What do historic Harmony and San Juan, Puerto Rico have in common?

Precious little, to be honest. But let’s consider the island protectorate while attempting to make a point about progress — or, more specifically, resistance to progress — in Butler County’s own gem of historic preservation.

Last week, the Harmony borough council set aside a proposal to adopt the International Property Maintenance Code after some residents voiced vehement opposition.

The code would assure a maintenance standard for property owners and give code enforcement officers greater ability to ensure borough properties are keeping up on safety and regulatory standards.

“It’s pretty much standard in communities that they have a property maintenance code,” says Councilman Jason Sarver, who proposed the code at the recommendation of code enforcement officer Alan Bayer. “It would allow our code enforcement to do a better job. It keeps maintenance of property upkeep going.”

But opponents argue that unnecessary updates in the code burdens property owners with expenses and maintenance they don’t really need. Councilman Don Sims says is could hinder code enforcement rather than help.

“The code enforcement officer even told you when he was sitting here last time that if you follow it then you would pretty much have people in the streets very upset,” Sims told Sarver. “You don’t need this. You have enough borough ordinances. Just enforce what you have.”

The decision, for now anyway, is to review the proposed changes and talk with the code enforcement officer.

In essence, don’t do anything — the inaction plan.

That’s fine for now. But carry out the inaction plan to the extreme, and you have Puerto Rico in downtown Harmony.

After Hurricanes Irma and Maria leveled much of Puerto Rico in the late summer of 2017, causing an estimated $90 million in damage, leaving 64 people dead and another 60 missing, it seems everyone has an opinion about the slow rate of recovery there.

Yet one certainty is overlooked by many: lax enforcement of building standards has complicated and slowed efforts to rebuild.

“Puerto Rico has adopted building codes that include some of the strictest standards in the world when it comes to hurricane resistance,” the Wall Street Journal reported in 2017. “But there’s a big problem: Bad enforcement. About 55 percent of all structures in Puerto Rico haven’t been built to code partly because the government lacks an adequate process for code certification during the building process.”

No responsible recovery effort would repair or rebuild structures or utilities that were substandard to begin with. But the fact is this: Puerto Rico had a building code.

Likewise, Harmony has a building code. It also has responsible, caring residents and elected government representatives. We encourage them to weigh carefully the options that best serve the community, its future and its past. A commonsense consensus will emerge.