Oneida, NY Property Maintenance: Vacant Lot Maintenance (2026)

Chapter 147, Solid Waste, treats an unmaintained vacant lot the same way it treats an occupied one. Section 147-2, Littering, opens with a broad ban in Subsection A on throwing or leaving refuse, garbage or ashes in any public place, and Subsection C separately bars depositing rubbish, garbage, manure, offal or other decomposable matter in or upon any vacant lot or land or vacant place, except at places designated by the Department of Public Works. Subsection D then reaches the maintenance duty at the heart of a vacant-lot complaint: no person, agent or occupant of a lot or premises wherever a building may exist or a vacant lot shall allow any collection of garbage, rubbish, waste matter or filth of any description to remain on such lot or premises, with the only exception being garbage that is properly stored, as Section 147-3 defines, while it waits for pickup and has not yet been set at curbside ahead of the window Section 147-4 allows.

Subsection F makes the property owner responsible when a multiple-housing-unit violator cannot be identified. This provision was amended twice, on November 7, 2001, and again on January 5, 2005 by Ordinance No. 05-02, when the curbside-timing cross-reference to the newly adopted Section 147-4 was added. A and can act on a Section 147-2 complaint the same way it acts on any solid waste violation under this chapter.