Committee finds ways to improve commercial properties

Earlier this year, the city created a one-off advisory committee comprised of commercial property owners and local business owners to identify the most significant issues relating to maintenance and appearances of all “commercial corridors” throughout Newton.

Dubbed the Business Property Maintenance Code Advisory Committee, its work has since been shared by Newton Community Development Director Erin Chambers during the Oct. 5 city council meeting. However, the changes to the city code have not been formally adopted by council members.

According to the committee’s findings, there are specific areas in the code that are in need of progress. For instance, the term “vacant” needs to be more defined. Chambers said the city has a vacant building registration, though this mostly applies to rental properties following the 2008 housing market crash.

“This moves the vacant buildings registration into the building code and also beefs it up, defining ‘vacant’ and also providing for some better clarity in terms of the implementation and enforcement,” Chambers told councils members during her staff report.

Another area the committee focused on was façade maintenance. Chambers said members of the committee wanted to make sure all visible exterior holes, breaks and loose or rotting materials are maintained. This also means implementing measures for weatherproofing.

Parking lots and all-weather surfaces should be better maintained, too. Chambers said the committee’s conversations mostly surrounded weeds, potholes and deterioration. Under city code, weeds are currently a violation. However, weeds have to be six inches tall.

“It takes an awful long time for a weed coming up in a crack to reach that six-inch-tall mark,” Chambers said. “So the committee wanted to talk about how do we further regulate those weeds in parking lots where they won’t ever get six inches tall.”

Currently, the city code doesn’t have a great mechanism to deal with parking lot deterioration, Chambers said. Sign structure maintenance was also a talking point amongst the committee, particularly when it comes to vacant and abandoned signage. The committee felt repurposing signs is a good option.

“Sign structures do provide value to a property when they’re seeking a new tenant or seeking a new buyer for the property,” Chambers said. “Having to take down an abandoned sign structure simply because the property doesn’t have a tenant at the moment does take away some value.”

The Newton City Council will decide on Monday, Oct. 19, whether to approve the first of three considerations for ordinance amendments regarding the committee’s aesthetic and maintenance concerns of commercial properties.

Contact Christopher Braunschweig at 641-792-3121 ext. 6560 or cbraunschweig@newtondailynews.com