NEWS

New Augusta nuisance team to target ’slum lords’

Susan McCord
smccord@augustachronicle.com
FILE - A condemned old house on Mill Street in Augusta, Ga., Wednesday afternoon July 11, 2019.

The Richmond County Marshal’s Office has created the Chronic Nuisance Enforcement Team to coordinate the city’s various efforts to eradicate blight.

The team got to work a few weeks ago in three target areas: Marion Homes, a blighted subdivision in East Augusta; Harrisburg, the former mill village home to many blighted houses and the Perry Avenue area of blighted homes in the eastside Bethlehem community.

Since then, the team has inspected 156 properties, tagged 32 inoperative vehicles and issued 17 nuisance notices, Marshal Ramone Lamkin said.

The team includes Augusta Code Enforcement, which has opened 40 code violation cases and Environmental Services, which sent 54 violation letters.

CNET selected the three areas because residents have complained about them to the marshal and to the county commission, Lamkin said.

“Many of them have lived in these neighborhoods for 50-plus years, and they are fed up with their property value decreasing,” he said in a statement.

The properties are typically owned by landlords who own multiple properties in the area and don’t keep them up to code.

“They are slumlords who take advantage of people during their most vulnerable time and get away with it,” the statement said.

Team members also include Keep Augusta Beautiful; Augusta Utilities, Engineering, Recreation and Parks and Information Technology departments as well as Civil and Magistrate Court and Augusta Circuit District Attorney.

Lamkin said his office will serve as the “conduit” when complaints arise and determine to which existing resource to refer them.

District Attorney Natalie Paine said her office’s role is to abate properties deemed to be a nuisance. “This collective effort will allow neighborhoods that have been plagued with dilapidated and abandoned homes to reclaim their safety and property value,” she said.