Shreveport's Blighted Vacant Structure Registry: A Downtown-Only Program Where the Maintenance Code Is Also the Entry Test

Shreveport's vacant property registry is little over a year old, and it is narrower and stranger than the citywide programs in Cleveland or Columbus. Ordinance No. 58 of 2025 added Chapter 38, Article VI on July 8, 2025, and it does three things that no other registry in this series does. It applies downtown only. It reaches a structure only if it is both blighted and vacant, and it defines blight as failing the article's own maintenance standard — so the compliance standard and the applicability test are the same text. And for an owner it imposes nothing until the Director writes, which makes it a list the city curates rather than one owners report into — with two exceptions that run on their own clocks: a creditor has thirty days from filing foreclosure under Sec. 38-120(b), and an owner has thirty days from a catastrophe under Sec. 38-123(b)(1).

One housekeeping note before the substance. A June 2024 draft of this ordinance circulated widely and is still reproduced on local sites. It is not the law and it differs materially from what passed: the adopted article is titled "Blighted and Vacant Structures" rather than "Vacant Structures", requires blight as well as vacancy, sets liability insurance at an amount the Director establishes rather than $100,000, drops the vacant-building placard requirement while separately requiring "No Trespass" placards under Sec. 38-119(a)(14), extends the ownership-change notice from 15 days to 30, and runs the district east to Lakeshore Drive rather than Murphy Street. Everything below is the adopted text.

The Geography Comes First

Before anything else, check the footprint. Sec. 38-118(a) applies the chapter to blighted vacant structures "that are located within the boundaries of the district or are within a one block perimeter of the district's boundaries." Sec. 38-116 defines the district as "the area depicted in the attached map which includes the downtown commercial historic district plus the buildings fronting Texas Avenue from Elvis Presley Boulevard to Lakeshore Drive", and "one block perimeter" as "a distance of one city block extending from the perimeter of the district."

The map itself is not published alongside the article on Municode, so the textual description is the only part that can be verified from the code. If a property sits near the edge of downtown, the map is the document that decides it, and it has to come from the Department of Property Standards. A vacant building a mile from downtown is outside Article VI entirely — which does not mean it is unregulated, only that it falls under the general Property Standards Code instead.

Both Blighted and Vacant, and Blight Is Defined by the Maintenance Code

Sec. 38-118(a) is unusually emphatic about the conjunctive test: "To be clear, this chapter shall apply to structures that are both blighted and vacant, not to structures that are vacant, but not blighted, or that are blighted, but not vacant; provided, however, that the provisions of section 38-119 apply to any vacant structure to determine whether such structure is also blighted."

Read that proviso carefully, because it does most of the work. Sec. 38-119 is the standard of care. It applies to any vacant structure for the purpose of deciding whether that structure is blighted. And Sec. 38-116 defines blight as "(1) Any structure that does not meet the standard of care in this article, or (2) Any structure that would be defined as blighted in section 38-4." So the loop closes: a vacant downtown structure is measured against the standard of care, failing it makes the structure blighted, and being blighted plus vacant is what brings the structure inside the chapter whose standard of care it just failed.

The practical consequence is that condition does the work a vacancy clock does elsewhere. In Cleveland, vacancy alone is what triggers registration and the building's condition is irrelevant to whether you must register. In Shreveport the condition is the whole question — and the bar is a fifteen-item list that Sec. 38-119(a) expressly says is "subject to approval by the director" and "not limited to" those items, three of which are not exterior maintenance at all: a securing obligation, a placard requirement, and the Director's option to compel paid security services. A well-kept vacant downtown building has a real argument that the program does not reach it. A vacant building with a failed gutter, a broken window or a peeling cornice does not.

Vacancy itself is defined in Sec. 38-116 as "a structure in or on which all active lawful commercial or residential activity has ceased, or reasonably appears to have ceased for a continuous period of 30 days or longer." The definition then adds a sentence that is garbled as published: "Storage or warehousing is not considered an active lawful commercial activity or a non-residential structure that has occupancy or commercial utilization rate of less than 15 percent." The evident intent is that neither storage use nor a non-residential structure with an "occupancy or commercial utilization rate of less than 15 percent" counts as active lawful activity, but the sentence as printed does not say that cleanly, and an owner relying on a storage use to defeat vacancy should get the Department's reading in writing.

