Good ordinances can make all the better neighbors

You might say good city ordinances make good neighbors.
In light of recent crowded meetings in the Greenmont neighborhood and City Council’s chambers, it appears Morgantown’s ordinances are not so good.
The issue is a proposed drug house, or nuisance, law that will force property owners to take responsibility for their rentals, or rather their tenants.
Many Greenmont neighborhood residents claim that many of downtown Morgantown’s issues are not just passing through their neighborhood, but taking up residence there.
Though the city has a nuisance ordinance it appears rather than taking a direct approach, any complaints are first addressed to the city manager, who at his discretion, may take the matter to City Council. Which undoubtedly is a round-about way to put property owners and their tenants on notice about suspect conditions or behavior.
Judging by the vocal crowd in Greenmont this is not just an instance, either, of what’s often labeled as “student creep.”
That’s where a rental house or apartment is turning into party central for students, with the commensurate noise, parking issues, behavior and such.
Instead, it appears this issue concerns properties that are drug central, which is a magnet for sales and use of drugs.
We can sympathize with this neighborhood because anyone who has lived next to such a site, even if it’s supposedly vacant, lives with a kind of tangible dread.
True, we all need to tolerate a lot of things in the public arena that we disapprove of, but almost everyone likes to think of their home as a sanctuary of sorts.
Though drug house ordinances are common in our state and we suspect nationwide, we’re still on the fence on these proposals.
However, council should take up the city’s police chief’s suggestion “to seriously look at our ordinances” immediately.
Bring in all the parties, including neighborhood representatives, absentee landlords, the police, code enforcement and other stakeholders and revamp the current nuisance ordinance. The city should facilitate these meetings and referee them, yet allow the stakeholders to work things out without undue interference.
Judging by the police chief’s remarks there are specific properties repeatedly causing problems and specific property owners not taking responsibility for them.
That indicates this law need not be applied with a broad brush to every incident, nor only to sites with a history.
There’s no need to single out certain property owners or tenants, but if specific sites call undue attention to themselves, then oblige them.
Furthermore, if there are laws on the books that already apply to these situations, they should be enforced.
In the meantime, a nuisance ordinance in the neighborhood of a consensus would help.