Options that city officials have to address blighted properties was at the core of a discussion held Tuesday among city officials. (Photo by Shawn Magrath)

NORWICH – The Norwich Common Council engaged in talks on Tuesday over the dilemma of nuisance properties within city limits, hearing a pitch from a municipal attorney about some of the options that city officials can use to address it.

The discussion comes as city officials continue to work closely with other public entities to clean up blighted commercial and residential properties, particularly buildings on North Broad Street in the heart of the city’s business district. Efforts of the city’s code enforcement in recent years to have proprietors address code violations themselves have yielded little to no results.

The biggest obstacle in addressing nuisance properties may be the way in which local courts handle code disputes, according to attorney Joseph Frateschi of the Harris Beach Murtha Law Firm in Syracuse. Frateschi represents dozens of municipalities facing similar situations in Onondaga, Madison, Oswego, and Tioga counties.

Frateschi says the city’s best option, in his experience, is to bypass local courts and take property owners directly to the state supreme court – an action he argues would give city officials more flexibility, efficiency, and predictability when dealing with proprietors who pay their taxes but neglect their properties.

“You’re facing a common problem,” Frateschi told council members at Tuesday’s Common Council meeting, laying out a supreme court strategy that he says may be the city’s “best solution.”