Jill Schramm/MDN Ward County Commissioner Howard “Bucky” Anderson, left, explains the plan for an ordinance to address enclave properties at a meeting of the liaison committee in Minot City Hall Thursday. At right are Minot Public School Board members Mike Gessner and Sabrina Herrmann.

After a year of wrestling with jurisdictional issues, Ward County will draft an enforcement ordinance for addressing problem orphan properties within city limits, Ward County Commissioner Howard “Bucky” Anderson told the City/County/Park/School Liaison Committee Thursday.

Anderson said the ordinance will enable the county to require cleanup of enclave parcels – properties within city limits but not annexed by the city. The decision for the county to take the lead on the jurisdictional issue came after extended discussions among City of Minot, Ward County, rural fire and public health officials.

The ordinance will include a notification procedure with timelines for property owners to make corrections and avenues for the county to take action, such as contracting for mowing at the owner’s expense, if the owner does not act.

The concern about enclave properties was elevated last year when neighbors complained about an undeveloped, weed-invested property in northwest Minot that is outside city limits. The county has been working with the owner to address that property.

A map prepared by the City of Minot shows scattered enclave areas in northwest, northeast and southeast Minot. Annexation usually comes at the request of the property owner, and not all owners are interested in annexation, often for reasons of taxation.

Minot City Manager Harold Stewart said he plans to visit with other city administrators and the North Dakota League of Cities about state legislation to give cities more power to involuntarily annex enclave properties that utilize city services.

“While some of these properties don’t have buildings built on them,” Stewart said of Minot’s enclaves, “some of them do and they are using city streets and all these other kinds of things. They’re, in essence, getting city services without paying for the city services.

“This isn’t something that just the City of Minot deals with. As cities grow, those enclaves become more common, and they create the same challenges for all of us,” he added.

Anderson said he wants the process to be about informing property owners so they can do the right thing.

“The ordinance that the county needs to come up with is a method of notification so that these people know what is expected of them, because many of them have no clue,” he said. “They don’t know that they’re in or out of the city limits because sometimes these properties have changed hands. They don’t know what their responsibilities are. They don’t know what the timeline is.”

Anderson said a countywide ordinance would ensure all communities in the county are treated the same on this issue.

Rex Weltikol, Minot Rural Fire Department chief, pointed out First District still has authority to step in and order corrections if a health issue exists, but those issues need to be brought to the health unit.

“I think a lot of it is communication between agencies,” he said.

The liaison committee also agreed to form a task force led by First District to discuss uses for opioid settlement dollars being received by Minot and Ward County through participation in a class-action lawsuit. The amount of money to be collected in coming years is uncertain at this time.