By ANDY GARDNER

MASSENA -- The village board passed code revisions defining blight based on a points system and giving the code office a means to deal with blighted properties, but not before several landlords objected to the new law.

A property is considered blighted once it gets to 100 points. Points are assigned to various areas of disrepair, ranging from as few as five for peeling paint to as many as 50 for being deemed by the code officer to be a fire hazard. Once a property is blighted, the owner has to go before a blight committee and come up with a 30-day corrective action plan or face hefty fines, up to $5,000.

Kathleen Hyde said she was concerned that one of the 50-point violations, posing a threat to the general welfare of the community, isn’t defined in the new code.

“It’s subject to quite a bit of latitude,” she said. “I think that should be further defined if you’re going on a case-by-case basis.”

David Seguin, another landlord, said he thinks the 30-day corrective action period is too short.

He says the code office recently notified him that his property at 250 Main Street needs to be brought into compliance and he is working to do so.

“They want it in 30 days. I get another hit on another building, there’s no way in hell I can do it in 30 days,” he said.

Dennis Kemison said he is concerned that elderly people on fixed income may not be able to afford fixing multiple problems.

However, Councilman Matt Lebire, who helped draft the new law, said the owner will not run afoul of the blight code until they hit 100 points.

“If you do not hit 100, this code does not come anywhere near you,” he said. “There are a lot of people who need a new roof. We wanted to make sure that was not the unintended downfall of this code.”

Massena resident R. Shawn Gray said he thinks there should be a review committee for the more serious, 50-point violations, which goes over the cases before they are determined to be blight.

“I would think if you’re making that serious of a determination, there should be a review committee … some sort of method where you’re at least giving due process, they (property owners) can make a case and somebody will hear it.”