Grand Island residents call for action on property maintenance

By Karen Carr Keefe

Senior Contributing Writer

The Town Board, on Monday, passed Local Law 1 of 2025 to ensure that residents maintain their property in a safe and sanitary manner – or face code violations filed by the town. The law amends existing town code.

Before the law was adopted, a number of residents made their case for the town to track down a specific homeowner at 156 Marlin Drive who they say has let their property deteriorate to the point that it has become an eyesore and a safety hazard.

To put teeth into the law, residents asked for more stringent enforcement, as well as penalties by the town if homeowners don’t comply with the amended town law.

A public hearing on the law was held on April 21 of this year.

David Nardozzi of Marlin Drive lives across the street from the house at 156 Marlin. He said that, on May 16, his wife, Sue, wrote a letter to the town about what Nardozzi termed a “derelict property – zombie property, if I understand.”

According to Investopedia.com, "zombie home" refers to a property stuck in the foreclosure process, often abandoned by the homeowner who believes they've lost ownership, but where the foreclosure isn't finalized. This can leave the homeowner still legally responsible for the property.

Nardozzi cited the name of a woman he believed to be the owner of the Marlin property. He said someone has paid the taxes on the property, but they don’t know who.

“The house is in a deplorable state,” Nardozzi said. “Grass is overgrown, property hasn’t been maintained. It’s a breeding ground for rodents. There’s mold in the front of the house.”

He said that, over the years, people have complained about the property to the town – “especially when the town came over and removed 22 cats from the property and posted on the structure that it’s uninhabitable.” He said nobody lives there now.

Nardozzi, who owns rental property in Amherst, said that town is more proactive than Grand Island is in enforcing penalties for code violations. He gave as an example a similarly derelict property in Amherst that had been cited for violations several times. The town cleaned up the mess and put the cleanup cost on the property owner’s tax bill.

“That’s something I would like to see done with this property,” Nardozzi said.

Another neighbor, Lynn Blanchard, phrased her complaint about the home in a poem she titled “Misery on Marlin Drive,” the last several lines of which said, “Years of this repulsive sight, town government, relieve our plight. Rid our neighborhood of this blight. Don’t let zombie critters win the fight.”

East River Road resident and NFP reporter Mike Billoni had another take on the property maintenance law. He said he wants it to be applied to the vacant and deteriorating former Radisson Hotel at East River and Whitehaven roads. New owners haven’t found a buyer, and time and vandalism have taken a toll. Billoni expressed his view that lack of property maintenance has added the plight of the former hotel.

Billoni read a provision of the property maintenance law that would later that night be adopted. He said the measure would “further regulate nuisances related to the maintenance of property and provide administrative remedies for violations by adding the cutting or removal of grass, weeds, brush, plant growth and debris.

“I urge this honorable body to pass this law tonight; and tomorrow morning I urge the supervisor, or a Town Board member, to call the owners of the vacant Radisson Hotel and notify them of this new law and the penalties associated with it if they don’t maintain the front of their property.”

He called the quick cut that owners made on Monday – after prompting by Town Board member Jose Garcia and resident Brian Monkman – unacceptable.

“The pressure is now on the town’s code enforcement officers to embrace this new law and for the Town Board to enforce it,” Billoni said.

When it came down to the vote, Garcia made the motion to approve the law with a modification from Town Attorney Peter Godfrey to give the law enforcement options. Supervisor Peter Marston said that the measure was “a long time coming, and ‘tools in the toolbox’ is the best statement I heard all night long.”

Garcia said of the added enforcement component of the property maintenance law, “This mirrors our Cheektowaga, Amherst – pretty much all the other towns in our county.”

The measure passed 4-0.