The Duty Starts With a Letter

Sec. 38-120(a) is the operative trigger: "The property owner of any blighted, vacant structure shall register with department within 90 days from the date that written notice from the director is issued to the property owner." Notice may be served personally, sent by certified mail to the last known address according to the Caddo or Bossier Parish Assessor's Office, the City of Shreveport or the Downtown Development Authority, or posted on the structure.

Three things follow from the owner's duty being notice-triggered. There is no inventory obligation to monitor and, for owners, no deadline that runs on its own, which makes this materially easier to administer than a self-reporting registry — though Sec. 38-120(b) and Sec. 38-123(b)(1) each set a thirty-day clock that does not wait for a notice. But the ninety days run from the date the notice is issued, not from receipt, and one of the permitted service methods is posting on the building — so a notice can start the clock without anyone at the owner's office seeing it. And because the assessor's address is a permitted destination, the stale-address problem that recurs across this series applies here too.

The Director also has discretion worth knowing about. Sec. 38-120(a) allows an extension of the registration deadline "upon presentation of evidence satisfactory to the director that the vacant structure is being actively marketed for sale or lease", and Sec. 38-118(c) permits the Director, with the Mayor's approval, to "enter into an agreement with a registered property owner to obtain compliance with this chapter by a date certain in lieu of the deadlines otherwise provided by this chapter" — with a requirement to provide a detailed basis of decisions for entering into each such agreement.

What Registration Actually Requires

This is a heavier filing than a name-and-address form. Sec. 38-120(e) requires the address and legal description; contact details for every owner with an ownership interest, and for an entity its registered agent; contact information for a designated manager; proof of comprehensive general liability insurance in an amount the Director establishes, which does not apply to single-family residential structures; an accurate floor plan for use by first responders, which the fire department may waive; and a plan of action.

The plan of action is the part that takes real work. Sec. 38-120(e)(5) requires "a comprehensive plan of action in a form provided by the department, detailing a timeline for correcting violations, rehabilitation, maintenance while vacant, and future use of the structure as well as detailed evidence as to repairs and marketing of the structure during the previous six months. The plan of action must be updated every six months." Retrospective evidence of repairs and marketing effort is not something a servicer can assemble on the ninetieth day.

A manager must be designated for each structure, and the role carries real obligations. Sec. 38-120(c) makes managers "agents for the property owner or creditor for purposes of accepting legal service" while expressly preserving the owner's own responsibility, and requires updated contact information "immediately upon any change in that information." Sec. 38-120(d) requires the manager to be available at the cell number and email provided "at all times in the event of an emergency or catastrophe", and for every vacant structure except single-family residential, the manager's details must also go to the Shreveport Fire Department and the Shreveport Police Department and be kept current.

Registration lasts six months. Sec. 38-120(e)(7)(c) provides that "proper registration shall be valid for a period of six months", after which the owner must register again "and shall continue to do so each six months until the structure, in the determination of the director, is deemed occupied and in compliance with all relevant requirements of this Code" — a determination made "in his sole discretion." Subsequent fees are due by January 31 and July 31 each year (Sec. 38-121(b)).

The Fee Compounds

The headline numbers are modest and the escalator is not. Sec. 38-121(d): "The registration fee for each subsequent registration shall increase by 50 percent of the registration fee paid during the previous period, with a maximum registration fee of $3,000.00." On a non-single-family structure starting at $500, six-month renewals run $750.00, $1,125.00, $1,687.50, $2,531.25 and then the $3,000.00 cap — so a downtown shell reaches the ceiling at the fifth renewal, two and a half years in, having paid about $9,600 in registration fees by the end of year three. Sec. 38-121(b) pro-rates the first registration, so that ladder is an upper bound.

