Who's responsible for enforcement of unsafe building violations is changing in the city of Portage. Up until now, that was up to the building commissioner, but an ordinance amendment adopted by the city council Tuesday makes the director of planning and community development the enforcement authority.
City Attorney Edward Graham said last month that it will allow for a sharing of powers. "It allows the building commissioner to conduct the inspection — in other words, to gather the facts — and allow the planning director to make the determination, whether there should be a violation assessed against the owner," Graham explained.
Council member Gina Giese-Hurst said condemning unsafe buildings had been a long process in the past. "It scares me, some of the abandoned homes, to see youth in there and being harmed," Giese-Hurst said. "And we can actually help fix that."
Mayor Austin Bonta hopes the change will speed up the process. He compared the new arrangement to the separate responsibilities of police and prosecutors.
