QUESTION: Why hasn’t the town of Swepsonville done anything about an illegal junkyard that has metastasized at 1136 Grove Lane?
ANSWER: Complaints about accumulations of junk aren’t automatically consigned to the dumpsters at Swepsonville’s town hall – at least not according to Brad Bullis, the town’s municipal administrator.
Bullis nevertheless concedes that it isn’t always easy for the town to address the problem of illegal junk – even when the alleged blight seems to be unequivocally prohibited under the town’s code of ordinances.
According to Bullis, the town’s ongoing struggle with the junkyard on Grove Lane is a case in point of the difficulties inherent in the whole business of code enforcement.
“We actually have issued that homeowner a notice of violation of our nuisance ordinance,” the town’s administrator went on to explain in an interview. “We sent one a couple months back, and some progress was made, but it wasn’t officially resolved.”
Bullis said that the homeowners – whom tax records identify as Jared and Jennifer Gibson – went so far as to bring in a dumpster to dispose of the illegal debris, although it he acknowledged that things seem to have gotten bogged down since this promising start. He added that the poor follow-through has prompted the town to issue a second notice of violation, which he said should arrive in the homeowners’ mailbox any day.
Bullis said that, with the issuance of this second notice, the homeowners will have 14 days to rectify the alleged violation under the town’s nuisance control ordinance. Should they fail to comply within the allotted period, the town will be able to calls in a contractor to expedite the process.
The town’s administrator added that there’s also some discussion about updating the town’s code of ordinances to provide the means to better address these violations in the future.
Meanwhile, as a reporter with the newspaper took a photo of the yard, including the dumpster, someone from the yard yelled out, “I’m cleaning it up. I’ve got a dumpster.”
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