The owner of a home in east Baker City that’s the first property in town to be deemed a “chronic neighborhood nuisance” under a city ordinance due to accumulations of trash and other factors is appealing the Jan. 11 judgment from Justice of the Peace Brent Kerns.

Lucas Buddy Lee Gwin owns the home at 1975 Birch St., at the corner of Birch Street and Washington Avenue.

Baker City’s code enforcement officer, Brian LaFavor, cited Gwin, 33, on Dec. 9, 2021, under the city’s property maintenance ordinance, 97.01.

Four times in the past four years, most recently in April 2021, Baker City paid to remove trash and other debris from Gwin’s property.

But Ty Duby, Baker City Police chief, said that not long after that work, items started to accumulate again on the property, and the city received multiple complaints from residents in the area.

In March 2019 the City Council, motivated in part by the city’s previous efforts to clean up Gwin’s property, approved a revised version of the property maintenance ordinance that adds the chronic neighborhood nuisance designation.

Duby said that revised ordinance was not added to the roster of ordinances on the city’s website.

However, he said residents who live near Gwin pointed out to Duby that the ordinance had been revised, and that it gives the Baker County Justice Court Judge the authority to block people, including the owners, from properties deemed chronic neighborhood nuisances.

After LaFavor cited Gwin on Dec. 9, 2021, the city asked Justice of the Peace Brent Kerns to declare the property as a chronic neighborhood nuisance.

In an order dated Jan. 11, 2022, Kerns wrote that as of Jan. 5, Gwin’s property was a chronic neighborhood nuisance. Kerns also wrote that the home is “unsafe.”

Kerns determined that the condition of the property met six of the seven criteria in the revised ordinance, including that the property does not have city water and sewer service and that it has a history of property maintenance code violations.

The property has not been closed to entry.

Gwin filed an appeal to Kerns’ ruling in a document dated Jan. 19, 2022. The appeal was filed in Baker County Circuit Court, where it is pending.

Gwin declined to comment on the situation.

Although the city’s 2019 update to the property maintenance ordinance states that people, including the owner, can be banned from entering properties deemed chronic neighborhood nuisances, City Manager Jonathan Cannon said he’s not convinced, since there is no precedent locally, that the city can legally enforce that aspect of the ordinance.

Cannon said there is a “delicate balance” between protecting private property rights, including the ability for the owner to even enter the property, while also ensuring that the property owner’s use isn’t harming neighbors.

As an alternative, Duby said the city plans to pursue a different legal avenue — potentially declaring the home an unsafe structure.

Duby said the city’s building official can declare a building unsafe and thus not inhabitable.

Duby said he plans to present an affidavit to Baker County Circuit Court listing the reasons he believes Gwin’s home is unsafe to occupy, and ask Judge Matt Shirtcliff to grant an administrative search warrant to allow the city to determine the condition of the home.

Ultimately, he said, the city could board up the home to prevent entry. Access to the property would still be open to allow for the removal of debris, he said.

“We’re trying to attack it from several angles,” Duby said. “What we’ve been doing in the past is just not working. It’s been frustrating.”

Cannon said city officials, as they pursue a possible declaration of Gwin’s home as unsafe, will proceed without “preconceived notions” about the condition of the home.

In other cases when the city sought to declare a building unsafe it was following a fire that damaged the structure, Cannon said.

The situation with Gwin’s home is different since it hasn’t burned.

If the city decides to block entry into the home because it’s considered unsafe, “we’d better be right,” Cannon said.

Under the city’s property maintenance ordinance, conditions that could warrant the building official declaring a building unsafe include “whenever the structure … has become dilapidated or deteriorated as to become an attractive nuisance or a harbor for transients or criminals.”

The 950-square-foot home, built in 1900, has a market value of $3,740, according to the Baker County Assessor’s Office, which last appraised the property in 2019. The lot, which covers almost 5,000 square feet, has a market value of $31,330, according to the Assessor’s Office.

Neighbors frustrated by situation

Joel Richardson, who lives on Birch Street near Gwin’s property, said that although he respects property rights, he believes the situation at 1975 Birch St. needs to be addressed because it is directly affecting neighboring properties.

Richardson said he and his wife, Gere, had mice in their home, which he attributes to the rodents being attracted to refuse on Gwin’s property. Richardson said other neighbors have also reported mice infestations.

“To me, it’s just about wanting a clean neighborhood that’s safe for everyone,” Joel Richardson said. “It’s been a long time with that property just slowly going downhill.”

Angie Stewart, who with her husband, John, lives at the corner of Plum Street and Washington Avenue, just west of Gwin’s house, said the recurrent accumulations of trash, and associated problems, have left them and some of their neighbors as “basically hostages to the inside of our homes.”

Angie Stewart said unpleasant odors emanate from Gwin’s property, and she has seen people urinating in the yard.

“We can’t go out and use our decks and backyards in the summer,” Stewart said. “It’s just awful.”

Stewart said she and her husband have talked with Gwin about the problem, but to no avail.

“It’s not getting resolved,” she said.

Although both Stewart and Richardson said they don’t believe anyone is living permanently in the home this winter, they believe the situation will change when the weather warms.

“We’ll see people hanging out there come warmer weather, I guarantee that,” Richardson said.

Kerns, in his Jan. 11 order designating Gwin’s property as a chronic neighborhood nuisance, wrote that “the home is currently empty.”

Stewart said the property “attracts a lot of homeless and their friends, and that adds to the problem.”

She’s also concerned about a tree house that has been built on Gwin’s property, and in particular that its ladder is potentially dangerous and could attract people.

Stewart said she’s told teenagers who were in the alley behind Gwin’s home to stay away from the property.

Stewart said she and her husband are “ecstatic” that city officials are trying to do something to improve the situation.

Richardson said he thinks the city should try to designate the home as uninhabitable.

Although he said he’s never been inside the home or on the property, he has watched people enter the house not through a door but rather by climbing through a window.

Richardson said that suggests that the inside of the home is as “inundated” with items as the yard has been several times.

He said it also appeared last summer that people were living in a pickup truck parked on the property.

“It’s a condemned area as far as I’m concerned,” Richardson said. “Is it a place where I think people should be living? No.”

Property owner’s history of violations

According to city and court records, a city code enforcement officer cited Gwin for violating the property maintenance ordinance in May 2015, August 2015 and October 2016.

On June 17, 2017, the city paid a contractor $2,000 to clean up the property.

The city cited Gwin for violating the property maintenance order on Dec. 27, 2017, and four more times in 2018, according to court records.

On Oct. 29, 2018, the Baker County Justice Court issued an order allowing the city to clean up the property and then bill the owner for the cost.

The city had a $5,600 bid from a contractor to do the work, but city officials decided to have a public works employee use a loader to gather the refuse.

The city also removed material from the property in October 2020.

The city sets aside about $6,000 each year to clean up properties that violate the maintenance ordinance.

Stewart said that although she, like Richardson, believes people should be allowed to use their property as they see fit, there must be a limit to what’s acceptable.

“You don’t like to stomp on anybody’s rights, but he’s had so many chances to fix the place,” she said. “It’s just a continual problem, for at least the past five years. We want to use our properties. There have been tears shed in this neighborhood over that property. It’s just so sad.”