An ordinance to fight blight and reduce the number of eyesore houses in Colorado Springs neighborhoods is being put to its first test.

Since the City Council passed the ordinance in April 2006, code enforcement officers have inspected about 120 houses and apartments on the city’s condemned property list.

They mailed first notices, action plans and final notices to owners of houses deemed “dilapidated” — meaning they are vacant and boarded, dangerous, tax delinquent, or have had more than three code violations in the past year.

Of the 30 houses on the dilapidated list, 17 failed to comply with city orders, have been assessed $500 inspection fees and are headed toward possible court-ordered repossession.

“It’s a real possibility if they completely ignore us,” said Ken Lewis, code enforcement administrator. “We’ve given them plenty of chances.”

An owner of two dilapidated four-plexes is threatening to take the city to court — El Paso County Commissioner Douglas Bruce.

“This situation is so disgusting and outrageous, it’s insane,” Bruce said Friday. “They are trying to make me pay a fine for putting on boards they told me to put on.

“It’s absurd. They can lien my property. I’m happy to meet them in court. Then I will prove that this whole thing was incorrect.”

The ordinance evolved out of frustration with vacant houses that sit for years, rotting away, hurting the value of surrounding properties.

To make their case for a blight ordinance, code enforcement agents pointed to a house at 715 N. 25th St., owned by Joseph P. O’Brien. The house is among 10 west-side properties owned by O’Brien, who also owns a longtime printing company on 19th street.

The house was condemned in 1973 and has mostly rotted between lurching episodes of renovation the past 34 years.

In the past, O’Brien has blamed financial trouble and health problems for his failure to repair the house, which his grandmother built in 1905. Friday, his wife, Mary, declined to explain why the house was on the dilapidated list.

“We’re working on it,” she said before hanging up. “That’s all I can tell you.”

Lewis confirmed the O’Briens’ son, Glen, had been making repairs on the house.

“He cut the weeds,” Lewis said. “We met with him and set up a rehabilitation plan. He was doing pretty good, but then he missed his deadline. He was supposed to have the windows replaced, but he didn’t do that.”

O’Brien, like Bruce and the others on the dilapidated list, received written notice and warning of the inspection fee and possible lien if the fee isn’t paid in 30 days, Lewis said.

Refusal to pay or repair the properties to the city’s satisfaction could lead the city to go to court to ask a judge to strip the owners of possession and control of the houses.

It puzzles Lewis that some owners, such as Bruce, don’t simply comply because he said the city isn’t asking much.

“If he would just take the plywood off his windows and replace it with expanded metal, he’d be in compliance,” Lewis said. “We forced him to put the boards on in 2003. That was under the old code. The new code requires heavy screen so fire and police can see in vacant buildings.”

Bruce vowed not to pay. He said both four-plexes on Ruskin Way, east of Academy Boulevard near Airport Road, are nearly remodeled and ready to be rented.

“The city has been pulling this kind of crap on me for 15 years,” Bruce said. “That’s why I’m selling all my properties in the city. All eight are for sale. I have a right to own property that is empty, and I have a right to protect my property by putting boards on the windows.”

Tell me about your neighborhood: 636-0193 or bill.vogrin@gazette.com