Upcoming Committee Hearing:
The Neighborhood Planning and Development (NPD) Committee will again consider three ordinances addressing demolition by neglect on Tuesday, May 19 at 1:30 p.m., including measures on vacant property registration, mothballing standards, and dangerous building reform. The Council Committee heard public testimony from Historic KC and others at its earlier May 5 meeting before delaying consideration of the topic for a further two weeks. Following a vote from the NPD Committee (and any amendments to the ordinances deemed necessary), the topic will proceed to the full Council for final consideration.
The Council Committee meeting may be observed via Zoom, or participants can join in-person. Click here for access to meeting information.
Background: Preventing Demolition by Neglect in Kansas City
In October 2025, Kansas City, Missouri City Council adopted Resolution No. 250912, directing the City Manager to develop minimum maintenance standards and policy recommendations to address demolition by neglect. Historic Kansas City supported that resolution and worked with City staff in the months that followed to review recent cases involving demolition by neglect, evaluate policy options, and provide recommendations based on best practices from across the nation.
Demolition by neglect is defined as the gradual deterioration of a building resulting from deferred maintenance, vacancy, or lack of basic upkeep, leading to conditions in which demolition may ultimately be characterized as the only viable option. In Kansas City, Missouri, this pattern has exposed gaps in the City’s current regulatory framework, particularly where existing enforcement measures fail to consistently prevent deterioration from advancing to the point of demolition. In practice, this has created an incentive for absentee owners to allow deterioration and pursue demolition instead of necessary measures of stabilization.
Throughout that process, one issue remained central: reform of the City’s dangerous building designation process—and the demolition loophole it creates. Dangerous building determinations have, in notable cases, been used to bypass standard preservation review processes. Under existing ordinances, a property owner seeking to demolish a historic building is incentivized to initiate declaration of a building as “dangerous” to avoid scrutiny presented by a public hearing in front of the Historic Preservation Commission. Addressing this procedural loophole and restoring the punitive, public safety orientation of the dangerous buildings list, is the first-order issue in any effective response to demolition by neglect.
Reform of Dangerous Building Designations
As currently structured, Kansas City’s dangerous building process has allowed demolition of historically significant buildings without following established preservation review procedures. For properties listed on the Kansas City Register of Historic Places, exterior changes and demolition proposals are subject to Historic Preservation Commission (HPC) review through the Certificate of Appropriateness process. Designation of a building as “dangerous” allows for circumventing this process—key protective measures for each district or individual building recognized as “historic” by City Council—and voids the prerogative of the HPC to review technical and/or economic feasibility of rehabilitation.
For buildings over 50 years old that are not subject to protective measures associated with local historic listing, a “demolition delay” review procedure was established by Council in 2024, under which the Historic Preservation Commission can enact a 45-day delay of demolition proposals for buildings deemed eligible for historic listing. Dangerous building designation also circumvents this opportunity for public hearings on proposed demolitions.
Dangerous building determinations have, increasingly, relied on owner-selected and owner-paid engineers. In this scenario, an owner (often a developer or land speculator) allows a property to deteriorate, then hires an engineer to opine that preservation or stabilization is not feasible. In the absence of City-employed or third-party inspectors with equivalent qualifications—who could effectively rebut property owners, when necessary—the building is deemed “dangerous.” This dynamic effectively allows demolition by neglect to bypass preservation review and undermines public confidence in the City’s regulatory framework.
The need for reform is not based on hypotheticals, but is reflected in several recent cases of tragic loss of our historic fabric:
- At 31st and Main, the demolition of the Jeserich Building (1888) and the Ward Building (1905) marked the loss of the last remaining commercial structures from the corridor’s early development. This cluster of buildings had been listed on the Kansas City Register of Historic Places in 2022 as the 31st and Main Historic District and had been found structurally sound by an HKC-commissioned report. Its 2025 demolition followed prolonged deterioration and a dangerous building designation that overrode historic protections, allowing demolition to proceed without review by the Historic Preservation Commission. Historic KC had been closely following this case since the threat of demolition emerged, assisting the Union Hill Neighborhood in its submission of a nomination to the KC Register of Historic Places, and meeting with the most recent property owners following notification of their intent to demolish the building in late 2025.
- In the Valentine neighborhood, four century-old buildings were demolished despite active consideration of the Valentine Neighborhood’s nomination to create a new local historic district—a years-long effort in which Historic KC has remained actively engaged. These buildings—two of which were representative of the iconic colonnaded apartment typology (pictured below)—were demolished following dangerous building designations, despite the expectation that properties within the proposed district would be subject to preservation review.
