(KAIR)--Atchison city officials are asking for your input on a proposal for a new property maintenance enforcement code.
“The purpose of the comment period is really to get feedback from anyone in the community on potential concerns they may have about specific things that are in the code that they’d like to see addressed or changed,” said Atchison Finance Director and Assistant City Manger Becky Anderson.
Though the proposed international property maintenance code is similar to current codes in place, it’s intended to give more teeth to city officials in order to take violators to court.
Anderson says the recommendation to move to the new codes comes mainly from Atchison’s Economic Advisory Group and citizen complaints.
A recent citizen survey regarding code enforcement showed half of homeowners in Atchison feel discouraged from investing in their property due to run-down neighboring houses. 
But not everyone agrees to adopting the new code.
 “The thing that probably disturbs me the most is that it’s going to focus on the people who are elderly and poor because these people won’t be able to comply with some of these codes,” said Atchison business owner Bill Murphy. “There will be people that could be forced out of their homes.”
 However, Anderson says ignoring code enforcement is not the solution.
That would mean that any code enforcement would unfairly effect the poor, but that doesn’t mean that we just shouldn’t do code enforcement, Anderson said.
“I understand the concerns,” she added. “We need to find the people who truly can’t afford the improvements needed to their homes—I’m certain there are—but we need to know who those people are and who are just choosing not to do them.”
You have until Aug. 1 to share your thoughts with the city. Anderson said they will take public comment into consideration to revise the code. 
Written comments can be mailed to Kathy Soph at 515 Kansas Avenue in Atchison or e-mailed to ecodevo@cityofatchison.com.