The criminal exposure stacks two ways. Sec. 38-126(a) makes failure to bring a blighted vacant structure into compliance a misdemeanour after written notice and a reasonable time to remedy set by the Director, at $500 for the first offence, $750 for the second and $1,000 for the third. and it closes by stating that "each violation of this chapter shall constitute a separate offense." Sec. 38-126(c) then adds that "each 30 days a property owner has not complied with the provisions of this chapter after the director's notice pursuant hereto shall be a separate offense." So offences accrue both per violation and per thirty-day period. Sec. 38-126(b) confirms administrative, civil and criminal enforcement are alternative remedies available independently of one another.

Plywood Has a Three-Month Clock

This is the operational rule most likely to catch a preservation vendor out. Sec. 38-119(a)(11) requires that broken or missing windows "be replaced with glass and secured in a manner so as to prevent unauthorized entry" and broken or missing doors "be replaced with new doors which shall be secured to prevent unauthorized entry", and then states that "windows and doors shall not be secured by plywood or other similar means mounted on the exterior except as a temporary securing measure. Such temporary measures shall generally not exceed a period of three months unless expressly approved by the director."

Sec. 38-119(a)(13) says the same thing from the securing side: a blighted vacant structure must be secured under Secs. 38-11 through 38-16, "provided, however, that securing with plywood shall not exceed three months except as expressly approved by the director in writing, and then only if in full compliance with rules and regulations established by the director."

There is one meaningful extension, and it is conditional on active work. Both subsections allow painted or vinyl-covered plywood for up to two years during pre-development or development of the structure — Sec. 38-119(a)(13) says "during active pre-development or development", Sec. 38-119(a)(11) "undergoing active pre-development or development", and Sec. 38-119(a)(12) simply "during periods of pre-development or development" — with the Director's approval and subject to conditions or timelines the Director sets, and Sec. 38-119(a)(11) adds that "any such securing shall be removed within the period of time designated by the director." Sec. 38-119(a)(12) extends the same two-year painted-plywood allowance to basement windows and hatchways.

So the compliant long-term answer in downtown Shreveport is glass and doors with locking hardware, not boards. A board-up is a three-month bridge unless the Director approves otherwise in writing, or unless there is genuine development activity to point at. Note the difference in force between the two subsections: Sec. 38-119(a)(11) says plywood "shall generally not exceed" three months, while Sec. 38-119(a)(13) has no softener at all. Two further duties sit alongside: Sec. 38-119(a)(14) requires "No Trespass" placards of the type and at the locations the Director requires unless waived, and Sec. 38-119(a)(15) lets the Director require the owner to "employ security services for the structure at the cost of the owner for a specified number of hours each day", a determination that is appealable under Sec. 38-118(d) and (e).

The Creditor Duty, and a Conflict on Its Face

Article VI reaches lenders and servicers directly. Sec. 38-116 defines a creditor as "a federal or state-chartered bank, savings bank, savings and loan association, credit union, mortgagee and any entity acting on behalf of the creditor named in a debt instrument including, but not limited to, servicers." Sec. 38-120(b) then imposes a thirty-day duty: "Upon filing a complaint of foreclosure/notice of default, or executing a deed in lieu of foreclosure on a residential property located in the city, and a registration as prescribed by section 38-121 has not yet been completed, a creditor shall within 30 days register the property as a property in foreclosure with the department for the purpose of minimizing hazards to persons and property as a result of the potential for vacancy."

Two drafting problems are visible in that sentence and the one that follows it. The cross-references to "section 38-121" in Sec. 38-120(b) and (f) point at the fee section; registration is Sec. 38-120. And the duty is described as applying to "a residential property located in the city", which is citywide language sitting inside an article that Sec. 38-118(a) confines to the downtown district and a one-block perimeter. A third slip compounds it: Article VI says "this chapter" throughout where it plainly means "this article", and read literally Sec. 38-118(a) would confine the entire Property Standards Code to downtown. On the face of the ordinance a servicer is told to register citywide by one provision and told the chapter does not reach beyond downtown by another.

That is not a question this page can resolve, and it matters enough to ask about rather than assume. A servicer with Shreveport inventory outside downtown should get the Department of Property Standards' position in writing before deciding the chapter does not apply. Note too that the creditor duty attaches on filing foreclosure — before title transfers — or on executing a deed in lieu, which is itself the transfer; either way it attaches before vacancy is established, earlier than almost anything else in this series.

