County Administrator says Nuisance Abatement Ordinance is “absolute last resort”

The second reading of Stephens County proposed Nuisance Abatement Ordinance will be held on Tuesday, during the Stephens County Board of Commissioners regular scheduled meeting.

Stephens County Administrator Phyllis Ayers tells WNEG News that the County Commissioners have been considering this ordinance for several years.

“The Nuisance Abatement Ordinance is actually one that the Stephens County Board of Commissioners has reviewed multiple times, over the last five years. At this point, it had not been formally adopted or passed. We have been looking at what the city (Toccoa) has been using,” Ayers said.

She said that the ordinance is the last attempt at having a dilapidated property cleaned up.

“This ordinance will be the absolute last resort,” she said. “We run into situations through magistrate court and the Marshal, where someone knows their property needs to be cleaned-up but they can’t or they don’t have the funds to do so. These are properties that are usually completely unfit for habitation. For example, if there’s a property beside you, and your property is causing rats to come across into someone else’s property, this will give us an opportunity and a way to help clean up someone’s property. And then recoup the cost of cleaning it up with a lien onto your property.”

Ayers explained that the ordinance will address the concerns of several Stephens County residents who have filed complaints regarding several properties that are uninhabitable.

“There’s not a week that goes by, that I don’t get calls from residents that are complaining about properties that are beside them, bringing their property values down. You can see, over the last couple of years, that the county and the city have really focused on getting our community cleaned-up. And so, that’s what this is,” Ayers said. “This is not walking onto your property and trying to take any property rights away from you. I think it’s pretty clear in the ordinance in one of the sections about that.”

In the ordinance, Ayers said there are specific guidelines that define a nuisance.

Despite some concerns expressed that the new ordinance would allow Stephens County officials to take property from owners; Ayers said that that is not the case.

“This is not: walking onto your property trying to take any property rights away from you. We would go through many months of giving you an opportunity to fix it. We would go through the court system. We would go through many, many routes before we would say ‘okay, we’re going to have to come onto your property and clean it up,’” she said.

The second reading will be held at 8:30 a.m. on Tuesday, June 11 inside the Historic County Courthouse.

Ayers adds that the County Commissioners will vote at Tuesday’s meeting following the second public hearing and reading to either approve or deny the adoption of the proposed Nuisance Abatement Ordinance.

To request a copy of the proposed ordinance, contact Stephens County Clerk Beth Rider at 706-886-9491.