MARS — Six months after it was first suggested, borough council voted to approve a disruptive property ordinance during its meeting Tuesday night, Sept. 2.

The ordinance would allow the borough to take action against properties — both owned and rented — which are the site of repeated police visits.

Under the terms of the ordinance, a property becomes “disruptive” when a tenant commits three disruptive conduct offenses in a 60-day period. Owners of properties declared disruptive will have until 15 days after receiving the disruptive property notice to submit a remediation plan to the borough and 30 days after the date of submission to implement that plan.

In addition, any further disruptive activity at the property within three months of the period would lead to the owner of the property being charged for the costs of “administrative and law enforcement actions taken by Mars Borough.”

In implementing the ordinance, Mars joins other municipalities in Butler County with similar laws on the books, including the City of Butler and Buffalo Township — the latter of which approved their own nuisance ordinance 12 months ago.

Mars’ ordinance was inspired by that of Carnegie borough, in Allegheny County, where police Chief Mark Lint previously worked as a sergeant. Lint suggested the idea of a disruptive property ordinance at a meeting in March, due to his experiences responding to a series of disturbances at the Martian Arms complex on Hook Street in Carnegie.

Final details of the ordinance were hammered out by council at its previous meeting on Monday, Aug. 18. Some of the particulars discussed at that meeting included language concerning the amount of time for when property owners would be allowed to implement a remediation plan, which was reduced from 60 days to 30, as it was felt 30 days was long enough.

A decision on the final approval of the ordinance was delayed by a month during the summer as the borough’s solicitor, Christopher Reese, was away on an extended vacation.

Council also officially accepted the resignation of Councilman Robert Bost at their meeting on Monday night.

According to council President G. Michael Fleming, Bost’s resignation comes as a result of his move out of the borough to Cranberry Township.

“He sold his house and he bought a house in Cranberry,” Fleming said. “I think he wanted a bigger one for the grandkids.”

Council chose Eric Pomeroy to fill Bost’s vacancy, as Pomeroy gathered the most votes of anyone who isn’t already a council member, in April’s primary election .

“The November vote still has to take place, but normally, when we have a vacancy in this window, we default to the highest vote-getter for anybody who’s not currently on the council,” Fleming said.