Owosso council asked Monday to order a vacant building ordinance
Item 4 on the Nov. 2 agenda would turn the city manager and city attorney loose on rules for empty buildings — but the agenda does not say what the rules would require, or when they would come back.
Owosso's City Council is being asked Monday night to put every empty building in town on the drafting table. Item 4 on the Nov. 2 agenda seeks "Approval for the City Manager and City Attorney to prepare a vacant building ordinance consistent with DDA Resolution No. 03-2026 and consistent code enforcement processed and schedules for Council consideration."
What that ordinance would actually do to an owner of a vacant storefront or an empty house is not in the packet. The agenda item is headed "Analysis of Vacant Building Ordinance Proposals," but no draft text, no registration requirement, no fee schedule, no inspection cycle and no penalty is posted with it. Nor is a return date: the agenda does not say when a draft would come back to council, or how many vacant buildings the city believes it has.
Vacant building ordinances in Michigan cities typically work by requiring owners to register an empty property with the city and pay an annual fee that rises the longer the building sits. Whether Owosso's would do that, or something narrower, is exactly what Monday's vote does not decide. A yes vote authorizes the drafting; the substance arrives later.
The same item also asks council to "authorize the City Manager to provide the written responses requested by the DDA and the HDC" — the Downtown Development Authority and the Historic District Commission. The Current reported Oct. 28 that neither the text of DDA Resolution No. 03-2026 nor the questions the two boards put to the city in writing appears in the posted packet. Those documents are the whole basis of Item 4, and readers cannot see them.
Item 4 sits two slots below the night's other downtown decision: the Citizens Loft development agreement between the city and Woodworth Investments, LLC for the third floor of 123 N. Washington Street. As The Current reported Oct. 28, that agreement was also missing from the posted packet, leaving the unit count and any city incentives unknown going into the vote. Council will also adopt revised water and sewer connection charges that take effect the same day, Nov. 2 — the agenda does not list the dollar figures.
Three spending items ride the consent agenda, which passes in a single vote unless a member pulls one: $22,460 to Professional Pump of Belleville for an emergency repair to Secondary Influent Pump #4 at the wastewater plant, $28,400 to Goyette Mechanical Co., Inc. of Flint to repair a Weil McLain steam boiler at the Shiawassee District Library, and three professional engineering services agreements with OHM Advisors of Saginaw, Jones & Henry Engineers of Kalamazoo and Fishbeck of Lansing. No dollar amount is listed for the engineering agreements.
Also on the agenda: a request from Owosso Main Street/DDA to hold a public fireworks display operated by Wolverine Fireworks Display, Inc. at the city's annual Glow Owosso event. The agenda does not give the date or time of the display.
What happens next: Council meets at 6:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 2, at City Hall, 301 West Main Street. Residents get up to four minutes at the first citizen comment period and three minutes at the second. If council authorizes the drafting, the vacant building ordinance itself would return at a later meeting — the agenda does not say which one. The next regular meeting after Monday is Nov. 16. City Manager Nathan R. Henne's October report is also on the agenda.
The Morning Current. Free, daily, by 6 AM.
Every council vote, police report, and school decision in Shiawassee County — before your first coffee.