By: Connor Currier/NM News Port
Albuquerque’s city council voted 7-2 in favor of passing the Demolition of Unsafe Buildings ordinance on Monday, March 5. The ordinance declared an administrative demolition of unsafe commercial buildings, unsafe accessory structures, and dwellings unfit for human habitation.
City Councilor Brook Bassan sponsored the ordinance. Bassan says the property owners have had enough time to figure out their situation and these buildings are just becoming an increasing danger to many of the community members.
“It’s very difficult for us to sit here and say we should make sure to hang on to these properties that have had very elongated length of time to have an opportunity to rectify and repair their commercial property,” Bassan said.
The new ordinance allows the city to speed up the process of demolishing unsafe buildings by bypassing all city council legislation and proceeding directly to the district courts.
Some people living in the neighborhoods affected by these uninhabitable properties attended the city council meeting to give their general public comments. Jorge Benadivez, resident of Palo Alto, shared his thoughts with the council regarding the original ordinance.
“The time the demolition process takes under the original ordinance takes too long to get anything done,” Benadivez said. “There are houses around my neighborhood that were marked 20 years ago unfit to live and the house is still there.”
One of the differences between the new ordinance’s outcome and what will happen now is that the cities’ start and finish dates for these demolition projects will begin sooner.
Bassan claims that the new ordinance is fair for all parties involved because there is no clear rcorrectanswer to this problem.
“(We are) making sure that we keep property rights in balance for the city of Albuquerque and that people are safer in a more efficient, expeditious process so that it can be a little bit fairer for everybody,” Bassan said.
