The City Council here will consider adopting more stringent building and maintenance codes for the city’s historical district.
At the Nov. 5 council meeting, Main Street Association member Luke Bradley proposed that the International Property Maintenance Code Book be adopted for the city’s historical district only. Contract inspector Rodney “Cooney” Richard told the council that about 80 percent of the 15 municipalities he contracts with have adopted the code.
Adoption of the new standards, Richard said, would not mean that historical buildings would have to be updated to the standards required for new construction. A “grandfather clause” in the code stipulates that, unless renovations undertaken are valued at more than 50 percent of the value of the building, the standards of the period would apply.
Bradley and Richard explained that adoption of the code would help prevent the loss of historical buildings, many of which were built with shared “party walls” separating them so that the loss of one could lead to the loss of several.
The codes would also provide a consistent standard in the district and remove any appearance of particular building owners being singled out for enforcement of unclear maintenance standards. City Attorney Allan Durand suggested that the Main Street Assn. pare down the 30-page code book to eliminate provisions that would not be relevant for St. Martinville and Bradley agreed to do that. Adoption of the resulting code changes will be considered later.
Cost-saving?
Presentations were given on a fleet vehicle lease program for city vehicles by Enterprise Leasing and on a LED lighting replacement offer from LED Pro. The council voted to consider both proposals, touted to result in savings to the city, after further study.
Finally, in executive (secret) session, it was decided to consider proposing settlement offers in two pending litigations and to terminate a city employee who was working under probation for missed work. And, a police officer resigned after being implicated in an unspecified illegal act.
