AMARILLO, TEXAS -- A year ago the City of Amarillo sped up the process whereby substandard structures are considered. Now they would like to see at least one such structure a week being moved through the City Commission. In the past the process could easily get bogged down.
City Commissioner Brian Eades said, "It’s incredible that in the past as you began to approach owners of properties and they focused their attention on that, and then they ceased to, the whole process began over again." Now there’s a large backlog of structures that need to be investigated.
Scott McDonald, the city’s Building Official said, "Our goal is we have a number of properties identified throughout the city and we’re going to continue to work those as we can find the interested parties and notify them that we have a dangerous property." Their new method has cut down the process time considerably. McDonald said, "Our old process was about a year on many of those properties. This process has refined it down to as short as 60 days to several months."
The City said the structures are eyesores and are safety hazards and they promote crime. Eades said, "More and more what has become of the dangerous structures here, they’ve become a focus for homeless folks, for drug activity and for kids around the neighborhood."
