(La Porte, IN) - La Porte officials are working with property owners to try and have sheets of plywood removed from windows, as La Porte Code Enforcement Director Jeff Batchelor estimated 10 to 15 properties with windows covered by plywood have been found, so far, while recently venturing out to look for correctable code violations.
“There might be more because we just started driving around and looking at everything,” he said.
Batchelor said some of the properties are owned by companies that have done nothing to improve the homes since purchasing them a few years ago.
“People are buying these properties and then sitting on them for years without fixing the wood and fixing the windows. They just put a piece of plywood over it,” he said.
Batchelor noted that the city has an ordinance governing the appearance of buildings, but there’s no language in it specific to plywood.
That could change, though, judging by discussions Batchelor and other city officials have had about having the material included as a violation of the ordinance. In the meantime, the city's code enforcement department has been contacting homeowners and asking the plywood be removed and the broken windows behind the sheets fixed.
Batchelor said plywood-covered windows attract squatters, who go inside figuring the homes must be abandoned and give a blighted look in neighborhoods where they exist. He said a few of the homes are still being lived in, by people who covered their broken windows with plywood instead of having them repaired.
“I’m reaching out to the people now that own the properties. There’s some people upset about it but it’s a conversation we have to have. It’s been this way for too long,” he said.
Batchelor said he’s telling owners residing in other communities or states that they should take care of their properties as if they live here.
“They need to treat it as if it’s their neighborhood and they live there because would you want to live like that with that house next to you or that business next to you?” he said.