- At 4301 Jefferson, the one-story commercial storefront known as the Temple Slug Building—a 1912 corner brick structure—was designated “dangerous” in early 2026 despite assessments indicating primarily masonry repair needs. The building, located in the Plaza Westport area and adjacent to the former Steptoe neighborhood and among other properties acquired by St. Luke’s Hospital’s real estate affiliate, represents the type of small-scale commercial architecture that historically supported neighborhood life. While not listed on any historic register, a demolition proposal for a building of its age would normally result in a public hearing under the 2024 “demolition delay” ordinance. The building’s designation as “dangerous” has raised concerns about how repairable conditions were interpreted applying the dangerous building process to a building that required only modest stabilization work.
Coordination with City Staff and Development of Recommendations
Following adoption of Resolution 250912, the City Manager’s Office worked with City departments and Historic Kansas City to develop a set of recommendations addressing demolition by neglect. These recommendations reflect a shared understanding that the issue is systemic and that meaningful reform must occur at multiple points along the timeline of building deterioration.
The recommendations from the City Manager’s Office emphasized early intervention, improved coordination between code enforcement and preservation review, and the need to address procedural gaps that have allowed demolition to occur without full consideration of stabilization or rehabilitation. The City Manager’s Office recommended taking action in the following areas: establishing a Vacant Property Registration Program, addition of city a city staff position of Historic Properties Special Inspector, removing the “Dangerous Building Incentive” (addressed above), and strengthening requirements for Mothballing vacant buildings. It also encouraged establishing a training partnership with a local preservation organization to promote training the necessary building trades to support maintenance of historic structures.
Ordinances Advancing Policy Reform
In response to the City Manager’s report, Mayor Quinton Lucas introduced three ordinances to implement key elements of these recommendations. These measures are scheduled for consideration by the City Council’s Neighborhood Planning and Development Committee on April 28, 2026.
Dangerous Building Review and Preservation Oversight
This ordinance amends Chapter 56 to require review by the Historic Preservation Commission prior to demolition of historic buildings, even when those buildings have been declared dangerous, except in cases of immediate emergency. The intent is to ensure that preservation review cannot be bypassed through the dangerous building designation process and that alternatives to demolition are considered wherever feasible.
Mothballing and Stabilization Standards
This ordinance establishes minimum standards for securing and stabilizing vacant buildings. Requirements include maintaining roofs and drainage systems, securing openings, and protecting building envelopes from further deterioration. By addressing conditions earlier, these standards are intended to prevent buildings from declining to the point where they are classified as dangerous.
Vacant Property Registration and Monitoring
This ordinance expands the City’s vacant property registration program, providing criteria for identifying and procedures for monitoring vacant buildings. It introduces additional oversight for chronically vacant properties, requires disclosure of ownership intent, and establishes fees tied to ongoing vacancy. These fees would be levied on vacant buildings as well as undeveloped properties. It would have the effect of incentivizing absentee property owners to dispose of un- or under-improved properties to willing buyers. The effects of this proposed ordinance, given its application to “empty” lots—as well as vacant historic buildings—will have consequences far beyond the sphere of historic preservation. In cases of significant historic buildings in need of reinvestment, however, this would provide the City with additional leverage to prompt a property owner to pursue plans for rehabilitation—or to convey the building to an entity more capable of achieving a preservation-oriented outcome.
Seeking a Preventive Approach for Preservation
Preventing demolition by neglect requires more than changes at the point of demolition. It requires consistent enforcement of existing maintenance standards, earlier identification of at-risk buildings, and coordination between departments responsible for code enforcement and preservation.
Stronger vacant property oversight, stabilization requirements, and enforcement mechanisms can prevent buildings from reaching a condition where demolition is presented as the only viable option. At the same time, reforms to the dangerous building process are necessary to ensure that true emergency conditions are distinguished from situations in which deterioration has occurred over time and can still be addressed through repair.
Recommendations from the City Manager’s Office, in association with Resolution 250912, and the ordinances introduced by Mayor Lucas (Ordinances No. 260399, 260400, and 260401, respectively) reflect a shift toward earlier intervention in the scenario of demolition by neglect. They respond directly to the shortfalls of existing City oversight, evidenced though recent losses, and they establish a framework for preventing similar outcomes in the future.
Historic Kansas City will continue to work with the City Council, the City Manager’s Office, and community partners to support implementation of these measures and to ensure that historically significant buildings remain contributors to Kansas City’s neighborhoods, economy, and built environment.