Sec. 38-120(f) requires a creditor to update the registration if the property becomes vacant after registering, if a foreclosure complaint or deed in lieu follows, if the creditor acquires title at sheriff or foreclosure sale "or otherwise", or if any previously provided information changes. And Sec. 38-125 provides for de-registration where a registered property transfers to an unaffiliated third party, the foreclosure action is dismissed and the property is occupied or legally re-occupied and not subject to foreclosure, or the registering creditor releases the lien. "Unaffiliated third party" is defined in Sec. 38-116 as an entity "not owned or controlled, directly or indirectly, by the same interests of the owner or manager" — a transfer to a related entity does not clear the registration.

Article VI Appeals Run Through the Mayor and Council

Most of Shreveport's Property Standards Code appeals to a hearing officer. Sec. 38-105 gives any person aggrieved by any notice of violation, order or decision of the Director ten days to appeal to the environmental court, with emergency demolitions the only stated exception; Chapter 38.5 houses that court, and Sec. 38.5-3 requires its hearing officers to have been licensed to practise law in Louisiana for at least two years. Article VI supplies its own route and never mentions the environmental court — but it contains no exclusivity clause either, and nothing in the code says which route controls an Article VI determination. Sec. 38-105 is drafted broadly enough to reach one on its face. Preserve both clocks rather than assuming the ten-day appeal is unavailable.

Instead, Sec. 38-118(d) routes objections to the Mayor: a written objection must reach the Mayor's office within fifteen days of the Director's determination, and the Mayor reviews it within fifteen days of receipt. An appeal from the Mayor goes to the next scheduled City Council meeting if a written request is filed with the clerk of council within ten days. Sec. 38-118(e) then allows an aggrieved party to seek judicial review in the First Judicial District Court within thirty days of the Council's final decision.

Exemptions carry a higher bar again. Under Sec. 38-124(b) the Director makes a recommendation, forwards it to the Mayor within thirty days, and the Mayor affirms or reverses within thirty days. An appeal reaches the Council under Sec. 38-124(c) — and "the city council shall render a decision to approve the exemption with a two-thirds vote of the members present at the meeting." So a rehabilitation exemption is decided at first instance by the Director's recommendation and the Mayor's determination, and on appeal survives only on a two-thirds vote of the Council members present — elected officials throughout, rather than an adjudicator applying a standard.

One more asymmetry worth noting for lenders. Shreveport's own hearing procedure in Sec. 38.5-6(c) gives the alleged violator fifteen days' notice of a hearing. The state statute that authorises administrative adjudication requires more for a blight or abandonment determination: La. R.S. 13:2575(D)(2) requires notice to the property owner "and each mortgagee of record in the parish mortgage records, at least thirty days in advance", served at the assessor's address for the owner and at the recorded mortgage address for each mortgagee. R.S. 13:2575(H) gives an owner or mortgagee of record a thirty-day appeal to district court. Chapter 38.5 does serve its summons on "the owner and/or the mortgage holder and/or the occupant" (Sec. 38.5-6(a)), and its fifteen days mirrors the statute's general notice period — but it does not carry across the thirty-day blight-determination notice to each mortgagee of record, the post-hearing notice, or the subsection (H) appeal.

Liens, and Two Provisions That Point Opposite Ways

If the city does the work, the cost becomes a lien. Sec. 38-72(a) lets the city perform the work by city resources or private contractor and "assess and collect all costs incurred in performing such work, together with an administrative charge of $500.00." Sec. 38-72(c) requires the Mayor to prepare and record a sworn statement of facts with the Caddo Parish clerk of court to preserve the lien, and adds a short fuse that is easy to miss: "No suit or proceeding to contest the validity of any lien filed pursuant to this section shall be initiated in any court after the expiration of 30 days from the date the lien is filed and recorded." Thirty days from recordation and no suit contesting the lien's validity may be brought — the amount, and defences raised in the city's own enforcement action, are a different question.

