COLERAIN TOWNSHIP, Ohio — Over the last few days, we have been exploring possible solutions to an issue that was frequently raised during our Colerain "Let's Talk" event: blight across the township.
We first interviewed event attendees about their concerns with spots in the township that they believe need to be cleaned up. Those conversations brought us to Colerain Police Lt. Jamie Penley, who leads the department's environmental crimes unit.
"It's not tedious (work), because you're making this place better," he said. "Deterioration in a neighborhood leads to more deterioration, and that's unfortunately (what) our problem is, that if people are not made aware of issues, then they're just going to continue to grow."
WATCH: Here's how you can help deal with blight in Colerain Township
Penley is part of a nine-person team on the unit, which deals with a host of blight issues: trash, tall grass, structure violations, rental registration, vacant businesses, abandoned cars, environmental crimes and more.
"There's just so many things that these programs are doing. And that's the cool part. When you go out there and you see that," Penley said.
So far this year, Penley said, the unit has completed more than 5,700 inspections, nearly 2,000 of which have been closed, and another 3,000 or so of which the unit continues to work on.
"It's on top of the 45,000 calls for service the police deal with," he said.
One of the more prominent issues with blight we heard about from "Let's Talk" attendees was frustration over empty businesses. Penley said his unit deals with vacant storefronts, but there are limitations to the actions they can take.
"The part of being vacant, and with township government, you may have five businesses in that storefront, but as long as there's one business operating in that storefront, that's not considered vacant," he said.
If you would like to report blight you see in Colerain, the township has an online portal to do so. The platform is called OpenGov, which you can access here.
Once on the site, there is a list of service requests to choose from: tall grass, trash and litter, structural issues, vacant building, unpermitted home business, sidewalk disrepair, unclean swimming pool or other.
"You can just put in your complaint to us, and we hope to have complaints looked at within the first 48 hours," Penley said. "Every process usually goes from three weeks to probably a month and a half."
You can also call in service requests to the number (513) 385-CODE.
