DOWAGIAC — Between the demolition of the “big grey” Goerlich Building at the corner of Division and Railroad streets in 2015 and the pair of old structures on Commercial Street the following year, leaders have worked in recent years to combat the impact of urban decay within Dowagiac.

Eliminating blight issues from the city completely will require a subtler, more nuanced approach than simply calling in the wrecking ball and bulldozer, however.

Thanks to a recently reformed city commission, a group of concerned citizens are looking to do exactly that in order to tackle issues regarding residential blight.

Last fall, the Dowagiac Citizen Review Commission began meeting again, after an extended hiatus. The five-member board — comprised of 3rd Ward Councilman Charles Burling, and Dowagiac residents Tom White, Toby Brooks, Randy Gross and Eileen Crouse — reviews complaints from citizens about blight issues in the community, and creates recommendations on to handle issues related the problem to the Dowagiac City Council.

The board meets the last Tuesday of the month at 6 p.m. at city hall, where they discuss blight cases forwarded to them by other leaders. After reviewing the facts of the situation, the board typically gives a recommendation to city council on how to resolve blight issues, be it requiring homeowners to clean up garbage surrounding their residence or working with them to get the issue resolved in a timely fashion. 

“It’s a good group of people, with a lot of common sense,” Burling said. “We’re not out to get anyone in trouble. We are just here to combat blight, and make Dowagiac a better place.”

The Citizen Review Commission was initially created through an ordinance around two decades ago, though the board has been defunct for nearly 10 years, said City Manager Kevin Anderson. With city hall continually dealing with complaints from people about blighted properties, however, leaders decided to revive the board last year to help combat the problem.

One of the goals of the Citizen Review Commission is to find ways to make the process of reporting and dealing with blighted properties faster and more efficient, as it often takes months of letters and other correspondence between the city’s blight officers and property owners before any corrective action is taken, Burling said.

“By the time the issue got to the city council, it had already been going on for a couple years,” he said. “One of the things we always ask is ‘why the heck did this take so long?’”

The most common complaints regarding blight involved homes with peeling paint jobs, broken windows or debris left on front lawns. These problems have an impact on neighboring homes, as they can affect property values and harm residents’ quality of life, Anderson said. 

Although the city has a housing incentive program to help pay for repair work for local homes, the issue has gotten to the point where the Citizen Review Commission is needed to help council members sift through complaints and find new ways to handle local blight control, the manager said.

Though the panel has a lot of work ahead of them, Burling said he is excited and optimistic that they can make a difference and help make the city a cleaner place.

“Dowagiac is a great place to live,” he said. “We don’t want people to have to climb through trash in order to tell someone about it.”