Dearborn Heights, MI Property Maintenance: Property Blight (2026)

City Code Sec. 7-301 states the article's purpose is to prevent, reduce, and eliminate blight and potential blight through elimination of environmental causes of blight, and it also authorizes regulating vehicle parking on public property and vehicle repair on residentially zoned property. Sec. 7-302 lists nine specific causes of blight or blighting factors that it is unlawful to maintain or permit on any owned, leased, rented, or occupied property, including storing building materials without a valid permit, storing junk or trash beyond seven days in residential zones, uninhabitable fire- or storm-damaged structures, unlocked vacant buildings, unlicensed vehicles parked on public property, and unlicensed or inoperable vehicles left in a residential yard for more than 48 hours.

Sec. 7-306 requires the city to serve a written abatement notice on the owner or occupant, delivered personally, by certified mail, or posted for five days if the owner is unknown, and Sec. 7-307 lets the city perform the abatement itself and charge the cost as a special assessment and lien against the property if the owner fails to comply within the notice period. The building and engineering department administers this article alongside the separate International Property Maintenance Code adopted at Sec. 7-201 et seq., which Sec. 7-202(e) says Chapter 1's administration provisions control over the blight article on procedural matters.