JAY — Selectmen this week discussed criteria for deeming a building dangerous.

Complaints about several possible dangerous or substandard buildings have been received, Code Enforcement Officer Shiloh Ring said.

The municipal officers have the discretion, as far as state statute, to determine what constitutes a dangerous building, she said. The law allows selectmen to go as far as ordering a building to be removed, she said.

The few vacant properties she has dealt with, she said, have had the lower floor boarded up for security.

One building is secured on the lower level but there is still a hole in the roof from when it burned, she said. Someone would need to have a ladder to get up on the roof to get into the building.

Another is a three-family house on Jewell Street that burned in February. It has no roof and there is debris around the yard.

Ring said she considered this building very dangerous. She has heard that people have started working on the building to renovate it.

Ring told selectmen that she wants some guidance on what they would consider a dangerous building before she moves forward.

Police Chief Larry White said he has spoken to the owner of the three-family house three times. Several issues have been cited on why work has not been done, from a problem with insurance to illness. Some cleaning was started, stopped and recently started again, he said.

If it sits and no work is done in 30 days, Ring asked what the board wanted her to do.

Selectman Tim DeMillo said the building is not safe, not very structurally sound.

Chairman Steve McCourt said if there is no progress in the renovation, Ring should bring her findings to selectmen at their meeting at 6 p.m. Monday, Dec. 12, at the town office.

“What is the procedure with buildings that are boarded up and they are dilapidated?” resident Pearl Cook asked.

Under the law, as long as a building is secured, it is acceptable, Town Manager Ruth Cushman said.

“It is up to selectmen what is an acceptable level for these buildings,” Ring said.

“I think if they are boarded up and they don’t have access” to get into them, including covering a hole in the roof, McCourt said, that should be acceptable.

Vice Chairwoman Amy Gould said she agreed with McCourt.

If a property is not accessible, then she didn’t think it would be a problem, she said. She said there is a difference between something not looking good and something being dangerous.

If the town starts telling people they have to tear their buildings down, and people don’t want to or have the means, Selectman Justin Merrill said the town will end up having to tear it down.

Resident Cindy Bennett asked if a deteriorated building’s windows were boarded up could it be left that way for years.

DeMillo said the board was looking at two different situations: Buildings that are structurally sound with windows and doors secured and having no access; and a burned, structurally unsound building.

“I think this particular building is not safe,” DeMillo said of the Jewell Street house.

White said he visited the site over the weekend and found several children playing around it and the debris. If it is not structurally sound, something could fall on the kids, he said.

“I just worry about the kids in the neighborhood,” White said. “This is a different situation.”

dperry@sunjournal.com

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