Local cities are starting to think creatively when it comes to cleaning up blight, and enforcing city codes that target signs of decay will be a big part of that effort. But even in that area, city leaders will need to show flexibility. Port Orange saw an excellent example of that at its meeting last week.
Over the past decade, the city has seen a positive boom in commercial and professional development along Dunlawton Avenue/Taylor Road. But the U.S. 1 corridor is dreary and unappealing, with weedy lots, aging businesses and vast expanses of stained concrete.
And then there are the really sore points, like the site of the former AJ’s Nova 1 Tattoo & Body Piercing. The property has racked up more than $700,000 in code-enforcement fines for violations including high weeds, a trash-strewn lot, broken windows, an illegal dwelling in a building without plumbing and the failure to obtain proper licensing. The property was so bad the city was about to buy it and level the ramshackle buildings. The city had a contract with Sandra Johnson, who owned the property.