Sedgwick County closer to getting rid of hazardous houses
Despite lawmakers’ concerns over a possible effect on hobby farming, Sedgwick County moved a step closer Wednesday to being able to clean up some of the county’s worst public nuisances.
The House Local Government Committee on Wednesday advanced Senate Bill 52, a measure to give the county government the kind of authority cities already have to correct hazardous situations and bill the property owner for doing it.
The committee voted to send the bill to the full House after Jason Watkins, a former legislator and now lobbyist for Sedgwick County, explained the problems the county’s having with neighborhoods that are urban in nature, surrounded by Wichita but never annexed.
“What we’re talking about are houses, in an unincorporated area, but that are still part of neighborhoods, that have burned to the ground, that no longer have floors, where kids can walk along and fall into a basement,” Watkins said.
Another house “has buckets of human excrement in the back yard, buckets of human urine — that’s what we’re talking about,” he said.
Two members of the 13-member committee, Republican Reps. Cheryl Helmer of Mulvane and Tatum Lee-Hahn of Ness City, voted “no.”
Helmer said she saw it as too much government interference with private property rights. She and Lee-Hahn both expressed concerns that the county might use its authority to crack down on residents raising crops or livestock for farmer’s markets or personal use.
“You could have some hobby farmers in these more urban areas that could have, you know, a couple of goats or a couple chickens, and they have a feeder that’s maybe not super fancy,” Lee-Hahn said. “It doesn’t look too shiny if it’s in, quotes, the city limits, and the neighbors may not like it.”
When Lee-Hahn was corrected and told that the authority would only apply to areas of the unincorporated county outside cities, she said “That’s even worse than I thought.”
“So you’re outside the city limits raising your chickens because COVID hit and you want to be more self-sustaining and you’re thinking you’re outside the jurisdiction of those city limits and you still may get in trouble and get your hand slapped,” she said.
Watkins explained that agriculture activity is exempt from the bill and that the county has no interest in cracking down on agriculture of any scale.
“I would give you the assurance that Sedgwick County will never go get on anybody’s back because they were doing hobby gardening or recreational agriculture,” Watkins said. “We’re trying to take care of significant problems that are next to families, next to children.”
Watkins said there are about 10 steps in the process to abate a nuisance, including citations, a hearing before the County Commission, a state appeals process and the courts.
Most of the committee seemed convinced there are adequate safeguards on property rights. Others said they were OK with the bill because it only affects Sedgwick County and would have to be re-evaulated in three years.
The bill has already passed the Senate, so only House approval is needed to send it to the governor’s desk.
This story was originally published March 24, 2021 at 3:02 PM.
