Hall County’s mayors are making a concerted effort to work together, and this time they’re going after dilapidated buildings.

During the recession, plenty of buildings across the county fell into disrepair, and the municipalities’ staffs want to find an effective way to keep their residents accountable.

“The problem is trying to find the owners of these properties,” said Lula Mayor Milton Turner. “There are a couple of places that we’ve checked on and worked on and still haven’t found the correct owner.”

The topic came up at Monday’s Joint Municipal Association meeting in Gainesville after a bill failed to pass the General Assembly during the 2011 legislative session. House Bill 110 would limit the way local governments can register dilapidated structures, and the mayors hope it doesn’t come up again.

“It failed in the Senate, and it’s unclear if it will be back next year,” said Bill Andrew, city manager for Flowery Branch. “It could be like a bad cold that comes back year after year. If the economy continues, we’re likely to see an attempt at legislation.”

Under a Loganville ordinance, dilapidated property must be registered as a broken structure in 30 days, and owners would have 30 days to create a plan to maintain or repair the property. The bill would have gutted similar ordinances and removed the required timeline.

“For right now, I think this is something everyone should look at,” Andrew said. “Some neighborhoods in Flowery Branch have some issues, and we’re trying to deal with them.”

Turner suggested the cities draft a joint ordinance and ask Hall County officials to get on board.

“Then everybody would know what you have to do to register a building,” he said. “Without Hall County being in the agreement, it would be tough, but we need to deal with this problem of dilapidated housing.”

The mayors, which make up the association’s executive committee, will continue to talk about the proposed ordinance. They also suggested joint discussions when it comes to economic development ideas and divvying up sales taxes.

“The main thing we would like is information,” said Gillsville Mayor Larry Poole. “We get surprised occasionally with development plans that affect us. We’re split between different councils, and sometimes we don’t know what’s going on in our area.”

The cities could create a unified economic development plan, Andrew added.

“That document doesn’t exist today, but it should at some point,” he said. “I hoped the county would take the lead, but we haven’t seen that yet. We should make an effort to look at a larger plan and include a strategy for implementation and communication.”