The lien is also personal. Sec. 38-72(c) allows the city to recover costs, court costs and attorney's fees "by ordinary process in a court of appropriate jurisdiction", and Sec. 38-72(h) allows enforcement "either against the subject property or against the owner and party in interest by ordinary process." Sec. 38-72(d) accrues interest from recordation until paid, and Sec. 38-72(f) lets the finance director add the costs to "the succeeding ad valorem tax obligation of the owner and party in interest", subject to the same interest and penalties as delinquent taxes. Sec. 38-72(g) allows a sale of the property for municipal liens if they go unpaid for six months after filing.

On where the money goes, the code points two ways. Sec. 38-72(e) provides that the city's lien "shall prime all other liens or privileges against the property after the notice to the owner and party in interest is filed with the Caddo Parish clerk of court, regardless of the date on which the city's lien and privilege is perfected, except that the city's lien and privilege shall be subordinate to other tax liens filed against the property." But Sec. 38.5-10(d) provides that monies collected "shall first satisfy all outstanding municipal liens recorded against an immovable property and only when all outstanding municipal liens are satisfied in full shall monies be applied towards an immovable property's ad valorem taxes."

Those are different mechanisms with opposite practical outcomes: Sec. 38-72(e) is a ranking rule that puts the city's lien behind tax liens, while Sec. 38.5-10(d) is a distribution rule, limited by its own terms to monies collected under Chapter 38.5, that pays municipal liens before ad valorem taxes. And the state statute behind the adjudication lien adds a third layer: R.S. 13:2575(C)(1) provides that the lien "shall have ranking as provided by R.S. 9:4821(A)(1)", a paragraph that lists such a charge alongside ad valorem taxes among the claims that outrank Private Works Act privileges, but which does not itself state how the charge ranks against a recorded mortgage. Where any particular lien lands is a question for counsel on the facts of the title — the point here is only that Shreveport's own code does not answer it consistently.

One protection does exist for occupied-adjacent cases. Sec. 38.5-10.5(a) permits seizure and sale proceedings "only if property is unoccupied", and Sec. 38.5-10.5(b) exempts unoccupied property maintaining a valid homestead special assessment level, on an annually renewed affidavit from the assessor plus the owner's affidavit of intent to return and reoccupy. Sec. 38.5-10.5(c) requires notice "reasonably calculated to apprise" any person with a legally protected interest of a seizure and upcoming sale.

What This Means for a Shreveport Asset

Article VI is a small program with sharp edges. The footprint is tiny, which means most Shreveport inventory never touches it — but a downtown asset inside it faces a compounding fee, a six-month filing cycle with a retrospective plan of action, a three-month limit on plywood, and an appeal path that runs through elected officials.

• Confirm the footprint first, from the Department's map rather than the textual description. Outside the district and its one-block perimeter, Article VI does not apply at all.
• Treat the standard of care in Sec. 38-119 as the real compliance target. Failing it is what makes a vacant downtown structure blighted, and blighted plus vacant is what brings the chapter down.
• Diary the ninety days from the date the notice is issued, not from receipt. Posting on the structure is a permitted service method, and filing complete paperwork inside 45 days saves $100.
• Start the plan of action early. Sec. 38-120(e)(5) wants six months of retrospective repair and marketing evidence, refreshed every six months.
• Price plywood as a three-month measure. Beyond that it needs the Director's written approval, or painted or vinyl-covered board against genuine pre-development or development activity, up to two years.
• For servicers, assume the thirty-day foreclosure registration may apply and ask the Department about the citywide-versus-downtown conflict in Sec. 38-120(b) rather than resolving it yourself.
• If a lien is recorded, note the thirty-day window in Sec. 38-72(c) to contest its validity. After that no suit may be brought to contest validity, though the amount and enforcement defences remain open.

Louisiana's three largest markets now run three different models. Baton Rouge has no registry at all and keys its duty to two weeks without utilities. New Orleans runs a blight remediation process through administrative hearings. Shreveport registers, but only downtown, and only when the Director says so. All three adjudicate blight under R.S. 13:2575 — in Shreveport through Chapter 38.5, a different chapter from the registration article — but the registration and maintenance duties come from local ordinances that take three different shapes. A portfolio across the state is managing three separate compliance problems, not one.

Ethreon runs vacant property inspections, securing and lock and door work across Shreveport. In this district the thing worth knowing is that boards are a bridge and glass is the destination — the ordinance says so in two separate subsections.