Rio Grande City is cracking down on nuisance buildings by passing a new ordinance to address the issue.

Residents have one word to describe nuisance buildings — an eyesore.

"Next to me there is an eyesore. We spoke to the owners, there are four owners, this building next to mine is very historic," Rosbell Barrera said.

Barrera has lived in Rio Grande City his entire life. He owns a small building next to a nuisance building. He says that, lately, the building has become a safety hazard.

"Bricks are falling. We do have parades downtown. We had an incident a few years ago where people were sitting on the sidewalk, and a brick fell because of the vibration of the trucks," Barrera said.

Earlier this week, Rio Grande City passed a new ordinance to address nuisance properties and unsafe structures.

Rio Grande City Mayor Gilberto Falcon said the way it would work is the city will be looking at buildings declared unsafe and give the owner a citation.

"Now we have a lot more power where you can summon them to go to court. You can ask them, 'hey, you got to be here in court, or if you are not here, we are going to send an officer to pick you up,'" Falcon said.

Falcon said they want to preserve historic buildings while getting rid of eyesores to make downtown more appealing.

"The driving force behind it is to bring downtown up to par. We have beautiful buildings, and we need to take advantage of the history we have," Falcon said.

Residents like Barrera hope the new ordinance will help improve the quality of life.

"They got to be fixed, or if they are not historical, they got to be torn down. So the problem is we got to have a better downtown, like Fredericksburg. We want to be like them in the Rio Grande Valley," Barrera said.

The ordinance will go into effect in September.