City of Chicago Nightwatchman Program
May 26th, 2010
Ald. Mell wants banks to post night guards at foreclosed buildings if they're not boarded up
Banks foreclosing on vacant Chicago properties would have to board them up or post a guard outside under an ordinance the City Council Buildings Committee approved today, even as the sponsor acknowledged it might get thrown out in court.
The guards would have to be in place between 4 p.m. and 8 a.m. each day unless the buildings are boarded up. If the buildings are within 2,000 feet of a school, a guard would have to be posted 24 hours a day during the school year, even if the buildings are boarded up.
Sponsoring Ald. Richard Mell, 33rd, said the effect of foreclosures on neighborhoods is “the same type of disaster as the BP oil slick on the Louisiana coast....
“They’re retarding the growth of a neighborhood,” Mell added. “They are bringing down property values. . . . Crime is initiated in a lot of these abandoned buildings. Some of these we have found (have) drug dealings going on in them. And so we need a total effort by the federal government and the banks and the city to resolve this problem.”
Mell conceded that if the full council approves the ordinance next month, banks could challenge its legality, arguing that they can only be regulated by the federal government.
But he’s hoping for cooperation to address a growing problem, and said he wants the federal government to provide resources to address the issues of vacant buildings, in part to push foreclosures through the courts quicker.
As city law now stands, whomever holds title to vacant buildings must board them up or post a guard outside from 4 p.m. to 8 a.m. But in most cases, the owners are in bad financial straits or nowhere to be found, and banks often don’t take title to the properties for more than a year.
Mell said that with help from U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley, D-Ill., he has been able reduce the log of abandoned and foreclosed buildings in his ward from to 179 from 320. Some aldermen, he said, have more than 1,200 foreclosed, vacant properties in their wards.
Penalties for not following the ordinance would range from up to $600 for a first offense to more than 60 days in jail for a second offense.
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