Washington’s mayor pro tempore anticipates the City Council will mull over a new nonresidential maintenance code by July 1.

The council’s drift toward this new code follows February’s unanimous vote to adopt a stronger minimum-housing code.

That winter vote appeared to be part of a movement by city officials to respond to some residents’ concerns about housing and other building conditions in the city’s jurisdiction.

In this latest stab at getting its hands around the issue of dilapidated buildings, the city would codify a minimum set of maintenance standards for business and other nonresidential properties.

“I think it’s important for property owners to maintain their property,” said Councilman Bobby Roberson, the mayor pro tempore and Washington’s retired city planner.

The draft code, not yet adopted by the council, spells out definitions and procedures for the condemnation of buildings the city deems unsafe, and explains the minimum standards for those buildings.

The code’s lengthy list of conditions that could lead a city inspector to conclude a structure is unsound includes listing, leaning or buckling interior walls that would undermine structural integrity, and overloaded roofs or floors that lack adequate supports.

The code outlines steps toward preliminary investigations, complaints and hearings involving property owners and other interested parties.

“The order and ordinance may require the building or structure to be vacated and closed, but repairs may be required only when necessary to maintain structural integrity or to abate a health or safety hazard that cannot be remedied by ordering the building or structure closed for any use,” the draft code reads.

The code would fix avenues to appeal a code official’s decisions to the city’s Board of Adjustment.

In a March 3 memorandum to the council and Mayor Archie Jennings, John Rodman, the city’s planning and development director, spells out the impetus for the nonresidential code.

“The unsafe-building condemnation statutes that the state had applied to nonresidential buildings and structures … were never intended to support a true property maintenance code,” Rodman wrote. “The concept of a nonresidential maintenance code is to establish minimum standards of maintenance, sanitation, and safety for nonresidential buildings that are not (necessarily) so unsafe that they are fit for condemnation.”

Roberson indicated he’ll support the nonresidential code if it comes up for a council vote.

“I think if you’re in a society you’ve got to have rules and regulations,” he said. “I think it’s important for everybody to maintain a minimum standard.”

It’s unclear what, if any, conclusions most council members have drawn about the proposed code.

Contacted for comment last week, two councilmen, Doug Mercer and Ed Moultrie, said they hadn’t had a chance to read the document.

“I would tend to think that if there were minimum standards that you could have minimum standards in commercial structures just like in residential,” said Mercer, who added he couldn’t comment in detail.

One downtown business owner supports the nonresidential code.

Bob Henkel is co-owner of the Inner Banks Artisans’ Center and a member of the city’s Planning Board.

“I think there’s several unsafe buildings downtown,” Henkel said. “We do need to supervise and make sure that the public is not at risk. I think that’s the biggest thing. We have a code for the housing, residential housing, but we haven’t had a code for the downtown area. I think that needs to be done.”

Henkel added that some bricks “have fallen off the (downtown) buildings onto the sidewalk.”

He declined to identify the buildings that shed those bricks.

“I think those need to be looked at,” he said. “We need to make sure that the citizenry is safe.”

Roberson was unsure when the code could be brought before the council for a vote, but suggested it could precede the June 30 end of the city’s fiscal year.

He indicated city officials are aware some property owners can’t afford to make costly building repairs the code could demand.

“I think the city council and the people who will be enforcing this minimum standard understand the economic conditions we’re facing,” he commented. “The other thing is there’s a lot of grants available on the federal and state level for property owners who make improvements, particularly if the property is historic.”

With government cutbacks de rigueur, much of that grant money is drying up, but there still are funding streams available to property owners who want to do the right thing and bring their buildings up to code, he pointed out.

Dot Moate, chairwoman of the Planning Board, echoed Henkel and Roberson.

“I think it would be very beneficial to the city,” she said of the code. “I think it will improve the community, it’ll improve the looks of our area. Some of the areas have gotten very deteriorated looking, and I think this new ordinance would certainly improve it.”

Asked whether the measure could prove controversial with some property owners, Moate replied, “I’m not really concerned about it except I know there probably will be a few who may object, but I don’t think it will be that controversial.”