New York City sanitation officials plan to jack up fines on the owners of dirty vacant lots in an effort to cut down on the trashy eyesores.
The sanitation department wrote in a notice Monday it planned to increase fines for failure to maintain vacant lots from $100 to $250. City regulations require owners of abandoned lots to keep their property, sidewalk and 18 inches into the street free of litter and obstructions. The rule changes would also reclassify dormant or abandoned construction sites as vacant lots, opening them up to more penalties.
The plan to increase the fines comes as city data shows the sanitation department has drastically scaled back its efforts to clean vacant lots in recent years. The city cleaned just 257 of the lots last fiscal year and 101 the year before that. In the fiscal year that ended in 2023, crews cleaned 1,440 vacant lots, city data shows.
Sanitation officials wrote in their notice this week that the current $100 fine “is not enough of a deterrent to ensure that property owners take care of vacant lot conditions throughout the city.”
Still, some New Yorkers thought a $250 fine still isn’t enough to get vacant owners to clean up their act.
“That’s too little. Absolutely too little. It’s gonna cost more than $250 just to clean up the area,” Sandra Lizondro said as she waited for a bus in Harlem on Tuesday outside an overgrown lot. She said the problem is even worse where she lives in the Bronx.
“It’s really bad because when they leave the lots empty like this for a long time, people throw garbage in it, and it brings rats and all kinds of crap,” she said.
City law prohibits the sanitation department from issuing fines of more than $250 for dirty vacant lots.
Sanitation department spokesperson Vincent Gragnani said the fines are necessary to get owners to tidy up.
“Vacant lots with trash and overgrowth are neighborhood blights and public health hazards. We want owners to do their part and maintain them, and we hope larger fines will serve as an incentive for them to do so,” Gragnani wrote in a statement.
Gragnani wrote the agency will target lots that receive 311 complaints about dirty conditions. Under the proposed rule change, buildings “under construction” that have sat idle for months or years will be treated as vacant lots and subject to $250 summonses if inspectors spot trash.
Gragnani blamed budget cuts implemented under former mayors for the department’s reduction in lot cleaning.
“We continue to prioritize and clean vacant lots as resources allow. Ultimately, upkeep of these lots are the responsibility of property owners, not taxpayers,” he wrote.