Appealing efforts

Ville Platte Mayor Jennifer Vidrine “is on a mission” to clean one abandoned property at a time in the City of Ville Platte, until her city is made beautiful once again.
Since taking office in 2011, Vidrine has worked to find the fairest way to clean abandoned or overgrown properties without burdening the city or tax payers with the cost of cleaning these properties.
“People not taking care of their property has been going on for too long,” said Vidrine. “It is not fare to the neighbors of individuals that choose to allow their homes to become dilapidated and their yards to become overgrown, and it’s also not fare to business owners.”
Since the project began, the mayor says they have compiled a list of over 400 properties that need to be cleaned. Issues with these properties range from noxious grass or weeds to buildings in dilapidated or dangerous conditions.
Vidrine said, “There have been some properties that all we had to do was cut the grass, but there have also been properties with dilapidated homes that the city was forced to tear down. The bigger the project the more it will cost the property owner.”
That cost that the mayor is talking about is collected by adding it to the owners annual property taxes.
Vidrine said, “The city will clean up the mess, but the owner will be the one to pay for it.”
Following the guidelines of an ordnance that was passed in the City of Ville Platte in the year 1950, the city tacks on cost incurred throughout the cleaning process to the owner’s property taxes.
“It’s much cheaper if the property owners take care of cleaning their property themselves,” said Vidrine. “If the city has to clean it, the property owner can be fined $500.00 plus the cost that the city incurred.”
The process of restoring these properties to pleasant conditions, is something that the mayor and her council members have worked hard to ensure is done legally, and also performed in a way that gives property owners the chance to take care of the problem before the city is forced to take action.
A letter is mailed to the location of any blight properties along with a photograph of that property. The letter details the issues the city has found with that property and the options that a property owner has other than leaving it to the city to clean.
After receiving the letter, the property owner has a total of 30 days to correct the problem or to request a hearing before the Ville Platte City Council. If neither option is taken by the property’s owner, the city then proceeds to abate the nuisance, or remove any abandoned structures.
The city also has the right to possess the property until a property owner has paid their debt.
After five years of working on this project, the city has torn down abandoned homes, cut grass, and removed abandoned vehicles, appliances, and junk from a number of properties within Ville Platte. While this makes the mayor proud, there is something that she enjoys seeing even more.
“There was one property on our list that had an old school bus sitting in the front yard for years,” said Vidrine. “We sent our letter, along with a picture, to the owner, and they took care of the problem themselves. I want to thank individuals like that, because cleaning these properties takes up so much of the city’s time and resources. It helps us when property owners clean their properties themselves, and the city is very grateful to the people who have taken the warning seriously.”
The mayor pointed out that this is a state wide problem that the Louisiana Municipal Association has even began to look into for the purpose of helping provide municipalities with assistance on their quest to clean blight properties across the state.
Executive Director of LMA’s LaMATS program Cliff Palmer has developed a program similar to what Vidrine is doing in Ville Platte.
Palmer said, “LMA is piloting our Nuisance Abatement Service in Baker, Louisiana with five properties. It is clear that majority of municipalities in Louisiana face problems with blight properties. The problem has been proven, now we want to test our pilot program to prove a solution.”
LMA hopes to create a program that will assist municipalities in their effort to clean abandoned properties. LMA also has plans to help municipalities financially if need be. However, financial support would come from a source other than LMA, and would be accompanied with a small interest fee.
Even though steps have been made in the right direction to clean up the City of Ville Platte, the mayor is not quite satisfied.
Vidrine said, “I am not totally satisfied yet, because we still have so much more to do, but we are getting there. This is one mission that I won’t give up on.”
To help continue the positive change that Vidrine has started in Ville Platte, the mayor asks that “if you know of any abandoned properties, please call Ville Platte City Hall.”