city and become subject to the new fees. Bills will be due each Nov. 15.
The fees start at $500 for buildings, either residential or commercial, that have been vacant for less than one year, increase to $1,000 for buildings vacant from between one year and two years, $2,000 between two years and three years and $3,000 for buildings vacant for more than three years.
Vacant buildings of more than 7,500 square-feet will be subject to those fees, plus an additional 20 cents per square foot each year.
A list of all the vacant buildings known to the city will be compiled and released in November, Sanborn said, but the first bills would not be issued until the following fall.
"The city has found that vacant buildings are eyesores and hazards which often offer easy shelter for criminal activities, arson and accidental fires," the ordinance says. "As well, vacant buildings cause surrounding areas to suffer from stagnant or declining property values and create significant costs to the city by virtue of the need for constant monitoring and occasional cleanup."
The most frequent target of the city's war on vacant buildings has been Michael Butter, owner of the Gloucester-based Acme Merchandise and Apparel company as well as several prominent properties in the city, including the Empire clothing building on Main Street and former Omniwave Electronics building. Both Acme Merchandise and Apparel, which makes promotional clothing and trinkets for beer companies, and the Omniwave building are in Blackburn Industrial Park.
Empire clothing closed in 2004 and was soon bought by Butter. "For rent" signs have popped up in the large glass storefront opposite the BankGloucester building on Main Street, along with the occasional print of a painting, but no tenant has moved into the retail-zoned space.
The Empire building is 17,000 square feet, according to assessors records, and has an annual tax bill of $7,000 per year.
According to the terms of the vacant building ordinance, keeping the Empire empty should cost Butter $6,400 per year on top of his tax bill.
Another Butter property, the former Omniwave building in Blackburn Industrial Park, could become even more expensive.
Butter bought the 34,000-square-foot industrial building, which had been contaminated with radioactive and chemical pollution from prior use, in 1997 at auction for $185,000. The city and state offered a package of loans to help clean up the property, but Butter turned them down.
For years a banner above the entrance to the building has declared it "the future home of Acme Apparel" but no business has moved in and the condition of the space has continued to deteriorate. City officials have said they consider the building a safety hazard.
Yesterday, a yellow lifeguard's chair with the logo for Pacifico Beer painted on the back sat in the lobby along with an assortment of other merchandise and furniture.
According to the new ordinance, Butter will owe a total of $9,800 in new fees annually for keeping the building vacant.
Attempts to reach Butter by phone yesterday were unsuccessful. A woman reached at Acme Apparel, who would not give her name, said Butter was not available and would be "travelling for many days."
The additional charges for buildings larger than 7,500 square-feet was added to the ordinance at the request of Councilor Joseph Ciolino, also the owner of the Weathervane gift shop on Main Street.
"The thinking was that if you own a small business, you should not have to pay the same amount as someone who owns a large plant," Ciolino said. "The ordinance is designed to have a little bit of sting to it, so owners are motivated to do something about their properties. But small business owners should not pay the same as someone with Omniwave."
Ciolino said Empire and Omniwave were not the only properties councilors hoped the ordinance would lead to improvements of and mentioned a house on Western Avenue next to RB Strong Excavating he said had been vacant for 20 years.
Attempts to reach the owners of RB Strong were unsuccessful.
"Vacant buildings tend to either be vandalized or go up in flames," Ciolino said. "One dilapidated building makes everyone else look bad. If the owner doesn't care, why should we?"
Patrick Anderson can be reached at panderson@gloucestertimes.com.
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