CHARLEMONT — Next spring’s Town Meeting warrant may include a proposal for a new bylaw as town officials are looking to create a registry of abandoned and derelict properties and institute fees to owners for having vacant, uninhabitable or at-risk houses in Charlemont.

As a way to improve Charlemont’s available housing stock, town officials — including members of the Selectboard, Planning Board and Board of Health — have reignited dormant efforts to cut down on the number of vacant, at-risk and derelict properties through fees. Members of the newly revived Abandoned and Derelict Properties Task Force are considering creating an abandoned property registry either through a bylaw or under the authority of the Board of Health.

Under Massachusetts General Law Chapter 40, Section 21, towns may create ordinances and bylaws with penalties “conducive to their welfare,” which Charlemont officials are using as an opportunity to create new regulations modeled after an abandoned properties bylaw in Somerset.

“There exists a mechanism in which we can have a registry of abandoned and derelict properties,” said Selectboard Chair Valentine Reid. “There’s a few reasons for this, one of which is public safety. If a property is abandoned, it can be dangerous to enter. Having our emergency services have that registry can be useful — if they get a call from one of them, they know it’s abandoned.”

Reid added that a registry would allow the town to better monitor the condition of these properties, and hopefully keep them from deteriorating further while encouraging owners to improve the condition to make them usable again.

“The idea being that, if a property remains abandoned, you want to create an incentive for it to go back into service,” Reid explained.

Charlemont’s draft bylaw, based on a similar bylaw in Somerset, would require properties to be registered with the Board of Health 45 days after becoming vacant, or at the start of the foreclosure process. Those properties must be properly locked up and inspected for public safety and health. The bylaw also includes licensing fees on an increasing scale based on how long the site has been vacant, going as high as $5,000 for properties that have been abandoned for more than five years.

Fees will be paid annually to the Board of Health. Failure to register a property and pay the fee can result in a lien being placed on the property and a fine of $300 per day.

Charlemont officials are still working on the draft bylaw and are considering fee waivers for low-income property owners, as well as extending the registration deadline to take into account the length of time going through the probate court process can take.

Since town officials started meeting in March to discuss abandoned properties, they have come up with a list of roughly 25 properties in town. Reid said not all of these properties are condemned or in poor condition; some are just vacant and not being used.

Town officials will be working with the Franklin Regional Council of Governments to visit each of these sites in the coming weeks and put together a thorough inventory of their conditions.

Randy Crochier, Health District Program manager with FRCOG, said 25 properties seems a little high for a town of Charlemont’s size, but the number is within the range of the towns he works with. He added that just looking at the properties is a good first step.

“The town has taken a huge first step in just meeting as a group to develop a list of properties to be reviewed,” Crochier said. “To do so helps to bring these properties back to their value, which is good for the tax base, and adds much-needed housing stock and decreases blights across the town.”

During a Selectboard meeting on Nov. 4, members discussed some of these properties and how they can support converting them back into usable homes, such as 4101 Route 2, the brick house next to The Academy at Charlemont.

“That property would be a good candidate for public or subsidized housing because it’s on a bus line,” Reid said. “That would need a discussion with The Academy at Charlemont to see if they might be interested in doing something with that property.”

Town Administrator Sarah Reynolds suggested the property could be referred to a receivership program that could renovate it and put in a couple of apartments. This would increase the town’s housing stock and tax income.

“It could become a fully taxed housing property that we desperately need,” Reynolds said.

Town officials said they are not looking to take ownership of or renovate all of the homes on the list or a future registry, but they want to support cleaning up these sites and decreasing the number of empty and unused properties.

“This is one of several efforts for improving housing access in our town,” Reid said.

A registry could be created without Town Meeting approval under the authority of the Board of Health. However, town officials have expressed a preference for creating a bylaw and giving residents an opportunity to vote on it.

“If the citizenry doesn’t want it, then I don’t want it,” Selectboard member Jared Bellows said.

Charlemont plans to hold an all-board meeting on Monday, Nov. 18, at 5:30 p.m. at Hawlemont Regional School to discuss the registry, among other town business.

Reach Madison Schofield at 413-930-4570 or mschofield@recorder.com.