By Donald Wittkowski
Ocean City’s historic buildings would have to adhere to the same rigorous property maintenance requirements as their non-historic counterparts under a proposed ordinance up for consideration by City Council.
The measure, scheduled for introduction at Tuesday’s Council meeting, would revise the existing property maintenance code to bring historic buildings in line with the rest of the structures in town.
“This proposed ordinance would authorize the City’s Code Enforcement officers to require maintenance of historic properties in the same manner and to the same extent as non-historic properties,” Solicitor Dorothy McCrosson explained in a memo to Council.
Council is expected to take an initial vote to introduce the ordinance at its 7 p.m. meeting Tuesday at City Hall. This week’s meeting is being held on Tuesday instead of the regular Thursday session.
Once an ordinance is introduced, Council holds a public hearing at a later date before taking a final vote to make it a law.
City spokesman Doug Bergen said the proposed property maintenance ordinance comes at the suggestion of the Ocean City Historic Preservation Commission. The reason why the commission is pushing for the measure will be disclosed at the Council meeting, he added.
The commission oversees construction, rehabilitation and demolition projects within the city’s Historic District. The district’s boundaries roughly run from Third to Eighth streets between Ocean and Central avenues, although there are some offshoots.
McCrosson said the city’s property maintenance standards are based on the 2015 International Property Maintenance Code, an umbrella group of standards for such things as basic equipment, light, ventilation, heating, sanitation and fire safety.
The IPMC primarily deals with the interior of buildings, including the requirement that they have heat. Failure to follow those standards can lead to the city’s code enforcement officers to cite the building owners for violations.
McCrosson and Bergen said the city can currently force the owner of a historic structure to correct a maintenance violation only when it would cost more than 25 percent of the assessed value of the building.
The proposed ordinance, though, would bring historic buildings under the same maintenance requirements for other properties in town.
“The gist of it is, the city can compel the owner of properties that are broken to fix them up,” Bergen said.
