§ 17-32. Unhealthful and unsanitary buildings.

Whenever the public health department, upon investigation, finds any building, dwelling house, or tenement within the city in such an unhealthful and unsanitary condition as to be unfit for human habitation or to be a menace to the general health of the public as a breeding place for contagion and disease, the public health department shall immediately take steps to have such building, tenement or dwelling house abated or removed as a nuisance in the following manner:

(1)

The public health department shall cause to be served upon the owner or agent of the property, tenements or buildings a notice commanding him to appear at a meeting of the unified government board of commissioners to show reason why the property, tenement or building should not be condemned and ordered abated or removed as a nuisance.

(2)

The time and place of such hearing shall be set forth in the notice, and the hearing shall be held no sooner than five days after service of such notice upon the owner or agent.

(3)

Such notice may be served upon the owner or agent by the members of the public health department or by any of the members of the police department by delivering a copy thereof to the agent or owner or by leaving a copy at the agent's or owner's usual place of residence. In the event that the owner or agent is a nonresident of the state, the public health department shall cause such notice to be served by publishing the same in the official newspaper, one publication each week for at least two weeks prior to the date set for the hearing, and a copy of such notice shall be mailed to the address of the nonresident agent or owner if the agent's or owner's address can be ascertained.

(4)

Upon such hearing, if the unified government board of commissioners, after having heard all the evidence in the matter, determines that such building, tenement or property constitutes a nuisance as herein provided, then the unified government board of commissioners shall order the nuisance to be removed or abated by the owner or agent within ten days or within such other reasonable time as the unified government board of commissioners may deem proper.

(5)

If, at the end of such time designated by the unified government board of commissioners for the abatement or removal of such nuisance, the owner or agent has failed, in whole or in part, to comply with the order of the unified government board of commissioners, the unified government board of commissioners shall order the public health department forthwith to remove or abate such nuisance, cause the cost of so doing to be taxed against the lot or tract of ground upon which the same is located and maintained, and to levy, certify and collect the same as a special assessment in the same manner as for repairing and building sidewalks.

(Code 1964, § 19-13; Code 1988, § 17-27)