Politics & Government

City Wants To Know About Properties Not Being Kept Up

Owners are required to maintain their properties

It seems like many neighborhoods have them: The property that's not being kept up and is overgrown with weeds and trash, such as this foreclosed building on Flat Shoals Avenue, just south of May Avenue in East Atlanta Village.

Once owned by the now defunct Inman Park Properties, this building was foreclosed on when IPP went bankrupt.

The property had been earmarked for a sandwich shop and bakery when IPP was actively marketing it, but neither plan came to fruition.

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Nonetheless, property owners are required to maintain their buildings and landscaping: keeping it clear of litter, trash and other things might attract vermin.

With this East Atlanta building at least, the property was maintained at first immediately after the foreclosure. The lawn was mowed and remained relatively free of trash.

Find out what's happening in East Atlantawith free, real-time updates from Patch.

But the property is now managed by Major & Arroll, an Atlanta real estate brokerage firm, and is overgrown with weeds and strewn trash.

Two weeks ago, someone left a stripped motorcycle — police said it had not been reported stolen — in the side bushes of the building.

Of course, East Atlanta isn't immune to this problem.

Homeowners in one subdivision in the Inman Park neighborhood, for example, have been in a 10-year battle with a Buckhead developer over trailers in an ajoining property that's now overgrown with weeds and kudzu. At one point, it served as a dumping ground for furniture and other materials, homeowners said. (East Atlanta Patch will be publishing a separate story about their plight soon.)

Last week, Tammy Mitchell, an inspector with the Atlanta Bureau of Code Compliance told members of Neighborhood Planning Unit-M anyone with a complaint about messy properties should call the BCC.

The bureau is charged with enforcement of housing and commercial ordinance codes for the entire city and writing citations to violators.

Anyone with complaints about derelict property should call 404-330-6190 or e-mail codesrequests@atlantaga.gov, Mitchell said.


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