CRANBERRY TWP — The township is looking to beef up its property maintenance code to ward away blight and other safety and sanitation issues that come with poorly maintained properties.

Supervisors will vote to authorize the advertisement of the new property maintenance code at its Thursday meeting for possible adoption on Dec. 7.

“Blight avoidance is something we have to be working at as part of a sustainable plan for long-term community health,” said Ron Henshaw, township director of planning and development services.

Henshaw said he wrote the township's current property code in the early 2000s. It is a basic code that addresses junk vehicles, sidewalk maintenance and a few other things but it didn't include much about building structures or the ability for the township to go inside structures.

As the community has grown, Henshaw said they saw a need to have more regulation to allow the township to control things a bit more should any issues arise.

“We had this property code we wrote, but we see a need for it to be a little more advanced, have a little more teeth and to be able to do something with it,” Henshaw said.

So the township is looking to adopt the International Property Maintenance Code along with keeping some of its old rules. The International Property Maintenance Code code is written by the International Code Council, the same organization that wrote the International Building Code that all municipalities statewide must abide by.

Henshaw said the state requires municipalities to enforce the building code, but there are no requirements for how municipalities should have residents maintain their properties.

It is up to each town to make its own rules.

The International Property Maintenance Code looks at a variety of areas including maintaining pools and exterior structures, handrails, pest elimination, occupancy limits, sanitary drainage, means of egress, mechanical, electrical, fire protection systems and stormwater maintenance in residences and commercial structures.

“What it's not about is getting someone because they have peeling paint on their porch or something insignificant,” Henshaw said.

The goal is to work with people to fix the problems, not to hammer people with fines and citations, Henshaw said.

The new code was first presented at a supervisors meeting on Sept. 28 where Jeff Gooch, township fire risk reduction coordinator, said the codes will also help with fire prevention and reducing false fire alarms.

“We're working to reduce those by education, enforcement and engineering, resulting in better utilization of our emergency responders,” Gooch said.

The new code would allow the township to have control over internal issues in a home as well, like structural issues with the roof or the flooring that could pose a safety risk to the residents and neighbors.

The township will not be actively seeking these situations out, but if they are found through the execution of a search warrant or some other emergencies, the code will allow the township to take an active role in fixing the problem, Henshaw said.

“It gives us tools for dealing with all those things that can happen,” Henshaw said.