The City of Birmingham Attorney’s Office is using civil court to hold landowners accountable for getting rid of crime and blight associated with nuisance issues.
Earlier this month, Birmingham City Attorney Nicole King reached an agreement with landowners of an apartment complex in the Graymont neighborhood who have had numerous reports of seized drugs, seized weapons, gunshots and loitering.
This spring, King revamped the program and created the Office of the City Attorney’s Drug and Nuisance Abatement Team, also known as OCA-DNAT, which works through the courts to hold landowners accountable for keeping their properties clean and getting rid of crime and blight associated with nuisance issues.
The agreement also states that the Graymont Avenue apartment complex owners must:
King got the idea for the task force and using the courts after listening to a local radio host interview Birmingham Mayor Randall Woodfin earlier this year about the mayor’s crime-fighting and neighborhood revitalization efforts.
If the judge finds that the owner of the property has allowed or maintained a drug-related nuisance, the court can order the property owner to pay a civil penalty up to $1,000 a day for each day the nuisance exists, pay a fine to the city, which can range from $500 to $50,000, plus attorney fees.
