Mt. Pleasant’s takes aim at dilapidated properties

Wednesday night, the Mt. Pleasant City Council approved several building and zoning resolutions, all part of the Building and Zoning Department's agenda to turn around dilapidated properties in Mt. Pleasant. In the past year, the city was credited with four demolitions of uninhabitable properties and the construction of eight new dwelling properties.

'In the past 10 years, there has been a statewide population decrease in the rural counties,” Jack Swarm the Mt. Pleasant Building and Zoning director said. 'We are seeing a trend of people moving to bigger cities, and it leaves rural cities like Mt. Pleasant with a new pressure to maintain the population, to find ways to further our growth.”

One of the ways that Swarm and his team are working to offset this pressure is by cleaning up the rundown, uninhabitable properties in Mt. Pleasant.

'Dilapidated properties have a negative effect on neighborhoods,” he said. 'Not only are they eye sores that can bring critters and unsafe conditions, they also devalue the properties around it.”

'Cleaning up these dilapidated properties is an investment, because it helps keep the neighborhood thriving. One new house can have a huge transformative effect on a neighborhood, and I have to believe that it translates to economic growth for Mt. Pleasant,” Swarm said.

Though the renewal of dilapidated properties can be defined as gentrification, the process of changing a poor area into one attractive to higher-income residents, Swarm doesn't think the same can be said for Mt. Pleasant's properties.

'When we contract to build new dwellings on these previously dilapidated properties, we want a house that is similar to the rest of the neighborhood. We don't want to price people out of their houses,” he said.

Overall, the feedback of the city's cleanup agenda has been overall positive. A resident, Kellen Gracey, voiced his support and confidence in Swarm's forum at the City Council meeting.

'My wife used to live in that house over on North White a long time ago, and we were very happy to see that come down,” Gracey said.

'In the end, it comes down to the fact that we're just trying to maintain Mt. Pleasant,” Swarm said. 'By cleaning up these properties, we can better our neighborhoods and in turn, better Mt. Pleasant.”