Las Vegas officials on Wednesday signaled their desire for broader authority over when dangerous abandoned buildings should be demolished, saying the current standards established a quarter of a century ago would likely hold the city back.
“It’s a different world than 25 years ago,” said City Manager Jorge Cervantes.
The city council passed its standards for dealing with dangerous buildings in 1995, according to Vicki Ozuna, director of law enforcement, who made a presentation to the city council.
The guidelines were developed a year earlier by the International Code Council, a not-for-profit industry that recommends uniform building codes.
There are 19 criteria for demolishing a dangerous building, Ozuna said, including the lack of an exit or unsafe exit route, failing walls, or the fact that the structure is at least 51 percent damaged.
But even if a building is charred, has a missing roof, or is constantly nailed shut, it may not reach the demolition threshold.
“I know that in some stations we have buildings that have been standing for a long time, there have been several fires, several boarding schools, and unfortunately it just doesn’t meet the criteria to be dismantled because it isn’t burned enough,” said Ozuna.
She added, “I don’t think we can ask the fire department to slow their response.”
Since the burden of demolition is quite high, Las Vegas lawmakers urged the city to consider how to determine when a problematic structure can be demolished.
“Why should a property go up in flames three times before we take action?” Councilor Olivia Diaz called on the city to act quickly to address an issue that has disproportionately affected her downtown community.
Tear-offs seldom
Last year there were 150 cases of dangerous buildings in District 3, up from 112 in 2018, according to the city. No other station has had triple digit cases in the past three years, although the problem is less prevalent in downtown Station 5 and nearby Station 1.
Buildings classified as dangerous by the city are rarely demolished. Last year 20 of 261 dangerous buildings were demolished. Only nine out of 147 such buildings were destroyed that year, according to the city.
However, Ozuna said that roughly half the time property owners show up and take care of their website after filing a complaint. And the city is patient when an owner needs time. But sometimes, unless a building is classified as imminent danger, the city just has to nail it up and hope an owner will do something with it.
In some cases, the city has been able to use due diligence to bring proceedings against property as a public nuisance, which Ozuna said is reason enough to demolish a property.
Citing fire and nuisance risks, the city tore down the Moulin Rouge in 2017 and the El Cid Hotel in 2019.
“A lot of these types of buildings are becoming magnets for tramps and this type of activity, so keeping them on board and securing them until we can actually demolish the building is sometimes a challenge,” Ozuna said broadly.
Kevin McOsker, the city’s director of buildings and security, said the general concepts of what constitutes a dangerous building have remained unchanged from the regulations passed by the city in 1994.
Still, Cervantes said the city needs to update its rules as City Attorney Bryan Scott said he will investigate neighboring jurisdictions in search of a faster route to demolition.
“We can’t take that lightly,” said Diaz.
Contact Shea Johnson at sjohnson@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0272. Follow @Shea_LVRJ on Twitter.
