Code violations

So one of the reasons that I've been slacking hard on getting my building renovated is because I've been working with the OTR community council, neighbors, and the city of the Neighborhood Enhancement Program for the northeast quadrant of OTR where I am. We've been planning a redo of Grant Park, 2 clean up efforts, I've collected petitions to double the lighting on the stairways, and a bunch of other stuff. It's exhausting.

As part of this NEP, the city looks at every building in the area for code compliance and it was no surprise that I'd have some work to do on mine. Theoretically it'll get the vacant owners to do something to fix their buildings, but I've heard that usually it's the ones that actually respond to the city's orders that they actually focus on (while letting the ones that ignore the city's orders kind of go). We'll see, but here's hoping that's wrong.

When I got my orders to tuckpoint and paint my buildings (and make sure I go through the historic conservation board on any alterations), they were pretty vague. I'd planned tuckpointing the back walls in the end of this summer, but we've only got 90 days to meet their orders, so I wanted to know the details of where they wanted me to focus. I also knew that there was some peeling paint behind my window grates that would need touched up and that my front gate was rusty and will eventually get replaced entirely.

I was a little relieved when all that they wanted me to actually do in the 90 days was to spray paint the rust on my gate and around a door, and then to tuckpoint a very small section on the front that frankly I hadn't even noticed because there are plenty of bigger fish to fry first. I was also a little disappointed because if that's all they're going after me for, then they can't be going after the surrounding vacant owners very hard for all the obvious things they should be doing to fix their buildings.

I've just got to keep reminding myself that it's all about incremental change in the right direction. Nothing happens over night and we're got to keep actively pushing to keep the momentum moving forward. Just thinking about what the street was like (with drugs etc.) when I bought it 2+ years ago and what it's like today, it gives me hope that we're getting closer and that things really are changing.