SLC Mayor issues ultimatum to owners of buildings on Major Street

SALT LAKE CITY — Calling it an “unprecedented but critically important action,” Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall has issued an emergency demolition order for several buildings in the Ballpark neighborhood of the city.

Of concern are four vacant buildings on Major Street, two of which have recently caught fire. The demolition order gives the owners ten days to tear down the buildings.

Otherwise, the city will tear them down and bill the owners for the cost of the demolition.

“The more full picture of these properties goes back years,” Mendenhall said at a press conference on Tuesday, standing in front of one of the burned and boarded-up buildings.

“This is years of egregious states of disrepair in all four buildings. Years of dilapidation and unsafe conditions. They have continued to prevail despite our city’s best efforts, led by our fire department, our civil enforcement building division … and the police department,” the mayor said.

Today, in the interest of public health and for the safety of #SLC residents, I am taking the unprecedented, but critical action of authorizing an emergency demolition order for four unsafe properties on Major Street. pic.twitter.com/WLndfnw23E

— Mayor Erin Mendenhall (@slcmayor) December 13, 2022

 According to the mayor, each of these entities has reached out to the property owners with the goal of getting the abandoned buildings into compliance with city code.

For the last year, the city has imposed daily fines on the owners of the buildings. The mayor said those fines have now reached more than $50,000. At her press conference, the mayor said the safety of residents has now surpassed the rights of the business owners.

“The safety issues of these properties and the threat that they pose in their vacancy are unacceptable and they end now,” Mendenhall said.

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