Lawton, OK Property Maintenance: Property Blight (2026)

6 of the adopted International Property Maintenance Code, 2018 edition, defining a 'dilapidated building' to include a structure that through neglect or injury lacks necessary repairs to the point it hazards public health, safety or welfare; one unfit for human occupancy for the same reason; one the governing body has found to be an unsecured building more than three times in twelve months; one that has sat boarded and secured for more than six consecutive months; or one the governing body has declared a public nuisance outright.

1, authorizing the code official to order the owner of any structure so old, dilapidated or out of repair that it is dangerous, unsafe, insanitary or unfit for habitation to demolish and remove it, or to repair it if capable of being made safe, at the owner's option, and extends the same authority to structures where normal construction has stalled for more than two years or utilities have been absent for more than a year. 1, presuming repairs unreasonable, and the structure a public nuisance ordered razed without a repair option, whenever the governing body finds repair costs would exceed fifty percent of the structure's current value. 3) lets the governing body demolish the structure itself and charge the cost as a lien against the real estate.