HAMMOND—As summer draws to a close, Tangipahoa Parish Government is celebrating a milestone in the parish’s efforts to reduce the number of blighted properties in our community.
President Robby Miller credits the parish’s Code Enforcement Office, which has now recorded 100 blighted properties in Tangipahoa Parish that have been cleaned up over the last 18 months.
“Our Code Enforcement team has done an exceptional job of targeting properties that were unsafe and properties that were not livable. By working hand-in-hand with property owners, those blighted structures have been cleaned up for the betterment of the entire community,” Miller said.
In most cases, property owners have stepped up and cleared those properties themselves or in partnership with family and friends.
“Of the 100 cases that we have worked thus far, 92 of them have been addressed by the property owner,” Miller said.
One such group of properties were recently cleared off Milton Road just north of Hammond. Nestled in a quiet mobile home community, crews worked in the August heat, demolishing a total of 10 run-down trailers. The aged structures had taken a beating from weather events over the years. Over the period of several long days, demolition teams collapsed the structures into manageable piles of debris, which were collected and transported out of the neighborhood by the trailer load. Heavy equipment cleared the lots of overgrown brush, making way for future development.
It’s a familiar story that’s been told across the parish. Badly damaged properties that are identified for condemnation go through a lengthy process of the parish working with the property owner to ensure safety issues are addressed. Over time, if those issues are not or cannot be satisfied, code enforcement brings those concerns to the Parish Council, which can take action to officially condemn the structure. The property owner then has a specific number of days to address the problem or the parish can bring in a contractor to demolish the structure.
“We find that in most cases residents have been able to get the structural issues addressed on their own or with the help of friends and family,” Miller said, noting that the parish has had to find a contractor in just eight percent of the cases handled so far.
In that event, the parish files a lien against the property to recover the clean up cost.
“The process is working,” Miller said, adding that in many cases, such clean ups prompt neighbors to do more with their own homes. For example, now that improvements have been made to the trailer park off Milton Road, the property owners are already talking about upgrading other mobile homes in the neighborhood.
