The West Penn Township Board of Supervisors continued discussions about implementing the International Property Maintenance Code in the township.

The code would regulate the minimum maintenance requirements for existing structures.

“We have tried to get things cleaned up and done in the township and we keep running into roadblocks for a bunch of reasons,” board Chairman Anthony Prudenti explained of the need for the code.

The township’s current property maintenance ordinance, he said, it doesn’t have “enough teeth in it.”

“So we were suggested to go to International Property Maintenance Code,” he said. “And in the code, it gives us more teeth to get stuff done instead of keep pushing it down the road.”

The problem with the code is that it is international, Prudenti said.

“And we’re just a little community, so there are a lot of things in there that I don’t agree with and doesn’t really apply to us, so they should be taken out,” he said.

For example, the international code makes recommendations for grass cutting and lawn maintenance that wouldn’t apply to many of the agricultural areas in the township.

The international code also asks that problems with properties’ interior surfaces be corrected. It asks that windows and doors be maintained, and that peeling paint and cracked plaster be repaired.

“I think that whole section should be taken out,” Prudenti said. The board agreed.

One resident asked why the township wanted to replace its current property maintenance ordinance.

“The purpose of this is because there have been certain (blighted) properties in the township that we have been dealing with for 10 years that because the bank owns it or somebody pays the taxes, but we know that the property is uninhabitable,” Supervisor Timothy Houser said. “And we can’t get it torn down, whereas if we could have bought it at sheriff sale, we could have gotten CDBG (Community Development Block Grant) money to have it torn down and cleaned up - and cleaned up for the neighbors.”

Houser said he was not in favor of the international code but that “the frustration of trying to get some people to clean up their property has been outrageous because they have rights - but their neighbor who has to live with it? He doesn’t have any rights.”

Solicitor Paul Datte said the current property maintenance code is “very insufficient” when it comes to dealing with properties in disrepair.