Cleveland is already seeing the effects of an update to the criminal nuisance property law passed by city council last year.
Since June, the city has declared 14 nuisance properties because of repeated calls to the police over quality-of-life concerns.
That’s compared to 26 total nuisance declarations between 2019 and 2024, including zero in 2024 and one in 2023.
Councilmember Mike Polensek, who pushed for last year’s strengthening of the law, applauded the increased enforcement.
“I’m trying to raise the misery index on the people and businesses that make my neighborhood miserable,” Polensek said.
The updated ordinance lowers the threshold for the city to declare a property a nuisance and increases the financial penalties for those properties.
Under the original law, passed in 2018, a property owner had to be arrested or ticketed by police multiple times for criminal activity at the property. The new ordinance lowered the bar to “probable cause” to believe the activity took place.
The list of crimes was also expanded to include drug offenses, vehicle noise and equipment violations, and street racing.
Now, according to Assistant Public Safety Director Jason Shachner, the city is doing a monthly review of police dispatch records to find properties with repeated calls for police.
“That is very time intensive because you're talking thousands of calls that occur,” said Shachner.
Once three incidents are identified at a property within a year, a notice is sent requiring that the owner come up with a plan. The city has sent out 71 notices since June.
According to Shachner, those notices have led owners to mill the pavement in a parking lot and install cameras to prevent stunt driving, install cameras and a sprinkler system to ward off late night parties at a car wash, and restrict policies at a short-term rental used to host parties in Downtown Cleveland.
Property owners that fail to come up with their own plan are fined $100 per day and fines escalate for each visit from police after the third one.
Shachner said the city is hoping to automate the process so it’s easier to identify nuisance properties.
