Blight in Topeka: City officials walk delicate balance between property rights, maintaining safety

Dilapidated homes and commercial buildings dot neighborhoods throughout Shawnee County, challenging government officials to tackle health and safety issues along with complaints from neighbors who see their property values impacted.

But there aren’t easy answers to blighted properties, said Sasha Haehn, director of neighborhood relations for the city of Topeka.

As is appropriate, she added, the government can’t ignore the rights of property owners, and if those owners don’t want to take care of their properties, the city or county can only step in when there is a health or safety issue.

“The International Property Maintenance Code establishes a minimum standard for the condition of properties, but I think that minimum standard is not well understood,” Haehn said. “As an example, you will see houses sometimes in the neighborhoods that are painted three or four different colors. They can do that because our minimum standard says it has to be weather proofed, so painted, but we don’t tell you what color to paint it or that it has to be the same color because that’s a little bit of an overreach, right?”