Fall River committee presses city officials on code enforcement after South Main Street fire

The city council committee on health and environmental affairs convened city inspectional staff and police to press for faster action on chronic code violations after a recent South Main Street fire left a tax-lien property in city hands.

"Item three is a resolution to convene with the director of inspectional services and members of the administration to review and discuss current code enforcement practices," the committee said when lifting the item from the table. Minimum housing director Fiori and City Administrator Ann O'Neal Souza joined Chief JT Hore in describing interdepartmental steps the city is taking to remediate blighted properties.

Chief JT Hore said the police and the attorney general's office have partnered with the city’s building-blocks program to return problem properties to the tax rolls and, in some cases, demolish unsafe structures. "We've been very successful in identifying properties with the attorney general's office that have been put back on the tax rolls," he said, adding that property counts have fallen from roughly 200–250 in past years to under 100 now.

Councilors raised a recent South Main Street fire as an example. Staff said the parcel came to the city through a tax lien, the owner owed close to $600,000 and the property had been assessed near $500,000; the city had issued notices and planned to market the parcel for sale after clearance of occupants.

Fiori described the city's revised nuisance-property ordinance and its enforcement timeline: "you have 10 days to fix it or you're subject to fines," and if fines and conversations do not produce compliance, the city can seek injunctive relief and, ultimately, contempt proceedings in civil court. Officials said they are also pursuing administrative warrants to gain safe access and combine housing- and ordinance-based violations into single enforcement actions to speed court filings.

Several councilors urged more proactive inspections of downtown and neighborhood corridors — including Rodman and Warren streets — and called for additional inspectors and better coordination with code enforcement and police. The committee ultimately voted to table the resolution for further work and follow-up with administration.

Next steps: staff will return with clarifying data and the council’s ordinance committee will be asked to consider refinements to nuisance enforcement and related ordinances.