Town asks owner to clean up land

The Belgium Town Board on Monday agreed to send a letter suggesting the owner of a property that was formerly part of the St. Mary’s Church campus clean up his land.

The board discussed a concern from an Illinois man who is retiring and inquired about building a house for him and his wife on an empty lot across the street from the property.

Town Chairman Tom Winker said he referred the man to Zoning Administrator Charlie Parks, who said he talked to him a few times.

The man sent Parks a couple of photos he took of the property across the road from the empty lot.

“That’s where it kind of went off the rails,” Parks said.

In the photos, the man showed where there were seven vehicles, three of which have flat tires, grass and weeds in the parking lot and stacks of debris and tires.

The man, Parks said, told him he wasn’t comfortable investing his retirement income into building a home if he had to look at the unkempt property.

“What the guy told Charlie really bothered me. He was so excited when he talked to me,” Winker said.

Parks said he could make a list of sloppy properties in the town.

“The ordinance doesn’t really address the sloppiness of the property,” he said. “It’s part of the growing pangs of a small town.”

The town doesn’t have an ordinance to address unkempt properties but it doesn’t allow unlicensed or unregistered vehicles.

“The seven cars that are parked there, who knows what’s going on?” Parks said.

The property is zoned for single-family residential but, Parks said, “the definition of single family these days is much different than the ‘Leave it to Beaver’ days. It could be a collection of people.”

The board didn’t take a vote but agreed to send the property owner a letter and ask him to attend the October Town Board meeting.

If the property was cleaned up, Parks said, the Illinois man said he would revisit his plans to build a house.