By John H. Palmer

WESTPORT — Revisions to the town’s anti-blight ordinance, including allowances for residents who cultivate taller grass on their property for ecological or aesthetic purposes, as well as defining more clearly what is an “abandoned” vehicle, have been approved.

The changes were passed by the Representative Town Meeting last week with a unanimous 33-0 vote, after a largely positive discussion of the ordinance, initially adopted in 2013 to regulate maintenance standards at local properties, especially those vacant or under construction for long periods of time.

Revisions to the ordinance have been in discussion for several months by co-sponsoring RTM members, including Louis Mall, District 2, who sponsored the original law 11 years ago. 

Mall said the ordinance has proven to be effective, and most property owners faced with blight violations have been willing to work with the town to fix any problems that have arisen.

“As of Dec. 9, 2024, there are no properties on the [Blight Prevention Board] agenda,” Mall told the RTM. “It’s like they have worked themselves out of a job and position, but I’m sure there will be more properties coming on board.”

The blight ordinance was originally adopted as a way for the town to address concerns by neighbors about properties that were deemed unsightly, hazardous or a health hazard. Citations could be issued, for instance, if a property had abandoned or rusting vehicles on it, grass or landscaping that was too high, or if a vacant structure had excess paint peeling off it. 

One “blighted” property, which attracted public attention after appearing on the board’s agenda for months, was the house at 233 Hillspoint Road. It came to be known as the “blue house” because of the blue insulating wrap that covered the structure when construction was halted in 2019 in the midst of zoning violations. In early 2024, the property was removed from the blight list under a court-stipulated settlement of the dispute and the new owner covered the structure with gray siding. 

The ordinance revisions the RTM voted for were generally designed to broaden criteria to officially declare a property blighted and to stiffen penalties that can be imposed on owners of sanctioned properties. Mall cited statistics to RTM members that he said show the ordinance has been a success, specifically:

• Since 2013, 105 properties have been placed on the blight agenda to be looked into by the board. Of those, 65, or two-thirds of those cases, have been resolved by all parties without having been officially cited as blight.
• About 40 properties, or 38 percent, have been cited as blight and nine have been penalized and about 9 percent have resulted in fines being issued, an average of one per year, Mall said. Most of those formally cited involved absentee owners, abandoned properties, or a blatant refusal to address the board and to comply.
• Fines collected total $160,538 since 2013. About $6,000 of that money has been used to provide dumpsters to those who might not have the means, such as the elderly and disabled, to help clean up their properties.
• About $154,538 is currently in reserve to help remediate blighted properties when necessary.

“I’ve always considered it to be more of a social service agency, rather than an enforcement agency,” District 5 member Dick Lowenstein said about the Blight Prevention Board.

Ordinance language stating, “grass, weeds or similar growths” more than 12 inches in height at properties vacant for more than three months is within the law’s scope, was clarified with the addition, “except where such grass is a deliberate part of the landscaping or where the property is maintained in its natural or wooded state.” 

This language was chosen specifically to address concerns of property owners who want to maintain landscaping in a natural state to provide “pollinator pathways” in their yards for bees and other insects.

“These changes will still allow residents to maintain their yards in a wild and natural way if they choose without fear of blight board citations,” said District 2 member Mike Perry, a member of the RTM’s Planning and Zoning Committee, noting that panel voted unanimously to approve the revisions. 

“Some residents are seeking to promote natural insect life as a basis for height changes — that was all meant to be preserved,” he said.

Other language in the revised ordinance addresses excessive peeling, flaked, or chipped paint on more than a third of a structure’s surface visible to the public. 

Also, updates to the motor vehicle proviso include unregistered vehicles that are “not allowed by town zoning regulations,” specifically meaning that these vehicles must be garaged and not visible to the public.

Assistant Town Attorney Eileen Lavigne Flug spoke about adding language that increases maximum daily fines from $100 to up to $1,000 to align with state laws, as well as language specifying that a property owner cannot be charged with a state and town penalty at the same time since that would be considered illegal double jeopardy.

“That was something I wanted to put it into the ordinance so future blight boards can know for sure that that’s not really an option we want to pursue except in an egregious situation,” she said. 

District 6 member Seth Braunstein, a co-sponsor of the ordinance, noted that he’s been pleased with its success over the years, and that changes were made to be responsive to lessons learned, and to be sensitive to certain property owners who weren’t willfully ignoring the rules.

“Most of the folks who have found themselves in the unfortunate condition of having a property in need of severe maintenance lack the agency for a variety of reasons to remediate the problems they are experiencing,” he said. “They’ve been the easiest to deal with. The hardest has been absentee owners or when a bank owns the property.”

Braunstein added the ordinance was always meant to be a non-policed way for residents to deal with complaints about quality of life in their neighborhood.

“There is a common misconception that this is an aggressive or proactive process,” he said. “There’s no one who is patrolling neighborhoods; no one’s out there with a ruler measuring grass heights or taking equations to calculate what percentage of a house’s paint is peeling.”

John Palmer, a Norwalk native, is a freelance writer who has covered community news in Fairfield County and Massachusetts for over 30 years.